re: MBB Portal Targets List

NIL budgets seem to be closely guarded and is still a big mystery. I have heard rumors that LSU this past year was around $1.5M - $2M on the high side for men's bball. Also heard that CMM prefers to allocate fairly evenly across the roster, at least across the top 7 or 8 players rather than a sliding scale. That in itself has some pros and cons. It would be nice to shell out a big chunk to bring in a game changer surrounded by the rest of solid to good players, but CMM's philosophy is to not get in a bidding war and create unbalanced pay to play, keeping most of the squad on the even with some adjustment based on experience to the team.

Kentucky was operating with $4M this year, and heard various places that Arkansas, Tenn, AUB, and Bama were around that $2.3M - $3M range. One requirement for Coach Cal to take the Arky job was to guarantee at least $6M to be top in the conference. The Waltons, Tysons, and Jones family among others were eager to put that in.

There are always exceptions but from what I've seen, allocating $150-$250k on a player seems to get you solid to good players, though not blue chips and one and done elite talent. Think HS recruits between #30 and #100 and portal players ranked between #40 and #150. That does seem to fit what CMM has been doing and not able to be doing relative to recruits.