Would rather have Zak play the 3 exclusively with Dawkins backing him, and have Robinson and MAAR at the 2, but it’s not clear who would play the 4 in that case.
We need a more traditional 4 to provide more net value than Duncan, before that’s possible. Kam looks like the best bet, because; I just dont see a Wagner(4)+Donnal(5) lineup happening with any kind of regularity. But that means that (Zak + Kam) has to bring more production than (Zak + Duncan) which would require a pretty big improvement on Kam’s part
AJ Harris leaving Ohio State officially now too.
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What in the world is going on at Ohio St? Quite the alarming number of transfers.
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Are there any reports/player comments that hint at the reasoning for the mass exodus?
What TF is happening at Ohio State? Four 4-star freshmen leave in year one…
That said, if you go over to Eleven Warriors, the two main theories are (1) Matta must be leaving and (2) “Yay! More space for more 4-star freshmen!” Very different mindset over there.
Every case is different, but NONE of those players that are leaving OSU was ever going to be a difference maker in my opinion. I know they’re young, but they all seem to be vastly over rated from what I saw from them this year.
Hopefully they rue the day they projected Harris to be a better prospect than Simpson going forward.
Actually sorry to see them all go, that core was really limited in a lot of areas.
I was just at the Schott with a group of kids today. Should’ve asked the video coordinator that showed us around lol
There were some pretty blunt 1 on 1 end of the year meetings with Thad and some players didn’t like what they were told. Some thought they were bigger than the program and acted that way in the meeting. Thad threw transfer papers at them and told them to leave.
I heard this from a close friend who would know just a few hours ago.
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Thad didn’t show them enough love 
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Nothing wrong with cutting bait with MAC players! None of those transfers are that long on talent.
Whether they had attitudes or not, they were all vastly over ranked coming out of HS.
Is that smart of Thad? That’s basically their entire bench gone.
After letting Burke slip to us because of Craft and Scott, if Simpson does excel after OSU ignored him because of Harris (and I guess Lyle), it would be a tough pill for OSU fans
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I would say yes. There’s no place in a program for a kid to talk back to a coach no matter how good that kid is.
From what I was told, some of the transfers (not all) were not happy about their playing time this past year and when told it wasn’t going to change, they acted out.
You’re right – Matta is so obsessed with athleticism that he lets some of the more skilled guys slip through his fingers.
On the other hand, if Wesson ends up being better than Teske, it would be a bitter pill for Michigan fans to swallow (at least those who want to see an uptick in big-man recruiting).
I feel like you should try to keep some depth.
While I think there is some inherent drop-off by swapping players who have had a year in your system for players (HS or transfers) who havent, unfortunately I think Thad wont have a hard time scraping together “some depth.” It’s a good program and he is a good coach, the cream of what’s left of the crop, between HS and transfers, will probably flock to him.
That’s certainly possible, but it leaves little room for errors and/or misses.
No doubt. But if anybody is in a position to say, “I am the boss and this University/I demand your respect and best effort, or you can leave” and get away with it/pull it off, then Thad is one of those guys.
Regardless of who transferred and why they did, they are going to be bad. They can get a few grad transfers, but they will have too many missing pieces they didn’t expect. As of now, their roster for next year has 9 players and one is a walk-on. There just simply will be too much missing to be a good team.