Okay. In a (near) perfect college basketball world, either Jackson Pavaletzke or Shereff Mitchell would start at the point; coach Boals would find in the portal a wing with length who would start at small forward and a post player with length to start at center; A.J. Brown or Elmore James would start at shooting guard; either AJ Clayton or Aidan Hadaway would start at big forward.

Some team, eh? And what a bench. Especially after you add in Ajay Sheldon, Ben Nichol, Aiden Evans, Victor Searls and Jesse Burris. Think that team would win the MAC and have the potential to do some damage in The Big Dance?

But in the (real) imperfect college basketball world of the transfer portal and NIL, how can it happen? Even for one year? But it's fun to dream sometimes, isn't it? Even if reality sets in a few minutes later.

Soooo, realistically, we're probably looking at Paveletzke and Mitchell starting in the backcourt, Brown on the wing-3, Clayton at center, and Hadaway at big forward. That's a really good starting lineup for the MAC, lack of length upfront notwithstanding. And while many on the bench are unproven, there is potential there.

Sadly, while the transfer portal giveth, the transfer portal taketh away most coaches ability to have true roster flexibility.

I think these are the two ends of the spectrum, since we don't know what money is left out there. Maybe we spent the biggest part of it on the Iowa State transfer. Maybe there's a lot left. Maybe the truth is somewhere in the middle, and we have enough to land one of the two quality pieces we'd like.

As the power conference teams run out of roster space, it will become a buyer's market for mid-majors to pick up a few guys they recruited over.

Some of those guys were stars in high school and will be moneyball specials as portal pickups. They're out there. Including some from very high academic schools in which case, a nation would never await grades being posted.

Example: New Vanderbilt coach (Byington from JMU) is on a portal binge. Some of the previous Stackhouse guys there probably thought the door would be open for them to return from the portal if schools didn't beat their door down to get them. We could actually fill the remaining openings just from that one school hypothetically. Just an example of how good the options still are.

But they are from a college in Tennessee. More specifically, the Nashville area. And Greencat likes going after players from that area, whether from a college or high school.

Got a great laugh out of this one.

Exact same as West Virginia.

But people are going to sweat from their huevos that Groce got some reserves off that particular WVU team. What makes end of the bench reserves off 9-23/4-14 WVU so great? Shouldn't people be laughing at Akron right now?

The same could be said of many teams who underachieved their talent level. Arkansas started the year ranked #14 in the nation. They finished below .500 and didn't even make the NIT. (yes, Vandy beat them at Arky and WVU very well might have too). But as far as current portal recruiting, I'm not sure about this system's methodology since there is some really good talent outside the top 300, but here it is. The right side column is going to change more than the left as players decide on a new school. It doesn't think too highly of the pickups being made by the MAC teams.... (except Gray)

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1Qa3Fd5fpW9_72RGCB...

Doesn't Ayden Evans count as big?

Doesn't Ohio still have two open scholarships?

Evans is 6'8" according to multiple sources.

Not that this is a reliable source, but this video of him describes him as 6'11". He looks quite tall here, but that could be the lankiness.

https://twitter.com/d20alfonso/status/1680699056580853762...

We absolutely need someone else. There have been a number of last year's "hot commodity" bigs, who tried to transfer up that have found themselves back in the portal.

Example - Essam Mostafa of Coastal Carolina. Parlayed 12ppg and 10rpg into TCU, played less than 10 mins a game. He just landed at MTSU.

I'm jaded after last portal season too, but I'd like to think one of these types on the bounce back is possible.

He's still a growing kid, last I heard he was at least 6-10. A coaching friend of mine told me that males can continue to add a little height up to about age 20. Females are usually at their adult height by 16. On the down side, my coaching friend also said that after a late growth spurt sometimes the player loses some of his coordination and it may take a year or so to get it back. IF this is true of Evans, he may be headed for a red shirt.