In professional sports, a big part of how you assess a team is through what their GM spends, and whether the money's used effectively.

The NIL is still completely opaque, so it's a black box and impossible to know. But if we gave NIL money to Cornish that could have gone to improving the offer to a big, that's awful. A big swing and miss.

I think Graffz is correct in how it likely played out. Evans is our big man addition next year to pair with AJC and Hadaway. Speaking of the latter two, both have proven to be formidable this season in the paint — if we run plays for them.

The problem this year isn’t the lack of size or another DW3, it’s playing too much iso ball and trying to be the 3PT that we aren’t. Play downhill ball, fast tempo, and to our strengths. That’s on Boals to implement.

I still don’t consider Ike a swing and miss. He knocked down a needed 3 last night and grabbed 4 rebounds. He cuts back door quite often and doesn’t get the ball.

Ike is our 10th man. He's barely in the rotation and had shot poorly. The portal should be a way to get guys who will contribute instantly. Reinforcements. Ike isnt that.

The addition of Evans next year is not nearly enough to get this program back to where we all want it to be. The roster is lacking in so many areas - size, shooters, athletes, strength, etc. . .

I’ll just copy and paste what I edited and added above

He’s been statistically more effective in all of the double-digit games he’s played more than 14 minutes. When he takes at least 5 shot attempts, he’s shooting 43%.

I’m not calling it good, but I’m not calling it a swing and miss. Expecting to hit on all portal additions is also unrealistic. No team does that.

He's played more than 14 minutes twice. I don't see how it's useful to look at a sample size of two games as if it's more useful than the sample size of 11 games.

He looks an awful lot like a swing and a miss to me. The portal really shouldn't be for 10th men. In the portal, you have more info on players than you do recruiting out of high school. You don't have to project high school productivity to a faster, bigger, more physical game. You can see what guys did at the college level. Boals seems far too inclined to offer guys who can't get on the floor at P5 schools and the hit rate's been low.

We just don't have enough talent on this team. That's a result of recruiting in the portal and at the high school level. It hasn't been good enough.

Sure, but then how is useful (and fair for that matter) to look at sample sizes of games where he’s playing 6 (once) and 7 (three) mins and taking 1 to 2 shots and them deem him a bust collectively?

If anything, the argument can be made if he’s playing more, he’s getting more acclimated and therefore more productive than when he’s playing less.

The size isn’t large enough on Ike to really conclude anything. He looks like a guy who’s trying to find his footing in a new program after not playing last season.

You’re cherry picking the sample size as a Bobcat. You’re not giving him credit for the games he’s played more minutes and played well, but you’re deeming him a bust off of 6 minute appearances. He played 11 mins last night, made his only 3pt, and grabbed 4 rebounds. But sure, those aren’t meaningful minutes.

I’m not sure why you keep bringing up Maryland. Who cares if he didn’t play there. If he saw the court, he wouldn’t have entered the portal. That’s like me arguing he was supposed to visit Grand Canyon and visited George Mason before choosing Ohio.

We don’t know what Ike is yet. Which as I’ve alluded, isn’t great but isn’t bad. Still way too early.

When you remove all of the games he played double digits, the remaining minutes you’re referring to equate to less than a game. So we’re going to determine what he is based on that, but throw away the sample size on what he’s done with more minutes?

It isn’t clear at all what he is. What is clear is he still doesn’t look fully comfortable out there yet. Listen I get it, we all wish we landed another big. On the flip side we’d all be pretty disappointed with just Shereef as the lone portal add.

This board had been clamoring for 6’6-6’7 wing for years. You take the opportunity to add that all day if you can to further develop.

Would I rather have a big on this years team? 100%, but none of us know what the convos entailed and it’s a two-way street.

Speaking of bigs, Javonte Brown went for 21 points and 5 rebounds Thursday against Cleveland State. Pain. Would really love to know how he got away to WMU after the previous recruitment of him out of HS.

I'm not removing the games he's played double digits minutes. I'm not removing anything.

You are the only one trying to throw out minutes, and you're the one reducing the sample size to draw conclusions. I'm looking at the largest possible sample size, and drawing my conclusions based on the sum total of what Cornish has done in the the three years he's been out of high school. The metrics I cited include every single minute he's played this year. They're not good. Isolating two games paints a nicer picture. It also is the definition of cherry picking, which you're doing while accusing me of cherry picking for including the entire sample in my analysis. You recognize how strange that is, right?

You seem not to think it's significant that two different college basketball coaches have decided that Ike Cornish isn't a starter, and instead is one of the last guys off the bench. I don't think that's insignificant, and I don't think that's the profile that anybody should recruit from the portal.

At this point, I'm not even sure what point we're parsing. It seems like you're arguing that Cornish is a low ceiling player, who isn't great, but isn't bad. To me, that's still a swing and a miss. That's absolutely not what the portal is for. You need contributors from the portal, not projects, and we're going to continue this slide towards mediocrity if the staff keeps adding guys like this.

My critique of Cornish isn't solely in the context of needing a big, either. We need better players than Cornish. Maybe he'll prove me wrong in a couple of years. I hope so. But right now, he hasn't been a significant addition to the team.

I don't have an axe to grind with Ike. But I think he's another data point in the mounting evidence that Boals isn't a strong enough recruiter. A team that wasn't good enough last year added no impact guys in the off-season. Unless you count Shareef, who is a ball-stopping, volume scorer.

Let me know when you decide it's okay to be critical of that.

Cornish was actually very good in limited time vs APSU.

And then 13 points and 7 boards against the blind school before that.

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Happy merry festive December to all.

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