Yes as I mentioned in the last post and we all saw, Silas is gone.

However, I got another chance to talk with my people, I got more bad news..

This could just be the beginning. I was given a few names, I will not say anything else until I get confirmation that I can speak on it, but I will say this...

Just about every scholarship player on the roster is on the fence whether they return or not, I am talking 50/50. A key thing is going to be the order in which people declare for the portal. I am told to believe that a lot of choices are going to be made off of what the rest of the roster does.

This is going to be a long offseason and I am under the impression that until a player officially announces they are returning, expect them to be shopping around or at least hearing offers.

Examples of this could be as follows (this is me using my context clues and making inferences from what I know)

- What abson does most likely is dependent on Somto
- What dylan james does likely is dependent on RJ Godfrey

I actually have been told to have some faith and confidence in Blue staying. Not a lock but his NIL package is being adjusted so we can be healthy in his NIL bidding war.

Sounds like there is not much buy-in to the program. How do the players feel about the coaching staff? Are all the players just focused on NIL or do they not believe that the team with the coaching staff can have sustainable winning success?

What schools are keeping the majority of their players from year to year and how are they doing that?

NCAA basketball is less entertaining because there is no loyalty and no buy-in to build a program. Just looking to money and the next best thing.

Reading back on what I said, I realize I do sound to pessimistic. Yes, there is going to be lots of roster turnover every year going forward. That is the reality for mid P4 schools like us. We are going to snatch up all the good mid major players that transfer up (Dakota), bu we are also going to lose all the P4 high quality players that we develop into studs (Silas). This is just the reality. Every player every year moving forward is going to consider hitting the portal and field offers, so the fact that a lot of people are on the fence, yes is alarming but we (myself lol) need to take a second to breath and trust the process and system in place. If we see that year in and year out Mike White cannot retain the players we need to retain, then maybe we need to reconsider the ground work he has laid.

To the roster, I have had continued conversations and the reality is we are going to keep a few guys. Will we end up seeing more guys who were on scholarship this year leave than stay? I would say that is pretty likely, but I imagine that CMW will keep 3-4 guys. If I had to guess realistically from what I hear, we keep Blue, Dylan, Abson, and hopefully RJ. If that is the core you keep, you CAN work with that. Losing Silas and Somto really damages and hurts that core, but it is not completely ruined.

If Mike White manages to lose the entire core, I would honestly argue that this is grounds for firing because this should not be the case as our NIL is competitive and our facilities are good. I think that players like Mike White. I know he is well liked off the court by players, not only is he a good person and has a decent track record, he is he is a good recruiter and that is proof. The X's and O's are maybe more questionable.

I think the program buy in is there, but seeing guys like Silas lose hurts that.

To end on a good note, I heard some names we are looking at in the portal. Some are good. Some are eh, so I hope that we can carry some momentum over into the portal.

Looks like Godfrey transfering? Is James > Godfrey?

We would much rather have Godfrey. James didn't live up to his potential this year on the offensive end. He needs to figure out his shot.

DenmarkDane said:

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We would much rather have Godfrey. James didn't live up to his potential this year on the offensive end. He needs to figure out his shot.

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I agree if we are talking about next year, but James still has 2 years of eligibility left. Not sure if that means anything anymore with all the transferring, though...