For all the hand wringing over NIL and the portal and how evil this all is we should all remember that Miami was arguably the FIRST big portal player when they signed first-team All-B12 star Nijel Pack to what was — at the time — an unheard of contract which paid him $800k over two years. It was the deal that blew open the world of NIL and laid bare the notion that players were being paid for their Name Image and Likeness. No, Miami was the school that was paying them to play basketball.
A year later, Miami laid a big offer on the table and snatched away one of the best players on rival Florida St, Matthew Cleveland. This wasn’t just a player going in conference, this was a kid taking the money to move to a huge rival.
So, yeah, Jim whining about how the game has changed rings a little bit less than completely honest to me.