2025 Basketball Portal

[BillyLP]

Just to keep the comings and goings in one spot. We all know Marcus Johnson is moving on. I'm not shocked, nor am I all that sad. He was fun to watch on offense, but the liabilities were so glaring. I'm sure with his numbers he'll end up moving to a moderately higher-level program, but unless he's on the court with four other all-star athletes, he's always going to be taken advantage of. There are three other names I expect to hit the portal in the coming days (just out of instinct, no insider info), and I expect us to be upgrading our athleticism and ball-handling ASAP.

Elsewhere in the MAC, Toledo has had both Javan Simmons and Seth Hubbard hit the portal. Two pretty decent hits.

[hammb]

Just to keep the comings and goings in one spot. We all know Marcus Johnson is moving on. I'm not shocked, nor am I all that sad. He was fun to watch on offense, but the liabilities were so glaring. I'm sure with his numbers he'll end up moving to a moderately higher-level program, but unless he's on the court with four other all-star athletes, he's always going to be taken advantage of. There are three other names I expect to hit the portal in the coming days (just out of instinct, no insider info), and I expect us to be upgrading our athleticism and ball-handling ASAP.

Elsewhere in the MAC, Toledo has had both Javan Simmons and Seth Hubbard hit the portal. Two pretty decent hits.

Defensively he was an abomination.

Offensively once you got past the 3-4 wow buckets a game, I didn't find him particularly enjoyable to watch on that end either. He was a turnover machine, pure ISO player. Tremendous jump shooter which made up for a total lack of quickness to free himself up or ability to use his size to his advantage on the interior.

If he could be turned into a functional component of an offense where somebody else has the burden of creating offense I think he could be valuable, but you have to know going in he's not going to do any real work off screens or moving to find space. The space has to come by others winning and drawing help away from him.

Been a long while since we've had a player contribute more to losing while on the surface looking like he's a good player; Jordon Crawford comes to mind.

[fredthefalcon]

Just to keep the comings and goings in one spot. We all know Marcus Johnson is moving on. I'm not shocked, nor am I all that sad. He was fun to watch on offense, but the liabilities were so glaring. I'm sure with his numbers he'll end up moving to a moderately higher-level program, but unless he's on the court with four other all-star athletes, he's always going to be taken advantage of. There are three other names I expect to hit the portal in the coming days (just out of instinct, no insider info), and I expect us to be upgrading our athleticism and ball-handling ASAP.

Elsewhere in the MAC, Toledo has had both Javan Simmons and Seth Hubbard hit the portal. Two pretty decent hits.

Defensively he was an abomination.

Offensively once you got past the 3-4 wow buckets a game, I didn't find him particularly enjoyable to watch on that end either. He was a turnover machine, pure ISO player. Tremendous jump shooter which made up for a total lack of quickness to free himself up or ability to use his size to his advantage on the interior.

If he could be turned into a functional component of an offense where somebody else has the burden of creating offense I think he could be valuable, but you have to know going in he's not going to do any real work off screens or moving to find space. The space has to come by others winning and drawing help away from him.

Been a long while since we've had a player contribute more to losing while on the surface looking like he's a good player; Jordon Crawford comes to mind.

You know Hammb. Despite all his faults that you have talked about on here over the years, Jordan Crawford is still making a living playing professional ball at 34. He is a vagabond for sure being in the NBA developmental League, G-League, playing in Mexico, Macedonia, Cyprus, Germany, Turkey and most recently Australia. He led his latest team to a 3-2 series win in the Australia League Championship most recently. I'm sure life is good for him overseas and he probably is one of the more successful ex-BG ballers not in the NBA.

[hammb]

Just to keep the comings and goings in one spot. We all know Marcus Johnson is moving on. I'm not shocked, nor am I all that sad. He was fun to watch on offense, but the liabilities were so glaring. I'm sure with his numbers he'll end up moving to a moderately higher-level program, but unless he's on the court with four other all-star athletes, he's always going to be taken advantage of. There are three other names I expect to hit the portal in the coming days (just out of instinct, no insider info), and I expect us to be upgrading our athleticism and ball-handling ASAP.

Elsewhere in the MAC, Toledo has had both Javan Simmons and Seth Hubbard hit the portal. Two pretty decent hits.

Defensively he was an abomination.

Offensively once you got past the 3-4 wow buckets a game, I didn't find him particularly enjoyable to watch on that end either. He was a turnover machine, pure ISO player. Tremendous jump shooter which made up for a total lack of quickness to free himself up or ability to use his size to his advantage on the interior.

If he could be turned into a functional component of an offense where somebody else has the burden of creating offense I think he could be valuable, but you have to know going in he's not going to do any real work off screens or moving to find space. The space has to come by others winning and drawing help away from him.

Been a long while since we've had a player contribute more to losing while on the surface looking like he's a good player; Jordon Crawford comes to mind.

You know Hammb. Despite all his faults that you have talked about on here over the years, Jordan Crawford is still making a living playing professional ball at 34. He is a vagabond for sure being in the NBA developmental League, G-League, playing in Mexico, Macedonia, Cyprus, Germany, Turkey and most recently Australia. He led his latest team to a 3-2 series win in the Australia League Championship most recently. I'm sure life is good for him overseas and he probably is one of the more successful ex-BG ballers not in the NBA.

I give him massive props for that. I'm seriously very happy for him. He was always one of my wife's favorites because he was so small.

Obviously I've never seen him play a pro game, I have to imagine he evolved a lot as a pro (who doesn't?). I didn't outright hate the kid by any stretch (although in pre-NIL era I always thought it was funny seeing a BGSU players drive a Porsche with a personalized plate). But as a player at BG he was maddingly inefficient. He averaged like 15 points and 4.5 assists in his best year while turning it over nearly 4x a game and shooting like 32% from 3.

At BG, he was a net negative, but I give him hella props to carve out a living playing ball. We could all be so lucky to see the world while making some cash to play a game

[Flipper]

Crawford and Calhoun...The C&C Brick Factory

[bghkyfan74]

Mom and I were downtown at Grounds for Thought and saw one of our assistant coaches. He said Campbell and Butler will "most likely" transfer. Said Campbell is receiving offers of $400,000 that we cannot compete with.

[bghkyfan74]

Mom and I were downtown at Grounds for Thought and saw one of our assistant coaches. He said Campbell and Butler will "most likely" transfer. Said Campbell is receiving offers of $400,000 that we cannot compete with.

He did say that Khayat "should be" back next year.

[maskedopining]

Mom and I were downtown at Grounds for Thought and saw one of our assistant coaches. He said Campbell and Butler will "most likely" transfer. Said Campbell is receiving offers of $400,000 that we cannot compete with.

This tracks. Know several D1 high school coaches in Northeast Ohio. From what I’m told, the Sunbelt and A10 are offering a minimum of 400k for any recruit. Toledo, Akron are there. Kent and Ohio can get there for the right guys. For the record, UMass will be in the MAC with that same money.

If we can’t match 400 for our best player. We are not competing in the NIL game. We have to either drop football or hope for stars aligning in the MAC tournament to get to the dance.

This doesn’t make me happy, but they are the cold, hard facts.

[mbenecke]

We need to massively improve our NIL game to be competitive in the modern world. No idea how we’d do that, but it absolutely has to happen or we’ll be left in the dust.

[hammb]

The unfortunate reality is that Bill Frack left us a sweet ass endowment to improve our ability to compete on the MAC stage with visions of competing beyond the MAC stage. At the time he made that donation it was believed (true, even) that investing in better coaching, better facilities, better games, and better trips, etc would make a meaningful improvement in on court results.

Now, that extra money is largely meaningless. We can still continue to budget more money for men's hoops than most MAC schools, but it doesn't matter if we cannot get somebody more than an order of Pollyeye's stuffed breadsticks while other schools are giving them 6figure salaries.

[bghkyfan74]

The fact of the matter is that men's basketball is essentially third on the totem pole in our athletic dept. Football and hockey reign above. Most of those schools don't have a hockey team to support as well. A10 teams with FCS or no football can go all-in on men's basketball. Akron and Toledo have the resources to support both football and men's basketball (even though Akron football is not good). We have the least resources in the conference, we will not be able to compete in that area. Each season will have to be striking on junior college or diamonds in the rough to have success in the conference. If not, we will be middle of the pack at best. I love supporting our teams but I cannot keep giving a lot of money to different programs. I am sure others are in the same situation.

[hammb]

The fact of the matter is that men's basketball is essentially third on the totem pole in our athletic dept. Football and hockey reign above. Most of those schools don't have a hockey team to support as well. A10 teams with FCS or no football can go all-in on men's basketball. Akron and Toledo have the resources to support both football and men's basketball (even though Akron football is not good). We have the least resources in the conference, we will not be able to compete in that area. Each season will have to be striking on junior college or diamonds in the rough to have success in the conference. If not, we will be middle of the pack at best. I love supporting our teams but I cannot keep giving a lot of money to different programs. I am sure others are in the same situation.

100%

And you don't go out and hire Eddie George to make a stronger push to get NIL for basketball over football. That's just the reality. As we've all said for years BG can never compete financially with the likes of Toledo (or Akron) based solely on the fact that it's a rural college. The town of BG simply doesn't have a fraction of the money of those larger urban areas. It would be great if we could work out a partnership with Marathon (or some other local business) whereby that money could go into NIL funds. But even if we did something, the money would end up with football anyhow.

[mbenecke]

We need to increase NIL across the board. It’s pretty much wholly unrealistic. But that’s what is needed.

[maskedopining]

The fact of the matter is that men's basketball is essentially third on the totem pole in our athletic dept. Football and hockey reign above. Most of those schools don't have a hockey team to support as well. A10 teams with FCS or no football can go all-in on men's basketball. Akron and Toledo have the resources to support both football and men's basketball (even though Akron football is not good). We have the least resources in the conference, we will not be able to compete in that area. Each season will have to be striking on junior college or diamonds in the rough to have success in the conference. If not, we will be middle of the pack at best. I love supporting our teams but I cannot keep giving a lot of money to different programs. I am sure others are in the same situation.

100%

And you don't go out and hire Eddie George to make a stronger push to get NIL for basketball over football. That's just the reality. As we've all said for years BG can never compete financially with the likes of Toledo (or Akron) based solely on the fact that it's a rural college. The town of BG simply doesn't have a fraction of the money of those larger urban areas. It would be great if we could work out a partnership with Marathon (or some other local business) whereby that money could go into NIL funds. But even if we did something, the money would end up with football anyhow.

Absolutely correct. Hammb, it seems you are as much of a basketball fan as I am. It’s tough to watch us dump money in football when the sport is structured to keep us from competing for anything at a national level. It’s short sighted and it is indicative of cowardly leadership that won’t make the hard decision now and instead wants to keep wasting money until someone else makes it for us.

[guest44]

BGSU got themselves 1000 miles behind in NIL right from the beginning. Poor leadership, no plan, and each and every part of the department going a different direction based on what was most important to that individual persons career, commission, or bonuses. In some instances the decisions were made off pure laziness. It’s always easier to do nothing. Some of the decision making was made totally out of spite. Spite decisions that cost them money and set them back further. The usual lack of accountability that is Rogers leadership at BGSU. Hughes was running the show for Moosbrugger, so nothing outside the Learfield garbage was ever going to get going organically. He was going to make certain of that. Even today as they’ve loosened the strings on it, they are being taken advantage of more than anything. It’s like they can’t figure out you can tell people you have momentum, but winning is real momentum. It takes logging off of social media to realize that.