Given the disarray we are reading about in Oats Locker room it seems Mr. Sears may get plenty of PT. Who you surround yourself with in life is the limit of how far you will go. If Oats has to go into full blown scramble Sears is a good choice but given the amount of friction throwing new bodies on the fire seems a little unwise.

I'm glad these guys have the freedom to do what they think is best for them. If you want to leave your job you can. Coaches can leave for another school. Professors and presidents can resign and leave. A bartender can go from Swanky's to the Cat's Den.

A few years ago Jimmy John's tried to enforce a non-compete clause on their sub makers. That went over like the proverbial turd in a punchbowl.

The one thing missing from the coaching analogy is the buyout. That's a deterrent for coaching changes, at least for most schools. I'm sure someone will come up with something similar to slow down player transfers. At last count there were over 1,000 players in the portal, about three per D1 school. I think LSU had 11.

Two and done is more likely, I think.

Wasn’t really true for basketball this year - lots of students showed up at the Convo this year.

Absolutely this is a good move for himself but it also certainly tarnishes his reputation as a Bobcat.

The interview he gave to a random 247 Sports blogger changed the whole outlook of the situation for me.

Just as Mark is well within his rights as a student-athlete to transfer, fans are well within their rights to voice their opinion.

The Sears transfer is VERY different than the Simmons transfer.

Yep. Classic case of how seeing the same thing through our own lens can really distort things. You can see a lot of examples of this reading threads in Siberia too.

I tend to compare Sears to DJ because both had few offers coming out of HS but drew some "P" attention based on their performance on the court at Ohio. Coming out of HS, DJ had offers from Ohio, Kent and Loyola of Chicago but chose Ohio because he knew Groce. After the win over Gtown in the NCAA tourney, he was courted (informally, we understand) by Bruce Pearl at Tenn, who had the chance to see DJ first-hand at the NCAA tourney. DJ chose to stay with Ohio. Granted, it was a different world back then. Who knows what would've happened if there was a portal back then.

Coming out of HS, Sears had offers from Ohio, UAB and SBama. He chose Ohio, presumably because Boals presented a better case than the other two schools. After one terrific season as a starter at Ohio, he entered the portal and immediately drew a lot of attention from "P"s, then moved on.

Simmons was different because he wasn't an original Ohio recruit. He transferred here from Houston where he had little PT, sat out a year, had two good years at Ohio, then transferred to Mich, where he got even less PT than he had at Houston. He apparently got what he wanted == to play in a national title game, even if it was for three minutes out of the 44 total minutes he played in the six NCAA tourney games that year.

247 quotes were a bit over the top. Good luck to Mark at the next level. I just don't see him succeeding as a 6-foot shooting guard who will continue to play the point against P5 competition just about every night. I can't wait to see him enjoy his millions as an NBA player. It's clear he thinks he has the talent to get there. I don't see it. As many others have mentioned here.....google two words....Jaaron Simmons.

Agree. I think we need to tell recruits that while we would like to have them for four years, that success at Ohio could position them to land at a high major or NBA. I know this is tough to accept, but it's reality.

A couple of things about that Sears 247 interview that make me shake my head.

"Alabama's system is very guard oriented and they told me they put guards in the NBA."

Huh?

So let's look at that. The "system" is Oates...who has two guards in the NBA. Also...Primo is a 6-6 athlete. Lewis is 6-3 and lightning fast. Sears is neither. He probably also thinks Colin Sexton is in the NBA from Bama but that was pre-Oates.

I look forward to watching him drive the lane next year and realize that's not Central Michigan down low.

I've also been curious how this has been handled from a PR standpoint. He's allowed his AAU coach to act as his mouthpiece throughout this process. Has anyone seen Sears thank anyone from Ohio for helping him get to where he is heading now?

Don't wish for him to fail, but fans can get bitter over portal transfer situations, especially how it was handled by the player. If Sears makes the "league", I'll come back and eat my words. He's a 6 foot shooting guard and it will be very difficult for him to succeed in the SEC, let alone make the "league".

Didn't know that. I am sorry I missed meeting them either at Hargrave or at Ohio. We have had quite a lot of good parents over the years. My sis met Mom at a tourney in Atlanta and sat with her through a few games. My loss I am sure.