2026 Transfer Portal

[Hards Alumni]

I am looking at everything. He got Fru and Minessale right. But that's all he got right.

He missed on Riley when we needed back court depth and instead of pivoting, they...did nothing. Love to see Crowdis be instant impact, but I've seen the last minute unranked freshman flier and generally speaking they haven't worked out.

We lost Pearson and did...nothing. It wasn't even mentioned in the article about changing our approach in the portal. No bigs brought in to replace him. I get why we lost him and I don't think matching was the right move. But we're setting up for more meaningful minutes from Hamilton and Clark and we saw how well that worked. If we get in on a reclass 2027 big will that fix it? Maybe, but so far we've gotten nothing from reclass freshman bigs, so I'm skeptical there.

We lost Haynes and Nevada. Aside from Marquette creating the Haynes problem with a social media blunder (the investigation into Haynes happened directly because of #inaccurate so good job social media guy getting an assistant fired), the communication there was incredibly poor. They posted Haynes job before any announcement he was leaving and when it was announced, it was clear from social media that his family wasn't expecting that. Anyone notice that Haynes didn't thank any of admin or staff in his departure note? Then they replace him by giving one of Shaka's old friends a lifeline after he got fired? In a time when you want to see new ideas in the room, they did the opposite. I hope Ballard is as good developing talent as Haynes was, but I'm skeptical of that. Maybe Haynes was going to be dismissed regardless, but that doesn't change that they mishandled it badly from the jump.

When Nevada left, it was clear we needed to fill the offensive hole. The plan was that Ballard was to help with defense and Nevada's replacement would be for offense. Then they take a month to fill it (presumably because their top options all said no) and land on an unknown guy from a single bid league who is also a defensive guy?

The reality is we came up short in the portal. There are still guys out there that would help but we aren't kicking any of those tires, instead falling back to the unknown freshman route that got us in this situation in the first place. We came up short in the coaching search. We went from elite developer/elite offensive guru to a pair of defensive guys from lower tier leagues. Ballard never had a top-5 defense in CUSA while at FIU. Crawford's years at USA they ranked 9/1/3 in Sun Belt defense. A bit better, but hardly "we need that guy at a high-major" stuff. No one is going to confuse him with Luke Yaklich.

Shaka did well finding a fit with Fru, was coerced into taking Minessale, and other than that seems to have whiffed on everything else since the season ended.

A lot of this is narrative.  You don't know who in the portal was offered what.  You don't know which phone calls were made to which coaches or which players.  Saying that 'nothing' was done is very disingenuous since you're not privy to everything that happens behind closed doors.

You're making a lot of assumptions based on results.

[Uncle Rico]

Problem is that many here keep calling us a high major. We aren't anymore. Last year proved it. Hell, we can't even hang with Dayton. And this is all on Shaka.

Thanks Walton

[CountryRoads]

You're making a lot of assumptions based on results.

MU fans have done too much resulting in the last year and a half. Need to just zoom out and focus on the process.

[Vander Blue Man Group]

I am looking at everything. He got Fru and Minessale right. But that's all he got right.

He missed on Riley when we needed back court depth and instead of pivoting, they...did nothing. Love to see Crowdis be instant impact, but I've seen the last minute unranked freshman flier and generally speaking they haven't worked out.

We lost Pearson and did...nothing. It wasn't even mentioned in the article about changing our approach in the portal. No bigs brought in to replace him. I get why we lost him and I don't think matching was the right move. But we're setting up for more meaningful minutes from Hamilton and Clark and we saw how well that worked. If we get in on a reclass 2027 big will that fix it? Maybe, but so far we've gotten nothing from reclass freshman bigs, so I'm skeptical there.

We lost Haynes and Nevada. Aside from Marquette creating the Haynes problem with a social media blunder (the investigation into Haynes happened directly because of #inaccurate so good job social media guy getting an assistant fired), the communication there was incredibly poor. They posted Haynes job before any announcement he was leaving and when it was announced, it was clear from social media that his family wasn't expecting that. Anyone notice that Haynes didn't thank any of admin or staff in his departure note? Then they replace him by giving one of Shaka's old friends a lifeline after he got fired? In a time when you want to see new ideas in the room, they did the opposite. I hope Ballard is as good developing talent as Haynes was, but I'm skeptical of that. Maybe Haynes was going to be dismissed regardless, but that doesn't change that they mishandled it badly from the jump.

When Nevada left, it was clear we needed to fill the offensive hole. The plan was that Ballard was to help with defense and Nevada's replacement would be for offense. Then they take a month to fill it (presumably because their top options all said no) and land on an unknown guy from a single bid league who is also a defensive guy?

The reality is we came up short in the portal. There are still guys out there that would help but we aren't kicking any of those tires, instead falling back to the unknown freshman route that got us in this situation in the first place. We came up short in the coaching search. We went from elite developer/elite offensive guru to a pair of defensive guys from lower tier leagues. Ballard never had a top-5 defense in CUSA while at FIU. Crawford's years at USA they ranked 9/1/3 in Sun Belt defense. A bit better, but hardly "we need that guy at a high-major" stuff. No one is going to confuse him with Luke Yaklich.

Shaka did well finding a fit with Fru, was coerced into taking Minessale, and other than that seems to have whiffed on everything else since the season ended.

Man, not having hot dogs available that day really did a number on you.

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

Jesus Christ. Haynes didn't get fired ad Shaka wasnt coerced into taking Minessale

[Jay Bee]

Haynes didn't get fired

Semantics.

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

Semantics.

1. No. 2. I thought you love semantics

And it certainly had nothing to do with #inaccurate