Just playing into the Shaka hypothetical, while heās on topic. Iāve made it fairly clear that he would be my #1 choice if given the option, but there are a few question marks Iād have at least in regards to his first season.
Who does he bring with him? This goes for staff and roster. As far as his assistants, Neill Berry, Cody Hatt, and Nevada Smith have been mainstays for Shaka since his time at Texas, so would imagine heād make a concerted effort to keep them around. And for his roster, the main upperclassman players youād want to target are Chase Ross and Ben Gold. Ross is an incredible defender who would be next in line at Marquette to be their go-to guy next season on offense, and Gold is a big stretch 5 who has shot the ball really well from the perimeter down the stretch. Heās also got a lot of freshman and sophomores who are intriguing, but incomplete products. Royce Parham and Zaide Lowery would probably be my most wanted players from that group. Question becomes how much continuity does Shaka want to keep from his current roster, does he believe in the group he has or does he want to kinda reset with what would be a better pool of talent at his disposal here.
Who does he keep? Again, from our staff and from our roster. I guess the question to ask first would be who is even available to keep, aka who wants to stick around. I would hope Shaka at least considers keeping Zay and Kyle, but wouldnāt surprise me if they wanna look elsewhere. In terms of our current roster weāve already heard rumors about some players being linked to the portal but who specifically would fit what Shaka wants to do. I think player like Rohde, Dai Dai, Sharma, Cofie, and Robinson generally fit his style of play but who knows if they wanna play for Shaka.
How much does he use the portal his first season? This question more leans towards the other question of āIs Shaka choosing to not use the portal as much at Marquette because he feels itās not the best way for Marquette to have success, or because itās not the best way for Shaka to have successā. I LOVE the approach Shaka has taken to teambuilding in the NIL/portal era, but I also think heād have to hit a happy medium here in order to maximize our potential. Yes build the roster mainly through HS recruiting and evaluations, but also fill any necessary holes in your rotation with quality portal players, donāt have to go crazy getting rentals year over year but it would be malpractice to completely ignore the portal here while we have the proper resources to utilize it. And weāre gonna have a lot of roster spots to fill this offseason.
How much of his recruiting class does he bring over? Shaka has a really solid, well balanced class coming in. Best players IMO are Adrien Stevens who we briefly pursued and Michael Phillips who is a massive sleeper in the class from NC that could end up being a star. I would hope at minimum if Shaka came here heād try to bring those two guys with him, if not the entire class. Also heād have a dilemma choosing between Nigel James, the top 100 PG from NY heās already got committed and Chance Mallory, assuming heād still want to come here. James is a little bit bigger and known as a great defender but not known as much of a shooter.
Thatās my feeling too. My brother is a UT alum who lives in Austin. Texts me constantly about Texas football. Not sure he knows who starts for the basketball team.
Since itās hard to expect the next coach to have the success Tony had from 2014 - 2019, my large criteria has been keeping the program nationally relevant.
Even if he isnāt able to get us back to the Final Four, having Shaka as your coach makes you instantly relevant. Especially at a time when many of the big name marquee coaches are leaving the sport.
FWIW, I think Odom or Pitino could have the success to achieve that as well. Shaka is just a known commodity in a sport experiencing tumult.
Also re: the portal, if even half the players we expect to leave via the portal, heās going to have to do some significant back-filling.
Texas has a shit ton of money.
They care about football season, spring ball, recruiting
Followed by baseball, volleyball, swimming and maybe basketball
Heāll only have been gone a year, but whoās left that was he when he was? Coaches would be gone. Probably no former teammates next year. As it is, thereās only McKneely, Rohde, BB, Robinson, Gertrude that even could come back?
Weāre not the same place he left, so who knows if heād want to come back? Oh yeah, and heās an academic junior so who knows if the school would even let him transfer in.
This is an excellent point. Not that I wouldnāt have been excited about Shaka, but one thing I took for granted was having one of the biggest faces / names in the sport in TB. Shaka is probably a top 10 personal brand in current CBB with all the retirements
Iām gonna guess our new coach and the administrators have agreed to terms and we are just waiting for the season to end. My guess itās Shaka, and his first hs commitment will be a local kid.
Just a thought
That would be great, and a deal in principle could easily be in place with Shaka. But I have to think that the local kid angle is almost impossible given the 3/22 announcement date for Chance. Furthermore, any deal with Shaka would be at risk for being blown up by a great postseason run. If he were to make the Final 4, he isnāt going anywhere.
