re: that was a season. | 27-7 (13-5)

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Assuming we miss, this one has to sting for Bruce and Self if he chooses Duke. They’ve both but an insane amount of time and energy towards Bidunga

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I don’t believe we have much of a chance and I felt good about it until 2-3 weeks ago.

117-74 USA won. Kessler 5 pts in 4 minutes.

Schedule- The U.S. now hits the road as the USA Basketball Showcase continues in Malaga, Spain, to face Luka Doncic and Slovenia on Saturday (FS1- 3:30 eastern) and top-ranked Spain on Sunday. Following that, the Americans go to the United Arab Emirates for the first time and face Greece on Aug. 18 and Germany on Aug. 20.
The U.S. opens the World Cup vs. New Zealand on Aug. 26 in Manila, Philippines, where it will play all of its games. The World Cup is being hosted by three counties, with games also in Japan and Indonesia.

I'm just going to be honest about how I feel.. outside of undersized guards I don't think our HS recruiting has been very good the past couple of years. I know its a supposedly a strategy by the staff, but I just don't agree with it (Not turning against the coaches or anything dumb like that though). We are ignoring tons of talent just because.. I want to win SEC titles and have a chance at a national title and last year and going into this year and I just don't think we're in the conversation and I don't think building our team out of lower level transfer players will take us there.

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I know its a supposedly a strategy by the staff, but I just don't agree with it

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It’s all brand new so it’s hard to say if it’s a good strat or not at this point, but I for sure understand the rationale. Most freshman can be broken up into a few categories
- Elite one and dones who come in and start day one
- Highly rated who come off the bench
- Developmental ones who are program guys that you hope become starters later in their careers

The first group is who everyone want, obviously.
The other groups are the ones that scare you, especially the second one. That’s the group that you’re likely counting on giving you solid minutes and potentially starting later in the year. It’s also the group most likely to leave because they don’t like how they’re being utilized and also the riskiest guys you can take if you’re counting on meaningful minutes (ie Traore and Westry).

I’m sure those two had a factor in Bruce making this shift since he didn’t verbalize it until all that went down. He can take a risk on a kid who isn’t a one and done but hopefully can give you good minutes, but you’re likely left re-recruiting them again. Or he can go find a known commodity from a small college who is locked in to your program until they graduate.

Transfers are by far the safest bet outside of the elite HS kids. It’s the same strategy the big dogs will be using. The one question is can we pull enough elite HS talent to make it work for us.

I agree with that. I think it raises the floor, but the ceiling isn't as high.

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No I agree with that from a talent perspective. You can’t expect to find a Broome in the portal every year. More often than not you are getting guys like Denver and KD.

JLee posted a hoops scoop that his sources haven’t heard who Flory is choosing but they maintained it’s an Auburn/Kansas battle and that Duke wasn’t as big of a factor. There were the Duke crystal balls but that could also be Duke reporters assuming they’re getting their guy since they almost always do. Either way, JLee says he’s hearing we are in this thing.

I am ready to hurt again.

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Not about to let JLEE hurt me again

It never fails to amaze me that other fan bases think their program is crystal clean. They seem to think college recruiting is a gentleman's game.
Well, I got news for them.

My whole thing is throwing the bag at someone doesnt mean what it used to.

Before it meant reckless, conspicuous cheating to get ahead.

Today throwing the bag at someone could mean milos deals, free wings forever, or Spencer Rattler getting a 130,000 car, or whatever under clear legalized Namesake Image and likeness laws.

Its all legalized now. Auburn doing NIL is no more sleazy than Bryce Young getting up to a million.

I've said this before but I can't fathom what cluster it is to recruit with today's rules. It takes a special person to navigate the waters (and be successful) these days...

They have to figure out how get the top hs recruits.
They have to determine how much effort and $$ do they put in a hs school kid / transfer that might leave them hanging.
They have to identify the diamond in the rough hs and/or transfer players.
They have to replace the player(s) that left unexpectedly.
They have to identify and get stud transfers to make an immediate impact.
And they have to keep all these players "happy".

I know they all get paid very well but it's got to be stressful job recruiting these days. I'd love to have a balance of recruits but that's easier said than done. The whole transfer and NIL thing completely changed the recruiting game.