WTKA Roundtable 4/25/2024: Are You Afraid They'll Hate You More?
Things Discussed:
- Spring game takes:
- QB: Wasn't a good format (no zone reads, mostly under-center) for gauging Orji. It was him or Warren, and Warren wasn't a speed-reader upon further review.
- RB: Edwards is geared up. Tavierre Dunlap had a really good game.
- TE: Saw Marlin Klein's speed, has a good feel for timing blocks. Saw some Tonielli too.
- OL: Hard to judge Persi from guard, Gentry moved guys but also had some breakdowns. Big drop from there to Link, who looks like a future player. Like some young Cs, Raheem Anderson stood up to Grant, Guarnera looked plausible at guard.
- DT: Both Benny and Pierce were out so we saw Ike and some DEs they had to move down. Keep an eye out for Chibi Anwunah next year. Joey Klunder played hard.
- Edge: Guy is real.
- LB: Barham is big and can move. Hausmann looked really good. Rolder looked really good.
- S: Hard to tell, but Oden is a lot bigger than we thought, might be ready to contribute early.
- CB: Waller and Hill coming on.
- Waller to the portal: Sam says sometimes a guy asks for way more than the pay scale. There's a lot of nodding and talking around without actually saying that Kentucky has a reputation for promising more than they deliver. Schools have got to be sick of this by now. Sam: Gotta live in today, which means you gotta go tamper.
- Dusty May Builds a Dusty May Program Overnight! These guys were all primary creators for their teams; Rubin Jones is also an elite defender. Choosing to pursue Tre Donaldson of the two Auburn guys shows Dusty knew what he was doing, took the path of greater resistance. Roddy Gayle is in the draft if he doesn't shoot 28% from three, and he had a wrist injury to explain it. Sam Walters shot 43% on *contested* threes, because when you're a 6'10" pogo stick there's no such thing as a contest. Danny Wolf is a very underrated creator, should team with Goldin to be the best pair of Cs in the B10? Nimari Burnett can actually be Nimari now, and Tschetter can Tschetter.
- Concerns: They all have elevated TO rates (should come down as they aren't all forced to be creators), they're a bit weak defensively at the four (Walters has length but he was a beanpole freshman last year), and it's going to take time for everyone to get used to playing together.
- We're gonna LOVE Rubin Jones. Very good rebounder, very smart ballplayer, put Johnell Davis in a hell, which is probably why May wanted to go and get him.
- NFL Draft? Sorry out of time.
[Hit the JUMP for the player, and video and stuff]
You can catch the entire episode on Michigan Insider's podcast stream.
Part 2 is here. Watch the video here:
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If they play a bunch of walk-ons wearing #31 we're set.
April 25th, 2024 at 11:10 AM ^
Waller's decision would make so much more sense if it were made next year. Aren't going to start your 3rd year in the program and want to go somewhere where its assured you will be a starter? I can get that, that's the Sabb route.
Just don't get it this year.
Waller leaving makes sense for him, he's probably making more money at Kentucky thru NIL. And he's going to get a little more playing time & probably play for a coach who he liked 2nd most to Clink. Am I sad to see him go - because he was going to absolutely be a piece for the Nation's top 5 or 10 defense - absolutely.
Welcome to the new land of NIL - where you just can't afford your 2 or 3-deep unless you're funneling money for drugs/crime.
he's probably making more money at Kentucky thru NIL.
He was probably promised more money at Kentucky. Whether he actually gets what he was promised remains to be seen...
April 25th, 2024 at 11:11 AM ^
Who would have thought there's a downside to "paying the players"?
April 25th, 2024 at 11:25 AM ^
It's not so much the pay as the presence or absence of rules and contracts around the pay that are the problem. Pro leagues don't have that problem because it's not free agency free-for-all every single offseason, with functionally no caps on rosters.
April 25th, 2024 at 11:41 AM ^
Right, it's complete anarchy. Programs are offering money they aren't paying -- doesn't matter if you lied, you still have them stuck for a year, and you're not allowed to sign players to contracts anyway. Programs are lying about other programs. Programs are tampering the hell out of each other because the NCAA isn't enforcing any rules except burgers and cell phones.
This is not an environment to like if you love sports or even have basic empathy. This is a system of, by, and for psychopaths.
April 25th, 2024 at 12:14 PM ^
Rueing the day isn't a strength of the prescient ones who advocated for this easily foreseeable outcome.
Yes, some players may wind up leaving the team you like for a situation that doesn't wind up actually being in their best interests. But at least they'll be able to negotiate some of that in the open and will, you assume, have more transparency and opportunity to determine their financial value. This isn't some great tragedy that a guy who wanted to be treated as a starter wasn't and thus took an opportunity to play elsewhere.
The system before this vested immense power in rich, mostly older, mostly white men who were coaches who could control player movement and access, with a layer above them being the billion-dollar organizations that garnered said billions off the backs of these athletes who were blocked by yet another group of largely older, rich men from getting virtually any above-board access to the immense money they generate because of "something something amateurism something something love of the game". And guys were still getting paid under-the-table at this time, but with far less negotiating power and still highly restricted movement opportunities.
The issue is that the same organization that made it their mission to stop players from gaining access to their wealth then had no functional idea how to govern said players once they got this access, despite seeing that particular train coming literally miles down the track. This should come as no surprise to UM fans but the NCAA's gross incompetence at fashioning a functional player compensation and NIL process is why you have Kentucky-like situations, and so seemingly blaming the players because they're trying to navigate this wild west seems silly to me.
I'm not so sure it's incompetence. The current system is not costing the NCAA or the member schools much if anything. It's primarily dark money, boosters, and collectives. The NCAA and its members are still collecting the same revenue without having to shell out for player salaries.
Yes and no. I agree the NCAA isn't on the hook but they wouldn't be anyway. But while schools aren't directly paying out to players there's a finite amount of money boosters/collectives have and previously a decent chunk of that money was going to the schools for various fundraising measures. If that is funneled to the players the schools see less of it. So indirectly it is costing them something.
April 25th, 2024 at 12:21 PM ^
Right, it's the wild west now but it will get sorted out either by regulation and/or market forces. The lack of restrictions on transfers is also a major contributing factor. The OP comment here is disingenuous to insinuate this chaos is due to "paying the players"; that's been happening for decades.
April 25th, 2024 at 12:25 PM ^
True. The problem is that for the better part of a decade now the general public and talking heads have done nothing but bash and pressure the schools and NCAA (and yes, the NCAA sucks).
What started as a reasonable take of "the players deserve a piece of the pie" turned into "players deserve more money with no restrictions on anything. They should be able to transfer anywhere they want, whenever they want, for whatever reason they want and its unfair that they should have to sit out a season if they do so". If you didn't support this people said you were an asshole trying to take advantage of these poor kids when in reality it was just another façade behind which people could virtue signal and show how much more empathetic they were than everyone else. Anyone with a brain knew there would be unintended consequences that would cause some real issues which the sport is now going to have to reckon with.
April 25th, 2024 at 12:37 PM ^
The NCAA refusing to cede ground on "amateurism" is the heart of the issue, IMO. They missed their opportunity to allow payments but with restrictions, or to enable contract structures. Instead they dug in their heels on amateur status until the courts simply took away their ability to enforce anything, which has led to anarchy. There's an alternate reality where the NCAA creates an actual structure around player payments (sometime in the mid-2000s) and college sports suck significantly less in 2024.
April 25th, 2024 at 12:39 PM ^
I agree 100%. And the NCAA failing to do so laid the ground work for where the sport finds itself today.
I think almost everyone is still missing the point that it's the schools making the huge money, and that allowing the players to make money didn't address that in any way. It's a diversion, took everyone's eyes off the ball and the critical issue. Everyone's mesmerized by the ability of a handful of players getting big money when what's wanted is revenue sharing.
The players are still making the schools money, but not getting paid by the schools for making it. The NCAA and the schools haven't given up anything.
April 25th, 2024 at 11:55 AM ^
What's the downside? Players transfer in and out of schools more frequently than before? That has as much to do with the new portal rules as NIL.
Not sure why this is being down voted, it is basically correct. Letting players make money is not the problem, the double whammy of money and unrestrained freedom of movement is. If you had to sit out a year after transferring the tampering would diminish greatly because you are not an instant fix for a team not to mention you are far less likely to get a sizable NIL deal not playing for a year. At some point this be resolved by collective bargaining and contracts limiting the movement but until then we just have to grin and bear it.
There isn’t a downside to paying the players per se. There’s a downside to the current feet dragging on the matter. No one objects to paying grad students to teach in place of faculty, but everyone objects to paying the cash cows whose blood sport funds cushy salaries for the athletics C-suite along with all the country club sports.
April 25th, 2024 at 11:56 AM ^
You'd think if the data showed someone shot better contested you'd just go, "OK we can guard the other four players with five."
April 25th, 2024 at 12:11 PM ^
To counter Kentucky tampering can't we just revert back to our go to and offer cheeseburgers? Great minds feel it gave us an edge.
If you're about the bag more than the team to the point you'd rather go to Kentucky? C-YA.
Shame because the little we've seen looked promising. Next man up.
In the words of the immortal Kelly LeBrock - “Don’t hate me because I’m beautiful.”
Seth.
April 26th, 2024 at 12:55 PM ^
brad.
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