MeanGreenZen

Unfortunately, people will have to make their own mistakes.

This defection is just another effect of the NIL era. Hodge is likely to go very heavy on established low-major transfers who have been productive. Or formerly productive high-major transfers who fell out of favor at their previous program. Why would Layne Taylor come to UNT to sit on the bench? Is it to develop and earn a spot 2-3 years down the road? No, because 2-3 years down the road Hodge is still going to be filling up his roster with those same transfers who have already been productive at some level of college basketball. The move for Layne Taylor is to go somewhere he can PLAY now and be productive. Worst-case he could land at a school like North Texas later as a transfer. Best-case he can springboard straight to a high major and make big $$$.

I’m thinking that these two guys knew they were likely to sit the bench as freshmen at UNT/FAU and wanted a chance to start immediately at UCA as a potential springboard to some real NIL $$$ as sophomore transfers. Not a bad strategy, if that is what you want.

We seem to occupy a very unique and miserable position in the current NIL landscape. 1. Our players are very good. 2. Our collective doesn’t have much $ to pay them. 3. Other schools have collectives that are willing to pay them a lot more. It is really pretty simple. The only way for us to compete right now is to identify and acquire undervalued assets. And then when the marketplace puts greater value on those assets, we have to start over and do it again. Unless any of you guys have a few million $$$ you want to send to Harry via bank draft… I am certainly frustrated and disappointed with the current situation, but I have invested too much and care too deeply to bail on UNT basketball now. It is just going to make it all the sweeter when we finally prevail.

McCasland has five years left on his Tech deal at about $3M a year. So $15M. His buyout at Tech is 40% of the $ remaining on his contract. So Tech will get $6M if Baylor buys him out. And just think, good ole Wren Baker got us all of $750K when Tech bought him out of our deal. Way to go Wren!

Layne Taylor is not going to Arkansas, lol. Now… Aaron Scott, Rubin Jones or Jason Edwards might.

Not saying our collective is killing it, but there is no way that is accurate. The collectives are doing their best to keep their resources and expenditures secret. Only the dummies are showing their cards publicly.

They can in many states and soon will be able to in all. As far as high school transfers go, it has been going on for a while and is only getting worse. Kyler Murray didn’t grow up in Allen and neither did the next couple of quarterbacks who came after him there. When he was head coach at Cedar Hill, Joey McGuire hired the mom of a star running back from across the state to work for the school district and even got them an apartment. Adrian Peterson’s little brother just “moved” to Forney to play QB for Kyler Murray’s old high school coach. But what is fun about any of that? Anybody can put an all star team together. That is just fantasy football. High school sports meant a lot when it was “Can the kids from my town beat the kids from your town?”. And college sports were great when it was “Can the kids who go to my school beat the kids who go to your school?” When it just becomes about which team has the most money then it is not as fun anymore. “Who has the most money?” is a simple math problem and not worth following for a whole season.

Either way, he is still paid a lot of money to solve these problems.

I am ready for a rule change but our roster is no different than most other rosters right now. Good thing Ross Hodge gets paid well because this is some BS to have to go through.

It is happening everywhere. Arkansas has ZERO scholarship players on their roster right now. If you were a good college basketball player under the current rules, why wouldn't you jump in the portal every year and see what NIL offers you could get?

Arkansas is a much better basketball job than USC. USC has never won a national championship and has only been to the Final Four twice. Arkansas won the national title in 1994 and has six Final Fours. Plus, Arkansas fans care about basketball. Nobody cares about USC basketball.

I could dig it if we had an alternative uniform with that neon green that the Dallas Stars use sometimes. Looks really good.

This is a way for the money to trickle down through the system. Schools can designate which players are allowed to transfer for no compensation (the ones the schools don’t mind losing) and those who require compensation to take. Low major players cost X, Mid major players cost Y, High major players cost Z. You could also put a premium price on players who played X minutes for their previous school or who made all-conference. There are many details to work out, but a system like that could work.

For those following how NIL is unfolding across college sports, the case to watch right now is House vs. NCAA. It is a class action lawsuit that could award up to $4B in judgments to former players that the NCAA denied NIL opportunities. If the NCAA loses, and it is projected to, then that would likely be a bullet through the head of the NCAA and cause it to collapse. That would give an opportunity for the Eurosoccer style “Super League” that the SEC and Big 10 schools want to form. At this point, for North Texas, it is probably best for the NCAA to just go ahead and collapse as the courts have removed any ability for the NCAA to enforce its rules. Without rules, it is anarchy and all of our good players in every sport get taken from us with no compensation. But under a different system there may be a way to compensate schools like North Texas for those players and help North Texas find new players to replace them.

We will have a team next season. We do have a coach with a strong track record of identifying, recruiting and developing players. This is a winning program now with good support, lots of great players will want to be a part of it. The transfer portal is going to take from us, just have to make sure that we get ours too.

And I am just counting days until all of the good ACC schools that SMU essentially paid to be in a conference with leave the Ponies behind again to join the Big 10 or SEC.

What is funny is that SMU has all the money and yet they STILL can’t win. 😂😂😂

My objection is with a Mean Green player leaving to represent another college. If they want to leave early for the NBA or overseas, then I don’t hold that against them. But if they are suiting up for another school then I hope they miss every shot they take and lose every rebound. *Unless they weren’t getting an opportunity to play here. Then I wish them well.

I renewed my season tickets the day before transfer portal hell broke loose. I would have renewed them anyway, but it was still a kick to the nuts.

You just get the best player available and build with a one-year plan. You can’t count on any of these kids to play for you beyond one season. I would be hard-pressed to find any school in the country that has been hit harder by transfer portal defections in football and men’s basketball this school year than North Texas.

Rewbean was never even a top 2 guard on any of the teams he played on at UNT. How are you going to make him a Hall of Famer?

Roobin’s all-time wins record shouldn’t count because he didn’t play in a bunch of those wins.

Everyone keeps using the job movement of coaches to justify that players can transfer now whenever they want. And it is a good point except for one HUGE factor. Coaches have contracts. And most of those contracts have buy-out clauses that compensate the school that the coach is leaving. So Grant McCasland can sign a new contract with us then bolt for Texas Tech but Tech has to pay us $1.5M (reduced to $750K because Wren Baker is a weak negotiator and included a deescalator in the contract if Wren was no longer employed at UNT). But the point is that YES coaches can leave, but the schools still get compensated a pre-negotiated amount for the value of the coach that the school is losing. With players who transfer, the school loses all value they have invested in that player. And they have invested a lot: identifying the player, recruiting the player, training, nutrition, coaching, marketing. The school also has to overcome the loss of goodwill that comes with alumni and season ticket holders who are angry that their favorite running back just transferred to South Carolina. I don’t know where all this is going to land. Unlimited player movement might be good for some individual players but it is not good for college sports as a whole. A game without rules is not fun. And eventually people will stop paying attention.

Caitlin Clark is in a bunch of State Farm commercials. That is pretty legit. In other news, State Farm lost $30 billion dollars the last two years, just had their A.M. Best rating downgraded to “B” and had their financial outlook changed to “Weak”. They are in a huge mess and are about to raise rates dramatically, reduce coverages and pull out of certain markets.