TxHoops

Legend

One of the best Final Fours in terms of excitement of all 3 games I can remember.

So happy for this young man. All kids in his position dream of playing in the NBA and he certainly achieved that dream. But unlike most of us, these guys have a much, much shorter period of time to monetize their talents. Seems like he has figured out that he has a chance to make generational wealth playing in the second best league in the world, where he was the best player in the league this year, on their most high profile franchise. And like Marbury, seems there is a signature shoe in the works as well. Good for Junior!!!

After the Sweet 16 game, I was thinking Bama might be peaking at the right time to win it all, especially the way they were shooting the ball. But you are 100 percent correct, Duke put on a clinic defending the perimeter, about as well as I’ve seen. I’ve never loved the way Houston defends, especially the deeper they get. Just seems susceptible to being exposed by elite guards, especially ones with length. But that’s why they play the games I guess.

Well, I definitely like those picks. Florida was my choice going in because I couldn’t tell how good Duke was because of how down the ACC was this year. But after what Duke’s did to Alabama, especially defensively, they seem to be the team to beat for me.

I agree. I don’t get that move either. I think A&M is clearly the better job, although the money thing isn’t necessarily true in this case because Maryland’s top booster is Under Armour founder and CEO Kevin Plank. As a guess only, I would be pretty confident their NIL collective would be higher due to him. Plank is not only a billionaire, he’s a Maryland hoops fanatic. In other news, apparently McCasland at Tech has now told A&M no thanks. In fairness though, that got me to thinking, are the top three basketball programs in the state now U of H, followed by Baylor/Tech? Tech’s facilities may be the best in the state. They definitely were imo before UT built the Moody.

Let’s just say he didn’t get the job he was lobbying for behind the scenes, going so far as apparently calling it his “dream job.”

I really like Buzz. Don’t know him but those I know who do, think he’s a great guy. Weird it’s the second coach Maryland has hired from TAMU. Thought it was probably a step up with Turgeon left, not so sure anymore. Rumors swirling the new guy will be Beard. If so, I think that’s a definite improvement coaching wise. In fact, imo (for what that’s worth), he’s one of the very best in the country.

Just very odd behavior. Unless he is just trolling in which case spending time trolling Lamar athletics is also very odd.

They don’t want donors to donate 2 to 3 million dollars per year for the basketball team? They are just turning those donations down? You really have no clue how it works, do you?

I wayyyyy underestimate this. Try north of $2M and probably closer to $3M for McNeese’s NIL this past season. One of their players who redshirted and is transferring out got $200k (which is several times the amount of the entire Lamar NiL money). Will Wade can coach but a 7 figure payroll in the SLC is nuts. And apparently NC State has a massive NIL collective waiting for him. It’s all about it getting the dudes.

I would have loved to have seen Lamar play in post season as well. The entry fee for the CBI is apparently a little under $30k but I’m guessing it’s probably at least that much in travel expenses per game. That team was playing really well at the end of the year though and would have been fun to see continue to play.

NIT at least used to give automatic bids to regular season conference champions (who obviously didn’t win their conference tournament and get an NCAA bid). They did away with that rule before last year’s tournament and this year added some automatic bids for power 5 conference non-NCAA qualifiers. In short, it has now just become a secondary top-tier conference tournament. If McNeese had lost in the SLC tournament, they MIGHT have gotten a bid (honestly as much to do with Will Wade, and maybe even more so, that manager who has gone viral) but the NIT will mostly be filled with very average to bad big conference schools. And as snakehead correctly stated, the other post-season tournaments are just money grabs. It is my understanding both the men’s and women’s teams turned down postseason bids this year, the women to the inaugural WNIT (which has the old men’s rule about regular season champs). My guess is the deciding factor on both was $$.

This

I’m pretty sure I know who you are talking about and I agree with you. Speaking of, he reminds me a bit of Junior as well. Junior is actually more skilled offensively obviously but Queen is longer and a good bit better defensively (probably in large part due to length). But Junior is now the best player on the biggest franchise in China, apparently about to get a signature shoe deal. I would keep my behind over there, putting all those yuan in the bank a la Stephon Marbury.