Seeing how Coach Pope constructed a quality team by tapping into the transfer portal, it makes me wonder. Is the portal the best place to recruit in this era of NCAA basketball? It seems to me that a Coach who can developed untapped ability and has a good eye can make good use of the maturity that experienced players demonstrate. Too often one sees blue chip players come out of high school and fail to adjust to the college game. Many of them leave for the NBA after one year based on their potential and don't hit their stride until three or four years into the pro ranks. Out of necessity, Coach Pope had to look to the transfer portal to construct a competitive team from scratch. In doing so, I think he may have inadvertently happened upon the recipe for consistently producing competitive teams. But like I said, a Coach has to have the ability to take those players and develop them into being much better than they were when he found them. It seems like Coach Pope is very good at that. I think this season will make him continue to look to the portal to fill many of the gaps in his upcoming rosters. The "one and done" approach to putting a team together it very hit or miss--with a lot of misses.
Is the portal the new way?
- Thread starter FutureCity
- Start date
Pope is doing what no one thought was possible: start a roster with 12 brand new players and turn them into a top 10 team in less than 7 months.
It's never been done before in the history of college basketball.
It's never been done before in the history of college basketball.
Exactly. A coat like Pope who can develop latent abilities can make very good use of the maturity that players from the portal possess..
It will probably never happen again. There will not be anymore “COVID Super Seniors” after this class runs out of eligibility. We won’t likely see a team with six fifth year Seniors with this skill level ever again on the same team.
Yeah, I think this is probably the best answer to the question. All these 5th year seniors are unheard of. But I'm really loving the experience of this team. These guys proved it against Duke on a neutral court. Coach Pope is a very unique guy in a very unique situation in multiple ways.
But to answer the question about whether the portal is the best way or not, I definitely agree the portal (if it truly is here to stay in its current form) is a much less risky approach than recruiting true freshmen. These are known quantities in the college game. They've already proven they can compete on this level. With freshmen, even with the elite ones, you're never 100% sure of what you're getting. If I were a head coach, I'd take at least a couple upperclassmen transfer portal guys every year. I might even take 4 or 5. I'd still want to bring in top freshmen to build for later, but those transfers can be quick fixes, as we've seen already.
I feel like you go big in terms of recruiting and don't settle for low quality recruits if you miss on your big time targets. Those holes in the roster can be filled by quality players in the portal. In this new age of CBB I don't think you can rely solely on recruiting or the portal.
