VU also makes top 10 for DC area G Omari Witherspoon

[AuricGoldfinger]

Byington and staff hitting the DC area hard right now.

[AuricGoldfinger]

Omari puts VU in his top three, along with Maryland and Pitt:

[UltimateVUFan]

Looks unhappy in that VU pic. Calling it a bad omen. He’d never choose VU and Nashville over Pitt and Maryland. No recruit would…


(anti-jinx)

[frstev17]

Making his decision Wednesday evening. Calls VU “the best environment of the three schools.” Fingers crossed!

[frstev17]

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[Jason94]

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Good comments from witherspoon - hopefully we can pull him from the hometown school.

I do wonder how many players CMB will take this season. We have a lot of players with just one season left of eligibility, so we start with having to replace them (4 players). Then one would reasonably assume that at least 1 player will transfer, as it will be impossible to have a 13 man rotation and even those players who play will be able to find more PT or more money elsewhere if they want to.

[mathguy]

Then one would reasonably assume that at least 1 player will transfer,

In this era it is probably safe to assume 2, and consider 3 a possibility. Not because of Vandy or Byington, but because basically every team has multiple transfers every year these days.

[Jason94]

Then one would reasonably assume that at least 1 player will transfer,

In this era it is probably safe to assume 2, and consider 3 a possibility. Not because of Vandy or Byington, but because basically every team has multiple transfers every year these days.

Yeah, we've discussed this at length previously, the main point is more how CMB fills however many opening he ends up having - mainly HS recruits, portal or an even split? If it is an even split, that implies that there might only be a couple more openings for HS recruits even if we lose two current players to the portal.

It sounds like from his interviews that while CMB would like to primarily build through HS recruits, he also acknowledges the reality that the portal is a powerful way to fill needs immediately.

It will be very interesting to see how his staff manages players' expectations on playing time for this season and moving forward. I don't really see any way to limit the costs of players outside of recruiting players who are less concerned about how much NIL dollars they get up front and are more worried about how they are able to develop as a student athlete.

[mathguy]

... outside of recruiting players who are less concerned about how much NIL dollars they get up front and are more worried about how they are able to develop as a student athlete.

Even then, I think that's a pipe dream at this point. Most players (and most Vandy players especially) are never seeing NBA dollars. So if they have the opportunity to grab $80k, $150k, $400k at this stage of their careers they'd be fools not to do it.

On the development end, it is probably silly to think that Vandy is any "better" or "worse" at developing NBA prospects than other SEC/Power5 schools ... at all of those places you will get a lot of competition in practices and throughout the conference schedule. On the "student" end, as much as we love to tout the value of a Vandy degree, most people are looking at jobs where having a college degree is more important than having a "Vanderbilt" degree (though there are certainly exceptions to this rule, I will suggest that our basketball stars are less likely than the general student body to be pursuing those exceptions ... not that they don't or can't, but perhaps less likely)

[Jason94]

... outside of recruiting players who are less concerned about how much NIL dollars they get up front and are more worried about how they are able to develop as a student athlete.

Even then, I think that's a pipe dream at this point. Most players (and most Vandy players especially) are never seeing NBA dollars. So if they have the opportunity to grab $80k, $150k, $400k at this stage of their careers they'd be fools not to do it.

On the development end, it is probably silly to think that Vandy is any "better" or "worse" at developing NBA prospects than other SEC/Power5 schools ... at all of those places you will get a lot of competition in practices and throughout the conference schedule. On the "student" end, as much as we love to tout the value of a Vandy degree, most people are looking at jobs where having a college degree is more important than having a "Vanderbilt" degree (though there are certainly exceptions to this rule, I will suggest that our basketball stars are less likely than the general student body to be pursuing those exceptions ... not that they don't or can't, but perhaps less likely)

I guess if you look at it solely as a dollar value proposition, then you might as well jump from school to school to the highest bidder each season, but that clearly doesn't always happen, even though could happen. There is a marginal cost of moving school every season for every player, and even players who don't play in the NBA, there is a basketball career to be had if they wanted it following college. Beyond that there is clearly a difference between a job candidate who jumped around to four different schools in 4 years than a candidate who stayed for four years at a single school to many employers.

If someone wants to have a career following basketball, the ability to stick things out has value, for anyone who has gone through resumes looking for the best candidates. And that is kind of the point - if we are offering comparable NIL dollars and aren't perceived as significantly worse than other SEC schools, then there is a way to avoid the massive amount of turnover that the previous staff experienced. Simply having someone point out that the grass isn't always greener can probably really help out a number of players who transfer and end up in a situation that is not that much better immediately and probably not a lot better off long term.