re: MBB Portal Targets List

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suspect that Carter may not have been pursued if Miller decommitted from Oregon a few weeks earlier. But couldn't pass him up once he became available, obviously.

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I still think they take both. 2 different styles. They could probably both play on the floor together. You have to have elite guards in college basketball. Miller might just be that as a scorer/shooter.

Does anybody know ball park of how much we have to spend on Basketball NIL? I know it’s not as much as other teams but we seem to be able to sign quite an impressive recruiting class, retain existing talent, and get quality transfers in positions of need.

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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.

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I'm sure this will start a fight (because it always does), but some, media, fans on here, etc, believe Wade was throwing around huge sums of money to sign guys like Naz Ried, Waters, Smart, Watford, Thomas, etc, etc,. Contrary to popular misinformation, I doubt Wade was bankrolling everything out of his own pocket (if at all). So either (a) the reports of the purported amounts paid to those players were grossly inflated, or (b) Wade was getting quite a bit of money from boosters. Assuming it is the later, then I have a hard time believing those booster simply refuse to give similar money to McMahon to sign players. (If so, that's a separate and bigger issue.)

That said, I'm willing to bet there is significant money out there for LSU to spend. Kentucky, Kansas, Duke, North Carolina money? Doubtful. But I can't imagine schools like Alabama, Auburn, Tennessee, Florida, etc are grossly outspending LSU. Particularly when they are in the same boat as LSU where the majority of the "resources" are earmarked for football. Alabama likes Oats. They like the success he's had. They aren't given one cent to basketball if they feel it in anyway could hurt the football program.

More likely is that McMahon is taking more of a socialistic approach to NIL funding in that he's not paying better players significantly more than other players. I get it from a coach's standpoint because the marketplace is so one-sided in favor of the players. With no long term "contracts" locking a player to a school for more than a year (if that), there is nothing to prevent the players from constantly leveraging the coach for more and more money. If you give one guy a "salary" increase, then the other players are quickly going to ask for one too (even if the on-court production doesn't justify it).

If a coach is going to go that route, that's fine. But that means the sum must be greater than the individual parts because you likely won't be able to sign a true blue chip guy without paying significantly more than you would to sign the, say, 91st ranked player.

You have to add a couple of factors:
1) Wade was (allegedly) maximizing payments from boosters and / or his wife's checkbook at a time when it was illegal. As a result you had less colleges paying and it would be cheaper to get the same players. Now unless the boosters could increase payments to match the inflation on players, and we don't have Walmart or Dyson level boosters, then you don't get the same bang for the buck.
2) We are under probation in large part thanks to Wade. Also the football program got tied into that probation. There is no way that McMahon is allowed to play fast and loose. While NIL is above board now, I am sure there are still some under the table "sweeteners" going on that we can't touch right now.

As for this speculation that we are using a "socialistic" approach, it is pure bunk.

Keep making excuses for McMahon. Maybe it will make the disappointment easier to swallow.

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Keep making excuses for McMahon. Maybe it will make the disappointment easier to swallow.

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Make excuses for a .500 record in the SEC 24 months after taking over for the dead program and NOA the previous guy left? Don't need an excuse for success. BTW, you may have noticed the solid recruiting class. 3rd in the SEC at the moment I believe.

McMahon has definitely impressed me with his recruiting, jury is still out on how well he can develop that talent. Interested to see how he finishes out his coaching staff. It was reported that we hired Jalen Courtney Williams, although I haven't seen an official announcement from LSU, I like that hire but he is a "bigs" coach and we needed to replace our guard's coach.

Okani announced recently he was down to five schools. He's currently visiting West Virginia and will be at LSU over the weekend. There are reports that's he's also visiting Virginia on Tuesday.

Also, LSU just officially announced the JCW hire on instagram and X

LINK

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So, McMahon has had highly rated recruiting and transfer classes all 3 years. His fan boys are happy to crow about them. He has not come close to reaching the big dance.

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Half of the players haven't played yet dummy. You sound like alt26 complaining that players like Curtis Givins haven had the career that some Wade players did.

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If he is so great, he should be in the tournament this year. I guarantee that his fan boys will keep finding new excuses. Some of them will continue to blame Wade.

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The team will be close. Should be 9 or 10 wins in the SEC with a better OOC record with everyone eligible.

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If McMahon is paying all his recruits equal NIL dollars as has been suggested, he is doing it wrong. Players should earn based on quality and productivity. This is America after all.

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What is with the political bs? There is no evidence that the NIL is split that way. And we have pulled in solid recruits.