Bama3714

A few thoughts about the NBA game.

The Spurs willed a loss that game late.

At the same time, they were a bit unlucky. Wemby must have had like 10 tip-in tries that all seemed to roll around the rim and go out in the 2nd half.

And the Knicks got as hot in the 2nd half as the Spurs were in the 1st half.

Somehow, the commentators didn't even comment on the boneheaded play by Fox with like 9 seconds left. All he had to do was hold on to the ball and make them foul him. LOL at the lack of situational awareness. He gets the foul shots, hits them, and they're up 3. The game likely would have still been lost in overtime after Brunson threw something up from 35 feet that would have gone in to tie it no matter how off-balanced he would have been or how good the defense would have been. There wasn't a single chance in this world that the Knicks weren't going to score there at the end regardless of the situation. The energy was going to will the ball in no matter what they did... almost supernaturally.

Do you mean 10.4' broad jump? The record is just over 12'.

He averaged 4.2 rebounds per game? Somehow, it seemed less than that.

One thing is for sure. We almost HAVE to have a better "hit percentage" on our portal evaluations in this next portal class. CNO could put on a blindfold and just randomly point to a name on a sheet of paper and we'd likely have better evaluations than this year's group.

That's no shade to CNO. He's proven to be an excellent evaluator. It happens to all great coaches sometime and some of it's bad luck (Bethea's injury slowing his development and understanding of our system, and the ridiculous whatever is going on with Bristow). That being said, it would be almost impossible to miss that badly with this next portal class.

Gotta hit the portal hard for at least two front court guys with some toughness/rebounding. Maybe 3. Also, we'll need another ball handler who can shoot. I know Oats doesn't mind having some ball-handlers who aren't true PGs. But, only having Holloway as a real PG is a bit concerning. Position-lesd basketball... I get it. But post-Philon, we're going to need someone else that can handle the ball. How good is Holt at it? And he's not a given yet by any means.

All of that said, maybe next year can FINALLY be the year where we're good at perimeter D. The D from our guards has left a lot to be desired for a while now. We should have size, length, and athleticism for days on the perimeter.

The three names that I've seen mentioned are:

Brandon Jones (Missouri)
Chris Klenakis (Vandy)
Eric Mateos (Arkansas last year, but Silverfield didn't retain him, so took the OL job at Wisconsin in December, though his bio strangely seems to have gotten taken down)

Missouri just hired an assistant OL coach the other day that had been the OL coach at Northern IL. Either Jones or Klenakis would be considered home runs. Klenakis was with Chris Ault for a long time at Nevada (a legendary coach... highly underrated guy that pioneered the Pistol offense) and Petrino at Arkansas and Louisville. I've seen someone talk highly of Mateos. He's young, though (though that doesn't mean he isn't really good).

Who knows? That's just the scuttlebutt I'm seeing online.

Mercy. Smothers is visiting Texas this weekend (while they already have Raleek... the other top RB in the portal... committed). Bizarre and crazy.

Agreed. If we wanted a transfer WR, Simmons might be an option. Very dependable, speed, and likely a fraction of the cost.

The real money needs to go towards OL, DL, and ILB,

Did he even play at PSU?

Sounds like we signed the Juco CB from Tuscaloosa, Nick Sherman, today. 6'2" 190. I expect more programs are going to be signing more Jucos like Bama, Uga, and USCw are doing as long as the Pavia rule is in effect. I'm assuming (correct me if I'm wrong) they'll all continue to have four years to play still? If so, that brought new life to the Jucos.

More info... former HS teammate of Wilkin Formby. This is his first year playing DB full time. Played mostly WR in HS and played WR in his first year of Juco ball.

Now it'll be Husky Harsin vs Russky Harsin for the next few years!