The 2024 Transfer Portal

[SkyBrickey]

How do they stockpile that many players in the frontcourt? Guaranteed that there are some guys that are unhappy that they brought in Onyenso and Hawkins.

It's so interesting that the Heels wanted both these guys and have a starting spot open but they both chose to go to KState instead and join a crowded frontcourt. The power of deep pocket$.

 

[arnie]

How do they stockpile that many players in the frontcourt? Guaranteed that there are some guys that are unhappy that they brought in Onyenso and Hawkins.

It's so interesting that the Heels wanted both these guys and have a starting spot open but they both chose to go to KState instead and join a crowded frontcourt. The power of deep pocket$.

Cheats must have imposed a hiring freeze. Hope it lasts for a couple of decades.

 

[SkyBrickey]

1) Play Cade Tyson significant minutes as a stretch 4, which would be a major defensive vulnerability (he's listed on ESPN at 6'7'', 205 lbs, although he did average a respectable 6 rpg last year).
2) Have a 3 man rotation for the 2 big spots between Withers, Washington, and Lubin, which would make UNC very vulnerable to foul or injury trouble.

There's a reason why Cade Tyson's best offer coming out of HS was Belmont. He's just not very athletic. It will be funny if they play him at the 4 and he attempts to guard Flagg. Iso-Cooper in the post every trip down the floor...

I think scenario 2 is more likely, especially against us. Lubin and Withers are both decent matchups for Flagg. Both can also play the 5. Lubin, Withers and Washington are all capable of hitting 3s so it's likely Hubert runs a very different type of spread offense.

Washington will need to play 20-25mpg at the 5. He's a pretty poor defender with limited lateral mobility after 2 knee surgeries. In our matchups will Maluach and Brown be able to make him pay scoring easy buckets and forcing him to foul? Maybe or maybe not.

But we should definitely be able to expose him in the PNR sets with Proctor, Foster, James and Flagg all capable of getting past him to the rim.

 

[dlmzzz]

There's a reason why Cade Tyson's best offer coming out of HS was Belmont. He's just not very athletic. It will be funny if … he attempts to guard Flagg. Iso-Cooper in the post every trip down the floor...

You know, for a while you were starting to convince me that Cooper should play the 4 instead of the 3…

 

[SkyBrickey]

You know, for a while you were starting to convince me that Cooper should play the 4 instead of the 3…

Didn't you hear? Cooper plays 1-5.

 

[dukelion]

There's a reason why Cade Tyson's best offer coming out of HS was Belmont. He's just not very athletic. It will be funny if they play him at the 4 and he attempts to guard Flagg. Iso-Cooper in the post every trip down the floor...

I think scenario 2 is more likely, especially against us. Lubin and Withers are both decent matchups for Flagg. Both can also play the 5. Lubin, Withers and Washington are all capable of hitting 3s so it's likely Hubert runs a very different type of spread offense.

Washington will need to play 20-25mpg at the 5. He's a pretty poor defender with limited lateral mobility after 2 knee surgeries. In our matchups will Maluach and Brown be able to make him pay scoring easy buckets and forcing him to foul? Maybe or maybe not.

But we should definitely be able to expose him in the PNR sets with Proctor, Foster, James and Flagg all capable of getting past him to the rim.

There was an article on Inside Carolina that essentially said their best and most likely option is to play Lubin as small 5 and Tyson as a stretch 4.

Apparently Lubin has long arms and a low center of gravity which will help in guarding bigger players. Tyson really struggles moving laterally so there is great concern about him playing the 3.

Also talked about how the guards will really have to help out with rebounding but even that is problematic as there isn't much size there either.

IMO their preseason ranking is based solely on RJ returning. I'm skeptical that he'll have a similar season to last year as I think he'll now be the focus of everyone's scouting report which wasn't necessarily the case last year.

 

[SkyBrickey]

There was an article on Inside Carolina that essentially said their best and most likely option is to play Lubin as small 5 and Tyson as a stretch 4.

Apparently Lubin has long arms and a low center of gravity which will help in guarding bigger players. Tyson really struggles moving laterally so there is great concern about him playing the 3.

Also talked about how the guards will really have to help out with rebounding but even that is problematic as there isn't much size there either.

IMO their preseason ranking is based solely on RJ returning. I'm skeptical that he'll have a similar season to last year as I think he'll now be the focus of everyone's scouting report which wasn't necessarily the case last year.

If their starting frontcourt is Tyson plus Lubin, they are going to get destroyed IMO. That's a 6-7, 6-8 frontcourt. And one of the guys is not very physical/athletic and was the third leading scorer at Belmont last year playing the wing.

With all due respect to IC, I think they are overvaluing these two transfers... Their best hope is that Jalen Washington has a great offseason - which he could.

 

[MarkD83]

There was an article on Inside Carolina that essentially said their best and most likely option is to play Lubin as small 5 and Tyson as a stretch 4.

Apparently Lubin has long arms and a low center of gravity which will help in guarding bigger players. Tyson really struggles moving laterally so there is great concern about him playing the 3.

Also talked about how the guards will really have to help out with rebounding but even that is problematic as there isn't much size there either.

IMO their preseason ranking is based solely on RJ returning. I'm skeptical that he'll have a similar season to last year as I think he'll now be the focus of everyone's scouting report which wasn't necessarily the case last year.

If this happens it takes away one of the signature unc strategies....the long outlet pass for the quick fast break.

 

[JasonEvans]

Their best hope is that Jalen Washington has a great offseason - which he could.

And stays healthy. Washington had ACL and meniscus surgery as a soph in high school and it did not go well, forcing him to have another surgery on the same knee his senior season. He missed his entire senior year of HS and then spend the whole summer and first half of his freshman season still recovering. His entire career at UNC, I have been hearing talk of him missing an occasional practice or playing limited minutes due to his knee still healing.

But, it is worth recalling that before he got hurt, he was considered one of the top 20 players in his high school class. He clearly has a lot of talent and if he can be healthy and put up even close to the same kind of production in 30 mpg that he was doing last year in 8 mpg then the Heels are gonna be golden.

His OReb rate and his block rate would have put him in the top 100 and top 60 players nationally if he had enough minutes to qualify.

 

[arnie]

And stays healthy. Washington had ACL and meniscus surgery as a soph in high school and it did not go well, forcing him to have another surgery on the same knee his senior season. He missed his entire senior year of HS and then spend the whole summer and first half of his freshman season still recovering. His entire career at UNC, I have been hearing talk of him missing an occasional practice or playing limited minutes due to his knee still healing.

But, it is worth recalling that before he got hurt, he was considered one of the top 20 players in his high school class. He clearly has a lot of talent and if he can be healthy and put up even close to the same kind of production in 30 mpg that he was doing last year in 8 mpg then the Heels are gonna be golden.

His OReb rate and his block rate would have put him in the top 100 and top 60 players nationally if he had enough minutes to qualify.

So if all goes very well, the UNC primary big will be top 100 in offensive boards. I’ll take it

 

[Pghdukie]

Tyler Hanstravel has 3 more years of eligibility left !!!

 

[plimnko]

So if all goes very well, the UNC primary big will be top 100 in offensive boards. I’ll take it

how far do you think he could walk in 3 years?.......he walked A LOT in one.

 

[DBKilby]

If their starting frontcourt is Tyson plus Lubin, they are going to get destroyed IMO. That's a 6-7, 6-8 frontcourt. And one of the guys is not very physical/athletic and was the third leading scorer at Belmont last year playing the wing.

With all due respect to IC, I think they are overvaluing these two transfers... Their best hope is that Jalen Washington has a great offseason - which he could.

Yeah I think they are gonna have a top 5ish offense but there defense is going to be bad. They have terrible positional size and really no shooting other than Tyson and Davis. They lost 8 times last year so double digit losses would be my guess this upcoming year.

 

[brevity]

Worst season ever of MTV's "The Real World"?

On3: Eric Musselman: New USC staff lived together in ‘portal house’ for 30 days

“You know, probably the smartest thing we did is we rented a house for the first month in Manhattan Beach with our whole staff,” revealed Musselman. “Stayed in it, guys were in bunk beds, and we called it the Portal House. I mean Michael (Musselman) and (Anthony) Ruta were in bunk beds. This wasn’t a frat house, but it was a Portal House.”

In the Portal House, film breakdowns were fair game at all hours of the night and the fellas dined like they were on a west-coast vacation.

“We literally — it’d be like midnight and I’d say ‘Hey, what about that guy from so and so college?’ It’d be like 12:30 at night and Coach Conroy stayed in. It was pretty fun. Just crushing Bowling Green tape at like 2:00 a.m., eating every meal together. None of us cooked, so we ate out every single meal for a full 30 days.”

Did it work? They added these 11 incoming transfers.

Last year of eligibility:
Chibuzo Agbo, 6-7 SG (from Boise State)
Joshua Cohen, 6-10 C (from Massachusetts)
Matt Knowling, 6-6 SF (from Yale)
Bryce Pope, 6-3 PG (from UCSD)
Clark Slajchert, 6-1 PG (from Penn)
Saint Thomas, 6-7 SF (from Northern Colorado)
Terrance Williams II, 6-7 PF (from Michigan)

2 years of eligibility:
Rashaun Agee, 6-8 PF (from the aforementioned Bowling Green)
Desmond Claude, 6-5 SG (from Xavier)

3 years of eligibility:
Kevin Patton Jr, 6-8 PG (from San Diego)

4 years of eligibility:
Wesley Yates III, 6-4 SG (from Washington -- redshirted)

That's 7 players definitely gone after the 2024-2025 season, plus Harrison Hornery, a rising senior and the lone returning USC scholarship player. Maybe Coach Musselman should head to VRBO now, about 10 months early, and book the Second Portal House for a lower rate. Spring for Malibu this time?

 

[CrazyNotCrazie]

Worst season ever of MTV's "The Real World"?

On3: Eric Musselman: New USC staff lived together in ‘portal house’ for 30 days



Did it work? They added these 11 incoming transfers.

Last year of eligibility:
Chibuzo Agbo, 6-7 SG (from Boise State)
Joshua Cohen, 6-10 C (from Massachusetts)
Matt Knowling, 6-6 SF (from Yale)
Bryce Pope, 6-3 PG (from UCSD)
Clark Slajchert, 6-1 PG (from Penn)
Saint Thomas, 6-7 SF (from Northern Colorado)
Terrance Williams II, 6-7 PF (from Michigan)

2 years of eligibility:
Rashaun Agee, 6-8 PF (from the aforementioned Bowling Green)
Desmond Claude, 6-5 SG (from Xavier)

3 years of eligibility:
Kevin Patton Jr, 6-8 PG (from San Diego)

4 years of eligibility:
Wesley Yates III, 6-4 SG (from Washington -- redshirted)

That's 7 players definitely gone after the 2024-2025 season, plus Harrison Hornery, a rising senior and the lone returning USC scholarship player. Maybe Coach Musselman should head to VRBO now, about 10 months early, and book the Second Portal House for a lower rate. Spring for Malibu this time?

This is nuts. Don’t they have spouses? Kids? Parents? This is basketball, not curing a pandemic.

 

[JasonEvans]

On the latest edition of the DBR Podcast, we had Brendan Marks of The Athletic as our guest. The major topic we covered was Duke's transfer portal additions and how they fit into the team for next season. Let me tell you, Brendan knows his stuff (and has great contacts inside the program and across the ACC). This is incredibly revealing:

https://cms.megaphone.fm/channel/RRTET7320327183?selected=RRTET4572521607

A couple notes --

* He is super high on Mason Gillis.
* He thinks both Gillis and Sion James will really be able to teach the younger players what it takes to win and succeed in college hoops.
* He says the theme of the summer will be compete, compete, compete. The depth means there will be no easy decisions for Scheyer.
* He is genuinely unsure who the 5th starter will be -- says it could be Gillis or Sion or Evans or K2 or Harris or Brown -- but he seems pretty confident that Maluach will start.
* He says Maluach will be super super raw early on... like more raw than Dereck Lively.
* He says Scheyer has seen a Duke team that could play great D (2022-23, especially once Lively was fully up to speed) and great O (this past year, especially when the outside shots were hitting) and it is clear that Scheyer would rather be great on D than O. He says he expects Duke to win a lot of games 65-50 next year.
* He says Cooper Flagg is something different than we have seen in college basketball in a long time.
* He says some kids on some teams are already looking around like they are already in the portal in December! He tells a story about a kid who went home for Christmas and his AAU coach said, "I've already heard from 20 teams who want to know what you are thinking." Whew, the portal is a major mess!

There is a ton more there. I don't mean to be schilling for my pod, but this really is an interview worth listening to. Oh, and there is a good bit more of it in part 2 of our interview with Brendan, which is coming on Monday or Tuesday next week. In that part we talk about the rest of the ACC and which teams did well and which ones didn't in the portal (he says Carolina had a bad portal season).

 

[SkyBrickey]

Enjoyed the podcast. Good stuff. I've shared Marks' view that Gillis is most likely to be our fifth starter - unless one of the freshmen blows up and wins the job. Marks gives the nod over others like James and Brown because of, in his words, 1a) shooting and 1b) defense. It's how Jon has constructed the roster. Surround Flagg with shooting. Gillis shot 47% from 3 last season and is a plus defender...

My only quibble with Marks' analysis is his position that the ball will be almost exclusively in the hands of Proctor and Flagg as playmakers. I agree on Flagg, but I see our guard playmaking as more of a two headed monster with Proctor/Foster. I think Foster may end up the better playmaking guard longterm because IMO hes got a slight edge in strength and quickness off the bounce. And it could even be a three headed playmaking monster with James.

But Marks is connected with the team so he may be right that the approach will be to lean heavy on Proctor. Given how short the season is, there is a lot to be said for slotting guys in roles as early as you can. He also thinks Maluach will start and play through his growing pains to set us up for our best team in March. I can see that.

 

[MarkD83]

* He says Scheyer has seen a Duke team that could play great D (2022-23, especially once Lively was fully up to speed) and great O (this past year, especially when the outside shots were hitting) and it is clear that Scheyer would rather be great on D than O. He says he expects Duke to win a lot of games 65-50 next year.

This bothers me a little bit since it either means Duke slows down the game or shoots poorly.

In 2023-24 Duke averaged ~8/21 3pt attempts per game (38%); 20/38 2 pt attempts and 28/59 overall (47%) and 15/20 FT attempts (75%).
This totals to ~79 ppg. I am rounding off a little.

If Duke still shoots 15/20 FTs and takes the same number of FG attempts then 65 points means 6/21 (29%) from 3; 16/38 from 2 (42%) and 37% overall. That is horrible shooting for a team that is supposed to have shooters.

 

[rsvman]

This bothers me a little bit since it either means Duke slows down the game or shoots poorly.

In 2023-24 Duke averaged ~8/21 3pt attempts per game (38%); 20/38 2 pt attempts and 28/59 overall (47%) and 15/20 FT attempts (75%).
This totals to ~79 ppg. I am rounding off a little.

If Duke still shoots 15/20 FTs and takes the same number of FG attempts then 65 points means 6/21 (29%) from 3; 16/38 from 2 (42%) and 37% overall. That is horrible shooting for a team that is supposed to have shooters.

I'm guessing that he is saying that if Duke's D forces the other team to use up almost all the shot clock trying to find an open shot, then Duke won't have as many offensive possessions, and thus could average a lower score without shooting worse.

I don't really care whether we score 65 or 95, as long as we score more than the other team.

 

[SkyBrickey]

This bothers me a little bit since it either means Duke slows down the game or shoots poorly.

In 2023-24 Duke averaged ~8/21 3pt attempts per game (38%); 20/38 2 pt attempts and 28/59 overall (47%) and 15/20 FT attempts (75%).
This totals to ~79 ppg. I am rounding off a little.

If Duke still shoots 15/20 FTs and takes the same number of FG attempts then 65 points means 6/21 (29%) from 3; 16/38 from 2 (42%) and 37% overall. That is horrible shooting for a team that is supposed to have shooters.

Duke 1998-99. Average victory 92-67. Let's ding this team 5 points on offense and give them 5 points on defense. 87-62.