MAC Transfer Portal

[JohnFloyd4Life]

Every advanced stat showed Agee as the second best player in the MAC behind Freeman.

[hammb]

Every advanced stat showed Agee as the second best player in the MAC behind Freeman.

Agee was easily a top 8-10 player in this league. On court his ability to control the glass and also score with efficiency was tremendous. HE also did not see a dip in his production (actually went up) when the league started letting the games become foul fests (actually worked in his favor, kept him on the floor).

He was also the emotional leader of this team, going back even to last year.

To say he wouldn't be a major loss is just, I dunno, sour grapes or something.

Still, I would encourage any player with options to enter the portal and see what's available. I'd encourage Simon to work his tail off to re-recruit his roster, that's the name of the game. No doubt Agee has more options this year than last year, but he entered the portal and Simon convinced him to return with zero previous relationship. Now they seemingly have a great relationship, so maybe he'll be open to coming back again. But yeah, BG basically will always have zero dollars in NIL to hand out. Any dollar of NIL BG does find, is just money taken out of the athletic budget elsewhere. That's the reality.

[Hammer]

Bowling Green has very little NIL in place. If money is an option for players they are very likely to seek it as they should. That’s the reality. My confidence is that Simon’s background allows him to find replacements and develop them and put together quality teams. It’s what he was doing nearly 20 years ago in Vegas. We all saw how much better Agee was with Simon and staff vs the prior year. Next up, find shooters and get the tempo going.

This is kind of the point I was trying to make. Simon and this system is the ceiling for a guy that can’t shoot. Maybe a little money and sitting the bench somewhere is more appealing. We can’t fault anyone for doing what they think is best. I just believe a lot of these kids get bad advice. I have enjoyed watching him and wish him the best no matter what his decision is.

[Hammer]

Every advanced stat showed Agee as the second best player in the MAC behind Freeman.

Agee was easily a top 8-10 player in this league. On court his ability to control the glass and also score with efficiency was tremendous. HE also did not see a dip in his production (actually went up) when the league started letting the games become foul fests (actually worked in his favor, kept him on the floor).

He was also the emotional leader of this team, going back even to last year.

To say he wouldn't be a major loss is just, I dunno, sour grapes or something.

Still, I would encourage any player with options to enter the portal and see what's available. I'd encourage Simon to work his tail off to re-recruit his roster, that's the name of the game. No doubt Agee has more options this year than last year, but he entered the portal and Simon convinced him to return with zero previous relationship. Now they seemingly have a great relationship, so maybe he'll be open to coming back again. But yeah, BG basically will always have zero dollars in NIL to hand out. Any dollar of NIL BG does find, is just money taken out of the athletic budget elsewhere. That's the reality.

Unfortunately being a top ten player in this league hasn’t meant much lately. The MAC has fallen drastically. The talent just isn’t there and I don’t know if it ever will be again. The MAC in its current state cannot compete nationally anymore. I pray they find a way to get back to being where it was pre Covid but I don’t see a path there right now.

[Hammer]

Bowling Green has very little NIL in place. If money is an option for players they are very likely to seek it as they should. That’s the reality. My confidence is that Simon’s background allows him to find replacements and develop them and put together quality teams. It’s what he was doing nearly 20 years ago in Vegas. We all saw how much better Agee was with Simon and staff vs the prior year. Next up, find shooters and get the tempo going.

This is kind of the point I was trying to make. Simon and this system is the ceiling for a guy that can’t shoot. Maybe a little money and sitting the bench somewhere is more appealing. We can’t fault anyone for doing what they think is best. I just believe a lot of these kids get bad advice. I have enjoyed watching him and wish him the best no matter what his decision is.

Again, I loved the emotion he played with. I love the fight he gave. I’m not trying to knock him as much as I’m trying to praise Simon for creating a culture and system that will make guys like Agee excel. I don’t think recruiting his replacement will be very hard. Now, if he could shoot then I would say yes he is a huge loss. Those are the types of guys that are hard to get in our conference. It’s hard to say don’t fret over him leaving without it sounding like a slight to the player.

[hammb]

Every advanced stat showed Agee as the second best player in the MAC behind Freeman.

Agee was easily a top 8-10 player in this league. On court his ability to control the glass and also score with efficiency was tremendous. HE also did not see a dip in his production (actually went up) when the league started letting the games become foul fests (actually worked in his favor, kept him on the floor).

He was also the emotional leader of this team, going back even to last year.

To say he wouldn't be a major loss is just, I dunno, sour grapes or something.

Still, I would encourage any player with options to enter the portal and see what's available. I'd encourage Simon to work his tail off to re-recruit his roster, that's the name of the game. No doubt Agee has more options this year than last year, but he entered the portal and Simon convinced him to return with zero previous relationship. Now they seemingly have a great relationship, so maybe he'll be open to coming back again. But yeah, BG basically will always have zero dollars in NIL to hand out. Any dollar of NIL BG does find, is just money taken out of the athletic budget elsewhere. That's the reality.

Unfortunately being a top ten player in this league hasn’t meant much lately. The MAC has fallen drastically. The talent just isn’t there and I don’t know if it ever will be again. The MAC in its current state cannot compete nationally anymore. I pray they find a way to get back to being where it was pre Covid but I don’t see a path there right now.

I don't think the MAC will get back to where it was pre-COVID. The portal and and NIL rules have destroyed the MAC because the MAC has been insistent on being a jack of all trades, master of none conference.

This conference NEVER had a lot of money. 20-25 years ago it chose to invest what money it did have in football. Back then the MAC was rolling with tons of NBA guys. Multiple bids 3 times in the mid to late 90s. Then the 2nd bid snubs started (BG in '02 probably deserved a shot), but our team in the dance made it to the elite 8. Then...football needed cash. Teams invested in facilities. Teams all added lights so we could start playing night games, which quickly became weeknight games. Football coach salaries tripled, quadrupled, and more. Basketball was made a complete after thought. Teams stopped playing home games OOC entirely, and never worthwhile opponents at home. It was like the MAC said, after 4-5 years of single bids, fine, you're gonna make us a single bid league we're not even going to try competing in basketball.

Fast forward to COVID and after years of MAC basketball being an after thought, now transfers and NIL are a thing. What is to keep kids here? None of these arenas (save Toledo & OU) can even sell any tickets, let alone find NIL money. Our games are all on ESPN streaming which is a big time net loss for the schools, the only people that watch are those of us that go out of our way to, and maybe get 1 game a week on actual TV?

The MAC let the quality of the basketball slip to low places and in doing so lost fan support and money. Then transfers and NIL have made competing in this sport MORE about the money than it ever was in the past. And in the past 2 decades while we let basketball squander, tons of other conferences either invested in their basketball and said they don't even want to think about football (A10, MVC, American, etc), or if they do sponsor football have still found more money to compete in the NIL landscape (Sunbelt).

BG, thanks to Frack, is in a place where they can fund basketball better than most of our conference foes do, but we'll never compete in terms of NIL money until another Bill Frack steps forward with tons of cash to fund it. Toledo (and probably Akron) are at a MASSIVE advantage in this regard because they're the MAC programs that are in actual cities with actual businesses that create wealth. There is no real wealth in BG that isn't directly attributed to the university itself. SO anything we DO get for NIL/donations has to come from the handful of alumni/fans that might be willing to write checks back...then that money is likely to end up with Football or Hockey over basketball anyhow.

[hammb]

Bowling Green has very little NIL in place. If money is an option for players they are very likely to seek it as they should. That’s the reality. My confidence is that Simon’s background allows him to find replacements and develop them and put together quality teams. It’s what he was doing nearly 20 years ago in Vegas. We all saw how much better Agee was with Simon and staff vs the prior year. Next up, find shooters and get the tempo going.

This is kind of the point I was trying to make. Simon and this system is the ceiling for a guy that can’t shoot. Maybe a little money and sitting the bench somewhere is more appealing. We can’t fault anyone for doing what they think is best. I just believe a lot of these kids get bad advice. I have enjoyed watching him and wish him the best no matter what his decision is.

You touched on the reality of it here, then still added the "bad advice" part. I know it's semantics, but I take issue with saying these kids that leave the MAC are getting bad advice. There isn't a single player in the MAC that I think will play in the NBA. They're not transferring up (or down) with the intent of "increasing their exposure" or anything. These guys are just young 20-somethings that can get a free education playing ball. If we just assume the educational opportunities are relatively equal anywhere (and credits will transfer, etc), who are we to say somebody gets bad advice to leave the MAC and say average 12 points and 8 board (instead of 17 &10) while cashing a $10-20k check? Or why not go all the way up to transferring to a Big10 team and get almost no playing time, but play for a team that has a legit shot of being in the tournament; and again, cash a nice little check?

There's so much nuance and I don't think we're in any position to say whether the advice to leave or not leave was good or bad. We say that under the assumption that they WANT to play 30 minutes a night in a rugby scrum of basketball. Maybe they'd rather pocket some cash, be roster filler, and NOT put their body through the beating (although I strongly suspect most kids WANT to play on some level). We tend to look at it purely through the lens of on court production, but on a human level that's probably the least sensical way to judge it.

If I had a kid that was an all MAC player at BG or similar school and he had an offer to take any NIL cash anywhere while still being on scholarship I'd tell him he's a damn fool to pass up that money unless he had legit reasons to stay. And no, I would not consider "I get more minutes and put up better stats" to be very good reasons.

[Hdog]

Does Richaun Holmes have any interest in helping fund an NIL collective at BG? ...nothing like spending someone else's money on a chat board.... Lol.

Maybe some of the other BG Basketball alumni of pros and semi-pros like Antonio Daniels, Keith McLeod, Shane Kline-Ruminski, Brandon Pardon, Len Matela, Anthony Stacey, et al could help steer it's course a little bit? Ask coach Dakich to help in some way? From all their connections over the years, they may possibly have some pull to bring in money from multiple sources? I'm trying to think creatively as we are dying on the vine over here. I'm sure this has already been kicked around more than once. Wouldn't have to be a whole bunch of money. Enough to fund just ONE dude. I'm not asking for much. I'll even through in some pizza money myself.

FWIW Google comes back with this definition of "Dying on the vine" : To fail at an early stage or never come to fruition, typically due to neglect, infeasibility, or lack of resources. Example sentence : His ambitious plan to build a flying car died on the vine.

Gotta have a laugh or else I would be crying over this NIL, transfer portal BS

[guest44]

Now we are asking the fans to fund the players. I get it and support the players and would much rather my money go to players than to see Learfield trim 20%-30% of the top to do very little as they do in most aspects. Let's not forget BGSU paid 483K to make a coach go away recently. One who was given a Covid extension. BGSU needs to prove it's competence first and foremost before anyone is doing much to help in NIL.

[fredthefalcon]

Now we are asking the fans to fund the players.
.

Isn't that what an NIL collective or group is--fans. Whether it is a group of billion and million-aires or their companies, LLCs etc. ,they are simply fans of their college. No one is just doing it out of a goodness of their hearts to help out.

[mbenecke]

I hate it, but it’s real.

If we want a sport to be better, people are gonna have to collectively open up their checkbooks for NIL.

[guest44]

Now we are asking the fans to fund the players.
.

Isn't that what an NIL collective or group is--fans. Whether it is a group of billion and million-aires or their companies, LLCs etc. ,they are simply fans of their college. No one is just doing it out of a goodness of their hearts to help out.

Well obviously yes, but isn't this eventually headed toward the players being paid by the institutions they represent?

[hammb]

I think one of the failings of BG athletics over the past 20ish years is a very poor connection with the athletes. That's likely going to be an even bigger problem as so many kids now bounce around enough that they never truly connect to a single institution.

I continue to be peeved at the fact that we've added no new players to our Wall of Fame section of the Stroh. Keith McLeod graduated as the #2 all time leading scorer in program history, with a MAC POY award to his name, his number is still not on the wall. Justin Turner ends up the career leading scorer and nothing for him either. They did bring back Richaun for a day to sign some posters for kids a couple years ago, that was cool, but other than that and Stacey continuing to hang out courtside we don't have much connection to previous generations.

We can start with Stacey. NW HS basketball is pretty bad on the whole, but he's taking a team to the State D1 final 4 this weekend. Hopefully he'll send us some talent when it's an option...

I don't think Dakich will stop for gas in BG if he's driving down 75 anymore, and I don't think that's a major loss. He's an asshole who has pretty much blocked out his entire BG career as some salty MF (as if anybody else in the country would have welcomed him back when he took another job). But you'd like to think those prominent former players would feel some connection to the program to help out, just doesn't seem like the dept has ever done a good job cultivating those relationships. Overall it's not like our former player pool is overly wealthy, but it'd be nice to have that connection for non-financial reasons as well as financial.

[mbenecke]

Definitely agree with hammb’s take above.

I think the current administration took a step in the right direction by having an alumni day this season. Had guys’ names read and recognized at halftime while they were on the court. I can’t remember all the names, but I know Dylan Frye was there. Was good to see some of those guys. We could definitely use more of that, there have been some great players to come through the program over the years.

[Hdog]

...you'd like to think those prominent former players would feel some connection to the program to help out, just doesn't seem like the dept has ever done a good job cultivating those relationships. Overall it's not like our former player pool is overly wealthy, but it'd be nice to have that connection for non-financial reasons as well as financial.

working those relationships has got to be close to, if not, the #1 job of our coach and AD. Especially this time of year after the season has ended. My impression is Simon understands this. I agree with you, it's not about whether said players are in a position to help financially, it's more about showing genuine respect to them and their time here at BG on behalf of the program. That is what motivates people to help out with $.