Shaka's senior and junior classes have gotten hammered, rightfully so.

Shaka's sophomore class I may be a bigger fan of than most.  Royce has grown this season and changed his offensive game with way more aggressive takes to the rim.  Have to think his 3-point shot will come back around to what it was last season.  And Damarius shows just enough glimpses to hold out hope he could really shine at MU.

But hopefully Shaka's freshman class (by FAR his best class on paper) reinforces that he needs to focus overwhelmingly on heralded recruits.  Seems obvious but to this point it obviously hasn't been.  Nigel and Adrien were both top 70-ish recruits IIRC, Ian hovered around 100, Michael was a top 50-ish junior recruit that moved up a class...and the three who have played have already shown to be legit talents even as frosh.  Makes sense!

Alex and Sheek have that same pedigree so hopefully that trend continues with them as well.  And I'm encouraged by how many high-level recruits we're linked with for 2027 in Davis, Cleveland, Kohnen, Davis, Pemberton, etc.

Of course take the occasional flier (usually on big men it appears), but the days of banking entire classes on unheralded guys is hopefully behind us.  And I love that Chase and Ben have stuck around and had nice college careers, but with Shaka's preference of high school recruits it just needs to be more consistently decorated.

Quote from: Warrior of Law on Today at 01:44:39 PMThe two week portal window will be crazy fun. MU should be lease out a team of private jets right now to get recruits to MKE on a moment's notice.

There's not a two week portal window.

A kid who wants the easy pass for immediate eligibility just needs to notify his current school during those 15 days. Just sets the wheels in motion for a potential transfer, that's it.

I get the roster construction angle - it's the big one. But, for me also concerning has been weird coaching decisions. Many have been squawking all year about the personnel deployment and substitution patterns.. but add in the end of game situations, use of timeouts, etc.. even last game, having MP2 out there in crunch time (I understand we had injuries) was a bizarre choice to me.

I don't think the roster we started the season with is as bad as our record. We weren't going to be very good, but didn't have to be this bad. I don't understand a lot of the coaching decisions, and that is also very concerning when looking ahead.

Our reality is success the rest of this season would be getting a win at lowly DePaul and somehow finding 6 conference wins this year. Ouch. #pray

Quote from: WarriorFan on Today at 07:18:57 AMNext month is Ouagadougou.

10/10, no notes.  Well played.

Quote from: Galway Eagle on Today at 10:27:34 AMOn a us passport or do you go in via a dual citizenship you have?

That was gonna be my next question.  I know WF is one of our expat members, and he's talked about numerous other previous trips to Russia, so its not like he's new to visiting the country.  But definitely interested in that piece.

Quote from: Hards Alumni on Today at 06:14:57 AMWell, the level 4, do not travel issuance from the US Government.  That's the highest risk that exists.

I have nothing against Russians, and St. Petersburg and Moscow are on the list, I just can't fathom going there now.

Let me know how the trip to Mogadishu goes next month.

I mentioned in the travel thread previously, I had a friend from college/coworker at the time who went to Russia in 2014.  Went with a few friends, one of who was Lithuanian or Latvian (don't recall which) who was very familiar with Russia and sort of set up their itinerary.  My friend was well traveled, studied abroad in Europe for a year and traveled extensively when doing so, and she came back saying her trip to Russia was amongst her favorite places she'd visited, by far.  History and scenery absolutely blew her away.

 Glowing reviews to the extent that a trip I had tentatively planned with a buddy to Japan in the next 18 months got shifted to planning on Russia instead.  We got about 50% planned and had a few dates we were debating...and then Russia got a lot less appealing to visit

Quote from: PointWarrior on Today at 02:21:45 PM"then there could be plenty of bruised egos if a newby gets more than a returnee, even if the newbie is better."


If this is a problem for Shaka, then we have a problem.  The answer is "play better so you demand more money from this team or another team."

This is what happens in the real world and what should be happening in the NIL world.  Shaka's running the college basketball version of socialism apparently.

Wut??

"then there could be plenty of bruised egos if a newby gets more than a returnee, even if the newbie is better."


If this is a problem for Shaka, then we have a problem.  The answer is "play better so you demand more money from this team or another team."

This is what happens in the real world and what should be happening in the NIL world.  Shaka's running the college basketball version of socialism apparently.

Quote from: tower912 on Today at 07:48:38 AMSheeeoooot.  I got hammered for not turning on the players under Wojo, I get hammered now.  Ain't no thang. 

I root for the players who wear the MU uniform to succeed.   It is more fun when they do, but even when they don't, I enjoy the journey.

True my friend

Quote from: jfp61 on Today at 01:58:31 PMMissouri is between the 9th and 11th best SEC basketball program. They are a little bit better than Shaka's 1st team at Marquette. They are worse than a good amount of Wojo's teams. Who had some good HS recruiting classes himself.

Unless you are getting one of the 5-10 one and done guys who matter, HS recruiting doesn't matter.

Get some guys who ball

First, that's not really the point of the post nor what I was responding to.  The point was that high level talent goes to teams that lose every year.  PJ Haggerty was the #2 ranked portal player this offseason and went to a school that finished 16-17 last year.  Darrian Williams was the #5 ranked portal player this offseason and went to a school that fired its coach after going 12-19.  Moustapha Thiam was ranked the 11th best portal player this offseason and went to a team that lost in the 2nd round of the Crown.  Dedan Thomas was the 15th ranked portal player this offseason and went to a school that went 14-18 last year.  Etc. etc. etc.

Second, this was about their recruiting following their 0-18 season, so last year's results are what would matter.  They finished tied for 6th in a league that sent 14 of it's 16 teams to the NCAA Tournament (and finished 19th at KenPom).

And high school recruiting depends on how you're building your program.  High school recruiting has been hugely important to programs like UCONN, Purdue, and Michigan State, who have undoubtedly been very good.

Some schools focus mostly on high school talent and add a few transfers here or there and are hugely successful.  Others do the same and aren't good.  Some programs only build through the portal and are hugely successful.  Others do the same and aren't good.

Quote from: Billy Hoyle on Today at 10:23:40 AMhttps://www.scribd.com/document/981641066/Sports-Betting-Indictment-in-Philadelphia

schools named in today's gambling indictment:

Abilene Christian
Alabama State
Buffalo
Coppin State
DePaul
Eastern Michigan
Fordham
Kennesaw State
La Salle
New Orleans
Nicholls State
North Carolina A&T
Northwestern State
Robert Morris
Saint Louis
Southern Miss
Tulane

Missing more BE schools

Quote from: Jay Bee on January 14, 2026, 11:31:30 PM*boy's HARD AF

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