2025 Men's Basketball Recruiting

Off to Inside Carolina to enjoy the post mortem.

Skip the middleman and look up IC Meltdown.

“Tired of missing out on the elite of the elite. Feels like a vicious circle - not getting the most elite OAD talent and getting a rep for not putting OAD into the lottery.” #UNC #ByeByuAJ

“The last decade how many unanimous top 3 recruits have seriously considered Carolina”

“The world we’ve known is gone with the wind.”

“Stop being a hat on a table. UNC is more than that.”

“I think we just dodged a low ROI opportunity here”

“close the ******** deal, Hubert.”

“We need to put guys in the league. It's not hard to understand.”

“Carolina Basketball. The new bridesmaid.”
 
Skip the middleman and look up IC Meltdown.

“Tired of missing out on the elite of the elite. Feels like a vicious circle - not getting the most elite OAD talent and getting a rep for not putting OAD into the lottery.” #UNC #ByeByuAJ

“The last decade how many unanimous top 3 recruits have seriously considered Carolina”

“The world we’ve known is gone with the wind.”

“Stop being a hat on a table. UNC is more than that.”

“I think we just dodged a low ROI opportunity here”

“close the ******** deal, Hubert.”

“We need to put guys in the league. It's not hard to understand.”

“Carolina Basketball. The new bridesmaid.”
UNC…just a hat on a table. I like that.
 
The optics of this look laughably bad. It was obvious that BYU was the landing spot. UNC, whose coach says is not a "transactional program," begs to donors to get a package that matches BYU's offer. They meet the offer, but BYU wins out in the end, most likely because UNC (and Alabama and Kansas) was used as a pawn to up the offer. Then, the recruit goes on national television and there's talk about Duke, even though Duke dropped out of the bidding war eons ago. The Tar Heel fan/host suggests that the big benefit of going to UNC is that you get to play Duke. The response 'I can play Duke at BYU' is perfectly cutting to UNC fans. And all of this is a reminder that UNC, a former NBA player factory, hasn't produced a future NBA All Star this century. What an amazing amount of salt in the wounds.
 
The optics of this look laughably bad. It was obvious that BYU was the landing spot. UNC, whose coach says is not a "transactional program," begs to donors to get a package that matches BYU's offer. They meet the offer, but BYU wins out in the end, most likely because UNC (and Alabama and Kansas) was used as a pawn to up the offer. Then, the recruit goes on national television and there's talk about Duke, even though Duke dropped out of the bidding war eons ago. The Tar Heel fan/host suggests that the big benefit of going to UNC is that you get to play Duke. The response 'I can play Duke at BYU' is perfectly cutting to UNC fans. And all of this is a reminder that UNC, a former NBA player factory, hasn't produced a future NBA All Star this century. What an amazing amount of salt in the wounds.
Guess Dybantsa didn’t want to spend four or five years in college.
 
Well, now we will hear virtually no more about AJ.
Yeah, we’re seeing how poorly the “star recruit(s) going to a team without any support” experiment is going at Rutgers. It won’t hurt Ace Bailey and Dylan Harper’s draft stock much, but I imagine Rutgers fans and donors don’t feel like they’re getting a strong ROI.
 
Yeah, we’re seeing how poorly the “star recruit(s) going to a team without any support” experiment is going at Rutgers. It won’t hurt Ace Bailey and Dylan Harper’s draft stock much, but I imagine Rutgers fans and donors don’t feel like they’re getting a strong ROI.
I'd expect BYU to have a better supporting cast than Rutgers does. They are generally a pretty good program, and have a top-40 team at the moment. That's much better than what Rutgers had last year and what Rutgers would have this year without Harper and Bailey.

Though part of Rutgers' problem has been that Bailey hasn't been very good yet. He's had some of the same shooting/efficiency issues that Flagg has had so far, but hasn't provided all the other good stuff that Flagg brings to the table.

I don't expect BYU to have "Duke" caliber supporting cast. But I think they'll be a notably better team next year than this year's Rutgers team.
 
I think this is just the beginning of the experiment for BYU. Reportedly, the LDS church has $265 billion in investments. They send $1-$2 billion to the various BYU campuses annually. Recently they renamed Rick's College into BYU Idaho and have put more money into their Hawaii campus. As you might know, the LDS church is aggressive with their mission work. I can see a scenario in which they believe that spending tens of millions on basketball and football players to create a powerhouse athletic program will further the church's mission. Winning championships in basketball and football puts millions of eyes on the Mormon faith. That's a much greater reach than any missionary could hope to accomplish. Heck, I could see them having their own network like Texas used to have.
 
I'd expect BYU to have a better supporting cast than Rutgers does. They are generally a pretty good program, and have a top-40 team at the moment. That's much better than what Rutgers had last year and what Rutgers would have this year without Harper and Bailey.

Though part of Rutgers' problem has been that Bailey hasn't been very good yet. He's had some of the same shooting/efficiency issues that Flagg has had so far, but hasn't provided all the other good stuff that Flagg brings to the table.

I don't expect BYU to have "Duke" caliber supporting cast. But I think they'll be a notably better team next year than this year's Rutgers team.
At the very beginning of the year, there were some murmurings on social media that Bailey could overtake Flagg as the #1 pick. I guess those people have disappeared back into the shadows.
 
I think this is just the beginning of the experiment for BYU. Reportedly, the LDS church has $265 billion in investments. They send $1-$2 billion to the various BYU campuses annually. Recently they renamed Rick's College into BYU Idaho and have put more money into their Hawaii campus. As you might know, the LDS church is aggressive with their mission work. I can see a scenario in which they believe that spending tens of millions on basketball and football players to create a powerhouse athletic program will further the church's mission. Winning championships in basketball and football puts millions of eyes on the Mormon faith. That's a much greater reach than any missionary could hope to accomplish. Heck, I could see them having their own network like Texas used to have.
The billionaire owner of the Jazz is also reportedly a huge backer of their NIL.
 
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