Damn. Times really have changed when @73CAV is telling @Hooandtrue how recruiting works 
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SEC Schools seem primed to ignore the cap and just play it like last offseason
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I think it came up in a different thread, but if they’re going to 5 years’ eligibility, they need to announce that yesterday
Or announce they’re not…
Underwood has been complaining about it, too
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And while I am here - what about Caden Pierce? Princeton kid who’s redshirting this year, presumably to play his final year in P5.
My gut is probably not. Not a good enough shooter
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Why did he take a step back in terms of both usage and efficiency? It’s weird to go from conference POY to slightly above-average by conference standards. That Princeton team was worse than it should have been based on who was coming back.
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Agree. I didn’t watch enough to know, but it felt it got some top 25 buzz and then fell flat.
My working theory was the bigs were not up to par. But even still…
(Top 25 buzz is an exaggeration, but there was some legit at large bid talk)
Their big — Zach Martini — did go to Rutgers for his final year. Probably thought he’d have have some great stories to tell his kids about playing with two draft picks… oh well.
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Princeton’s offense fell off a cliff, specifically their 2P%, which again was weird because they returned 78% of their 2PA from the previous season. I don’t have a theory beyond Matt Allocco was exceptionally underrated (except by those of us who noticed he was a plus-minus superstar).
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Yeah, maybe, or take away any of Lee, Pierce, Allocco and the other two would look worse.
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Derin Saran? Irvine → UVa pipeline?
UC Irvine 72, Arizona State 68 — Get to know the name Derin Saran. His 27 points and 11 rebounds on 11-of-19 shooting sealed the victory for UC Irvine, and he looks to be the potential Big West POTY. For Bobby Hurley’s squad, this could be an early sign of a long season.
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He already transferred up once from Irvine to Stanford, played a total of 20 mins over 5 games (injury-related) and then transferred back.
Side-note, Russ Turner seems to be very open in how he talks about up-transferring with players: New University talks offseason with UCI head coach Russell Turner | New University | UC Irvine
Saran figures to slot into the role left vacant by rising junior guard Myles Che, who transferred to UNLV after his lone season with Irvine. Che excelled at points for the Anteaters, leading the team in three-point percentage at 42.9%, based on a minimum 100 attempts, and starting every game for UCI. Turner talked about the conversations leading up to Che’s transfer.
“I thought Myles could really benefit from another year here. I told him that, and we worked together on the possibility of that,” Turner said. “There was a time when I thought that would be what he would choose for next year. I think he also has found a really good fit for him at this stage, and I’m going to watch [UNLV] also to see how that can unfold for them.”
And then as we’ve seen in multiple stories, he practically pushed Tillis here:
“I had a lot of conversations with [Virginia’s staff] about Devin prior to his decision to join them,” Turner said about Tillis. “I think it is a really good fit for both sides, so I’m happy for both parts of that, and we’ll be really interested to see how well Devin can do. Virginia’s program has recently won a national title. The program has multiple Final Fours in its history, so Devin’s going to a place where the demands for performance are great, but I think he’s well suited to that.”
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North Carolina kid (or at least was in North Carolina for HS)
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Have a buddy who is cousins with Derin. Wants to stay in Cali for the foreseeable future. He was apparently pretty upset with Stanford’s staff last year, got injured and they made a lot of promises that weren’t kept.
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So add another $150k to sweeten the deal you say. Got it.
Interesting. I’ve been a big fan of Kyle Smith and he always seems to outperform his talent and team expectations. I wonder what happened there.
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next portal cycle we need to go get a guard who can do things like this
https://twitter.com/JarettRLewis1/status/1982621937479369185
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Can Reece still come back for his fifth year?
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Curious where he ends up performance-wise relative to the other PGs in his class. On3 has him as the #5 PG (they list combos separately, so someone like Derek Dixon is listed there). Of the guys above him: 2025 Industry Top Basketball Point Guard Recruits
- Mikel Brown Jr had a rough first game shooting-wise
- Darius Acuff had a good first game
- Kingston Flemmings had a quiet first game, but is probably gonna not pop numbers-wise this season because they have Uzan running the show.
- Cayden Boozer is coming off the bench and looks OK
Right below him, Mandaquit had a 12 ast (and 5 TO) game, looks like he’ll be running the show for UW.
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