I won't go so far to say it's a lost cause, but for decades now, the coversation around sports is only that winning matters and only winning in the postseason matters. Sports isn't about the experience- or fun- anymore. It's just about winning. It's the age of Hot Takes and highlights.

A child raised in that culture is not likely to care about Bowling Green on a cold winter's night.

"Back to my original point -- we need to find complimentary players that fit the mold of rebounding, defense, facilitation, and 3PT shooting. Since we have 4 starters locked, it's unlikely we'll be a hotbed for P6 transfers when you factor in the lack of guaranteed playing time and limited financial means."

and

"but I'd like to think we can more effectively pluck talent looking to move up and contribute at the next level as role players based on our needs, instead of P6 players (getting attention from everyone) looking for starter minutes since we won't be able to offer that."

Gonna have to disagree with the two takes from different BA posters. I have to hope Boals (or Albin) is always looking to recruit up. And if that means more competition for starting positions, then that's a good thing. This is a .500 team with a roster of limited talent. Boals may not add the next Gary Trent or DJ Cooper or Jason Preston to next year's roster, but he should always be going after these type of players.

Baseball has been unable to solve its revenue disparity issues. With that if team quality was what was important many fans would enter the season knowing their team had zero chance most years and if performing over 162 games was what mattered as it once did nearly all fans would know their teams chances were minimal by midseason. So the solution to keeping more fans interested as the season goes on, and also getting some attention for more casual fans for a short period of time, is to do your best to untether the requirement from actually being a good team from the chances of winning a title. 5 games in baseball, unless the two teams are drastically different in quality like in some HS and college games means about as little as anything could. But not only is this marketing strategy pretty obvious in the format but in some of Manfred's comments on it he has come close to basically admitting this is a method to keep the fans of the teams with less money interested.

It seems silly to create a league to demonstrate who is good at something and then do your best to kneecap actually being good at it at in terms of it mattering for the most important prize. But every sport has migrated more and more this to a large extent over the last century. In the end the sport's integrity isn't what is important. It is the revenue and you can't argue that this approach doesn't benefit revenue. But even at that it will hurt fand who might otherwise be serious fans keeping interest over the regular season.

If you are a regular poster on a mid-major message board you clearly have the potential to be a very serious fan of the sport but even with that we hear our regular posters say that the basketball season doesn't really matter to them until March. Imagine what it is now for the average student then.

Nobody is saying not to "recruit up". I do not agree this team lacks talent. It lacks roles and structure, it lacks an identity because they all play the same position. At this current time, it lacks health.

I've said dozens of times, I don't blame Boals even remotely for the "current .500 roster of limited talent" because it's full of some of the highest rated recruits ever. Shouldn't that be exciting to you?

He's trying to cultivate the most talent he can - now it's time to fill in the gaps and mold the talent the best they can.

In this era we NEED to get creative. D2. NAIA. JUCO. A player is a player is a player. Every game thread I feel like I highlight someone we should've recruited that was JUCO. These kids coming from the SEC think they deserve $100K just to play here and haven't proven didly squat. I bet if you dangled $25K and an opportunity in front of the D2 rebounding leader he would be on campus tomorrow.

And again, that doesn't mean you stop recruiting 4 stars it means now that your team is loaded with guards... go find one of these skinny 7-footers that are popping up everywhere. YSU can do it. BG can do it. OU can't?

We've had a ton of talent at PG, we should be using that to recruit some 'lower level talent'. I'm happy to play the stepping stone game if it gets us W's. Mark Sears? My lord, he could be SEC POY and Boals hates his guts. Feeling is probably mutual. We should be playing that up as much as we play up JP. Sears was an undersized 3-star guard plucked out of military school, now he's the leading scorer on a final four team. JP had one offer and now he's a fringe NBA player. DJ is a 2-time french league MVP.

We could and should be a haven for some of these guys with talent who are just looking for a shot. Is your dream to be in the SEC? We'll get you there. Is your dream to make an NBA roster? Let's work together. Maybe your dream is to live abroad supporting your family in Monaco while playing basketball? Done.

Sometimes you have to put your pride to the side and ride the wave. Enjoy some of those fringe benefits.

Once a Bobcat, Always a Bobcat.

Especially when you're on TV twice a night. :)

Ajay Sheldon is what us grads in the mid 2000s wanted out of Stephen King.

Definitely got torched by him a few times.