Ah yes, the famed “Hoosier basketball mystique” which hasn’t exactly been a thing for decades. I heard the same thing when I moved to Kentucky and how it was all about basketball….I can tell you, the high school basketball here isn’t all that good. My guess is there are multiple teams in PA that would crush the best team in Kentucky.
Coach Shrewsberry may be in for a rude awakening. Basketball at ND may be more important than it is at PSU. But if he thinks that it's on par with what it is at Indiana or Purdue he is sorely mistaken. Football rules!
NIL money. $400k to one basketball player.
And while Jim Larranaga may not be a "living legend" he can sure coach basketball and proved it at George Mason where I'm sure he wasn't exactly rolling in resources.
In the Drake game Larranaga called Miami’s final timeout with 6:00 left with the score 47-53. Final score was 63-56.
I wasn’t being disrespectful to the guy. Only to say that he isn’t necessarily a draw for an automatic final four team of McDonald’s all Americans every year.Obviously the man has no idea what he's doing.
Didn't take it that way, so no problem. Let's just say that PSU could do worse than Jim Larranaga and the coach it hires will probably not be "a draw for an automatic final four team of McDonald’s all Americans every year" but may become one.
Clary, Njie, Brown, and Lilley. I think that is it as of the moment.
If there had been a three-point line back in the day, they’d be saying “Rick Mount or Downtown Freddie Brown, they were good but LionJim would kick both their asses.” A lot of deaf kids are good shooters; myself, I didn’t know how to be a friend and so every day would shoot alone for hours. I was a one-trick pony but it was a nice trick. Jerry West: “Shooters are a dime a dozen.”And me with no eligibility left
Imagine the NIL deals a 69 year old could get from drug companies!
Maybe he has some players he’s recruited at VCU who will come over with him or others who are already enrolled who will transfer. It’s not as bleak as it seems. He was known as someone who had good success at VCU st getting kids off of the portal. In fact we should start a separate message board string on the basketball portal now to start tracking the portal prospects to see who is out there. Can anyone take a stab at this?
When you have 3 returning players (now that Jameel Brown has entered the portal), only one of which (Clary) looked good last year, playing only bench minutes, and all the potential incoming frosh have basically already signed elsewhere, it's pretty bleak.
Let things play out. And if we we have to start from scratch, so be it. You only need a few basketball players to have a solid team.
I think he will try to keep Clary, Njie and Mahaffey, maybe Lilley). Also go real hard to keep Booth. There are 3 freshmen on his VCU roster I would think he would try and bring with him, Lawal 6'8 F, Fermin 6'10 C (from PA) and former top 100 recruit who redshirted last year, Fats Billups who is a 6'7 wing. That would be plenty of size so he would go after guards like Jameer Nelson possibly and Ish Leggett from URI or my surprise guy Bryce Butler from D2 West LIberty. He led them to the D2 finals and is a 6'5 guard from LAtrobe. He can shoot it from 3 and can get to the basket.
