Recruiting - 2024

[BLIKNS]

Went to Middlebrooks website.

www.middlebrooksacafemy.com

( they are the Sphinx)

Have a section with College coaches at their gym.  One photo has Ford and Charles Thomas in the picture, with other coaches .

 

[BLIKNS]

www.middlebrooksacademy.com

 

Oopsie

[HoosierPal]

15 minutes ago, brianstl said:

Well, high school recruits aren't part of our NIL collective's philosophy. So any MBM's who wanted to help pony up to the collective to land this kid couldn't. 

You can promise him the world and deliver it when he shows up here. Always a way around the ‘rules’. 

A random website shows about half the states allow some form of NIL for high school athletes. The Texas HS QB to Ohio State is well publicized. 

[brianstl]

14 minutes ago, HoosierPal said:

You can promise him the world and deliver it when he shows up here. Always a way around the ‘rules’. 

A random website shows about half the states allow some form of NIL for high school athletes. The Texas HS QB to Ohio State is well publicized. 

But the BVF doesn't appear to be interested in bidding on high school recruits.  At least that is what their philosophy would lead potential donors to believe.  

Want to give money right now to Yuri? Well that is BVF's number priority, so your good.  Want to give money to land a high school recruit, they aren't onboard with that.

[HoosierPal]

9 minutes ago, brianstl said:

But the BVF doesn't appear to be interested in bidding on high school recruits.  At least that is what their philosophy would lead potential donors to believe.  

Want to give money right now to Yuri? Well that is BVF's number priority, so your good.  Want to give money to land a high school recruit, they aren't onboard with that.

You don’t think there is a way to get this done. Get creative my man!  There are other ways besides the BVL. 

[billiken_roy]

the little i have grasped about this BVF tells me it is nothing more than a way to pacify the botton 3/4 of the roster and the whales will take care of the rest.  there is no negotiation, it is a take it and like it. proposition. 

this whole "system' is out of control.   there is no way this will work out to the billikens benefit and all the rules are designed for the big boy schools to dominate and the rest of us will get nothing and like it.  what a titanic disaster awaits from my view.  

[juniorbill76]

1 hour ago, billiken_roy said:

the little i have grasped about this BVF tells me it is nothing more than a way to pacify the botton 3/4 of the roster and the whales will take care of the rest.  there is no negotiation, it is a take it and like it. proposition. 

this whole "system' is out of control.   there is no way this will work out to the billikens benefit and all the rules are designed for the big boy schools to dominate and the rest of us will get nothing and like it.  what a titanic disaster awaits from my view.  

Did you say we'll get nothing and like it? That's my line, harrumph. (I'll give you asthma.)

[billikenbill]

15 hours ago, billiken_roy said:

the little i have grasped about this BVF tells me it is nothing more than a way to pacify the botton 3/4 of the roster and the whales will take care of the rest.  there is no negotiation, it is a take it and like it. proposition. 

this whole "system' is out of control.   there is no way this will work out to the billikens benefit and all the rules are designed for the big boy schools to dominate and the rest of us will get nothing and like it.  what a titanic disaster awaits from my view.  

Mundo correcto.

[Lord Elrond]

17 hours ago, billiken_roy said:

this whole "system' is out of control.   there is no way this will work out to the billikens benefit and all the rules are designed for the big boy schools to dominate and the rest of us will get nothing and like it.  what a titanic disaster awaits from my view.  

One thing that I think Troy was right on was near the end where he said he thought the whole system wasn’t sustainable over the long haul. The idea that people will contribute ever larger amounts of money to just directly pay for athletes to play is ridiculous.  The average fan has spending limits that they can’t go over because they need the money to do things like pay the bills.  There will be some small number of billionaires who will stroke their own egos by buying championships for their schools until someone makes them stop. The idea that that makes it a fair competition whose outcome matters I just don’t get, it strikes me as turning the whole idea of competition into something where Mommy and Daddy just buy their child a trophy by hiring pro athletes to beat the kids of the poor parents. It will just result in most people tuning out of caring about the outcome and finding some other way spend their money and time instead of attending and watching college sports.

[3star_recruit]

16 minutes ago, Lord Elrond said:

One thing that I think Troy was right on was near the end where he said he thought the whole system wasn’t sustainable over the long haul. The idea that people will contribute ever larger amounts of money to just directly pay for athletes to play is ridiculous.  The average fan has spending limits that they can’t go over because they need the money to do things like pay the bills.  There will be some small number of billionaires who will stroke their own egos by buying championships for their schools until someone makes them stop. The idea that that makes it a fair competition whose outcome matters I just don’t get, it strikes me as turning the whole idea of competition into something where Mommy and Daddy just buy their child a trophy by hiring pro athletes to beat the kids of the poor parents. It will just result in most people tuning out of caring about the outcome and finding some other way spend their money and time instead of attending and watching college sports.

Troy's absolutely right.  It's not sustainable.   In the short term the arms race will price mid-majors out of the market.  And  after that it will price out the poorer P5s.  If I wanted to see just 30 teams in competition with each other, I'd watch the NBA.

[billikenbill]

57 minutes ago, 3star_recruit said:

Troy's absolutely right.  It's not sustainable.   In the short term the arms race will price mid-majors out of the market.  And  after that it will price out the poorer P5s.  If I wanted to see just 30 teams in competition with each other, I'd watch the NBA.

Out of reactions, good post.

[Pistol]

Except that football and TV-driven conference realignment is the bigger threat to the competitive sustainability of non-power conference programs than NIL is.

No, we don't have the ability to fundraise like a school with SEC football, but we also don't need to raise as much because we don't have football. If we had a stronger NIL bag, we'd be competitive at the level we want to compete at.

NIL hasn't shifted the balance of power. The big programs that are winning at NIL were already big, dominant programs. Smaller programs struggling to keep up were already smaller programs struggling to keep up.

Power conferences growing to 16+ teams, TV networks starting their own postseason tournaments, non-conference schedules shrinking, the NCAA growing ever more useless - these are the existential threats to SLU and the A10.

[Lord Elrond]

4 minutes ago, Pistol said:

Except that football and TV-driven conference realignment is the bigger threat to the competitive sustainability of non-power conference programs than NIL is.

No, we don't have the ability to fundraise like a school with SEC football, but we also don't need to raise as much because we don't have football. If we had a stronger NIL bag, we'd be competitive at the level we want to compete at.

NIL hasn't shifted the balance of power. The big programs that are winning at NIL were already big, dominant programs. Smaller programs struggling to keep up were already smaller programs struggling to keep up.

Power conferences growing to 16+ teams, TV networks starting their own postseason tournaments, non-conference schedules shrinking, the NCAA growing ever more useless - these are the existential threats to SLU and the A10.

I would argue that in the longer term it’s also an existential threat to the big power conferences, they need the casual fans to keep pulling in more money

[willie]

The AP preseason poll came out yesterday Three beast teams in the top 10  Somehow Creighton and Marquette are surviving in this NIL world. It would be interesting to know what their NIL programs are. 

[3star_recruit]

14 minutes ago, Pistol said:

Except that football and TV-driven conference realignment is the bigger threat to the competitive sustainability of non-power conference programs than NIL is.

No, we don't have the ability to fundraise like a school with SEC football, but we also don't need to raise as much because we don't have football. If we had a stronger NIL bag, we'd be competitive at the level we want to compete at.

NIL hasn't shifted the balance of power. The big programs that are winning at NIL were already big, dominant programs. Smaller programs struggling to keep up were already smaller programs struggling to keep up.

Power conferences growing to 16+ teams, TV networks starting their own postseason tournaments, non-conference schedules shrinking, the NCAA growing ever more useless - these are the existential threats to SLU and the A10.

What number do you mean by strong NIL bag?  And what mid-major programs have it?

[wgstl]

21 minutes ago, 3star_recruit said:

What number do you mean by strong NIL bag?  And what mid-major programs have it?

The t3-5 programs of most MM conferences Id think have a bigger NIL pool than us.

 

 

[Pistol]

6 minutes ago, 3star_recruit said:

What number do you mean by strong NIL bag?  And what mid-major programs have it?

I don't know a specific number. Do you?

I know we're getting beaten head-to-head for almost every non-international recruit we've pursued since NIL opened up. North Texas and Creighton took committed players from us. Using just the 2024 class, we've offered guys who have committed to the following schools: Oklahoma, Ole Miss, Drake, FAU, Villanova (x3), Miami, St. Bonaventure, Mizzou, South Carolina, SMU, Rutgers, Cleveland State, UNT, Mississippi State, and Northwestern. 3 other offered players currently have lists of finalists that do not include SLU.

We landed Dalger, Meadows, and Ezewiro from the portal. The list of schools who landed players we recruited from the portal is way longer than the 2024 list above. Listening to Troy yesterday, it sounds like we're not directing NIL toward HS players and focusing on player retention first and transfers second (which creates an obvious question to me that was not asked), so we're going to see more transfers than prep players unless something changes. However, we aren't competitive in the higher tiers of transfer recruiting.

I'm not sure how you define "mid-major" because everyone seems to look at it differently. But if I'm looking at non-football power conferences (and non-Big East) in 2024, I'm seeing some nice recruiting wins in the MWC (UNLV, SDSU), along with Wichita State, Old Dominion, and James Madison. All of them have landed multiple quality commitments already. I have no idea what NIL dollar figures they're operating with - I just know they're seeing results. I would venture a bet that Dayton and VCU are operating with larger budgets than we are, and that pains me to no end.

[3star_recruit]

25 minutes ago, Pistol said:

I don't know a specific number. Do you?

I know we're getting beaten head-to-head for almost every non-international recruit we've pursued since NIL opened up. North Texas and Creighton took committed players from us. Using just the 2024 class, we've offered guys who have committed to the following schools: Oklahoma, Ole Miss, Drake, FAU, Villanova (x3), Miami, St. Bonaventure, Mizzou, South Carolina, SMU, Rutgers, Cleveland State, UNT, Mississippi State, and Northwestern. 3 other offered players currently have lists of finalists that do not include SLU.

We landed Dalger, Meadows, and Ezewiro from the portal. The list of schools who landed players we recruited from the portal is way longer than the 2024 list above. Listening to Troy yesterday, it sounds like we're not directing NIL toward HS players and focusing on player retention first and transfers second (which creates an obvious question to me that was not asked), so we're going to see more transfers than prep players unless something changes. However, we aren't competitive in the higher tiers of transfer recruiting.

I'm not sure how you define "mid-major" because everyone seems to look at it differently. But if I'm looking at non-football power conferences (and non-Big East) in 2024, I'm seeing some nice recruiting wins in the MWC (UNLV, SDSU), along with Wichita State, Old Dominion, and James Madison. All of them have landed multiple quality commitments already. I have no idea what NIL dollar figures they're operating with - I just know they're seeing results. I would venture a bet that Dayton and VCU are operating with larger budgets than we are, and that pains me to no end.

Thank you for your honesty.  I'm not sure what NIL dollar figures they're operating with either.  I do know the surviving Koch brother, who is the biggest donor to Wichita State athletics and who their arena is named after, is worth over $60 billion.  Gotta be nice.

[brianstl]

Being a mid major isn't the reason SLU can't compete in NIL.  Programs can't put any money they earn into NIL.  NIL is the one place that SLU should be on equal footing with many high major programs if people in and around the program put a real effort into it.  The problem is that SLU doesn't want to compete when it comes to NIL. The BVF's philosophy statement makes that clear, Shempie's post on this board makes that clear and Troy's comments yesterday makes that clear.  SLU is unwilling to even try to compete at this point.  SLU has what would be the fifth largest alumni base in the Big East.  Bigger than Marquette's. It doesn't have to compete with a NBA team for attention for it's basketball players. There is no excuse for SLU not to be able to not only compete with Marquette when it comes to NIL dollars to high school recruits, but they should exceed them.  They should be absolutely obliterating offers Butler makes to players. So I'm not hear for the crying for mid majors stuff.   

[shempie]

1 hour ago, Pistol said:

I don't know a specific number. Do you?

I know we're getting beaten head-to-head for almost every non-international recruit we've pursued since NIL opened up. North Texas and Creighton took committed players from us. Using just the 2024 class, we've offered guys who have committed to the following schools: Oklahoma, Ole Miss, Drake, FAU, Villanova (x3), Miami, St. Bonaventure, Mizzou, South Carolina, SMU, Rutgers, Cleveland State, UNT, Mississippi State, and Northwestern. 3 other offered players currently have lists of finalists that do not include SLU.

We landed Dalger, Meadows, and Ezewiro from the portal. The list of schools who landed players we recruited from the portal is way longer than the 2024 list above. Listening to Troy yesterday, it sounds like we're not directing NIL toward HS players and focusing on player retention first and transfers second (which creates an obvious question to me that was not asked), so we're going to see more transfers than prep players unless something changes. However, we aren't competitive in the higher tiers of transfer recruiting.

I'm not sure how you define "mid-major" because everyone seems to look at it differently. But if I'm looking at non-football power conferences (and non-Big East) in 2024, I'm seeing some nice recruiting wins in the MWC (UNLV, SDSU), along with Wichita State, Old Dominion, and James Madison. All of them have landed multiple quality commitments already. I have no idea what NIL dollar figures they're operating with - I just know they're seeing results. I would venture a bet that Dayton and VCU are operating with larger budgets than we are, and that pains me to no end.

And sadly, St. Bonaventure. 

[3star_recruit]

28 minutes ago, brianstl said:

Being a mid major isn't the reason SLU can't compete in NIL.  Programs can't put any money they earn into NIL.  NIL is the one place that SLU should be on equal footing with many high major programs if people in and around the program put a real effort into it.  The problem is that SLU doesn't want to compete when it comes to NIL. The BVF's philosophy statement makes that clear, Schempie's post on this board makes that clear and Troy's comments yesterday makes that clear.  SLU is unwilling to even try to compete at this point.  SLU has what would be the fifth largest alumni base in the Big East.  Bigger than Marquette's. It doesn't have to compete with a NBA team for attention for it's basketball players. There is no excuse for SLU not to be able to not only compete with Marquette when it comes to NIL dollars to high school recruits, but they should exceed them.  They should be absolutely obliterating offers Butler makes to players. So I'm not hear for the crying for mid majors stuff.   

You are right, Marquette has a much stronger winning tradition, and a stronger base of wealthy, fanatical basketball fans than we do.  It'll be interesting seeing how Butler fares in this new environment.  I suspect they don't have enough money to attract top 100 high school players.

[Pistol]

3 minutes ago, 3star_recruit said:

You are right, Marquette has a much stronger winning tradition, and a stronger base of wealthy, fanatical basketball fans than we do.  It'll be interesting seeing how Butler fares in this new environment.  I suspect they don't have enough money to attract top 100 high school players.

That might be true, but they're beating us head-to-head in the next tier. Finley Bizjack was in the 100-140 range in recruiting rankings, and they also took Connor Turnbull out of our backyard.

Troy said McDonald's All-Americans are $300,000-$400,000 per year "and rising", with the top tier of transfers "even higher than that" because they're proven commodities.

If SLU and the BVF are focused on player retention, the real value may be in that 100-250 range of HS players. Then spend to retain them. That's where I would focus instead of waiting to see which transfers are still left over after the power conferences have stocked their rosters.

[cgeldmacher]

55 minutes ago, brianstl said:

Being a mid major isn't the reason SLU can't compete in NIL.  Programs can't put any money they earn into NIL.  NIL is the one place that SLU should be on equal footing with many high major programs if people in and around the program put a real effort into it.  The problem is that SLU doesn't want to compete when it comes to NIL. The BVF's philosophy statement makes that clear, Shempie's post on this board makes that clear and Troy's comments yesterday makes that clear.  SLU is unwilling to even try to compete at this point.  SLU has what would be the fifth largest alumni base in the Big East.  Bigger than Marquette's. It doesn't have to compete with a NBA team for attention for it's basketball players. There is no excuse for SLU not to be able to not only compete with Marquette when it comes to NIL dollars to high school recruits, but they should exceed them.  They should be absolutely obliterating offers Butler makes to players. So I'm not hear for the crying for mid majors stuff.   

The problem is not us being a mid major.  The problem is competing with schools with way more alumni than us.  I just looked at a website that says that SLU has about 137,000 alumni.  Big state schools have way more alumni than us.  After that, it's just a numbers game.  If the BFV has the same amount of success that in getting the same percentage of SLU alumni to donate as one of these schools, then those other schools still will have three, or four, or five times as much to spend on building their teams than we would.  In the past, we have had some success by convincing some local kids to stay home rather than go to the big guys.  Now, we have no chance if we are offering a kid $30,000 and another school is offering $100,000.  Over time, SLU and schools similar to SLU will fade into insignificance and it will not be because of our coach, our AD, or the guys volunteering their time to run the BFV.  It will be 100% because the system that was already stacked against us suddenly became even way more stacked against us.

[Pistol]

1 minute ago, cgeldmacher said:

The problem is not us being a mid major.  The problem is competing with schools with way more alumni than us.  I just looked at a website that says that SLU has about 137,000 alumni.  Big state schools have way more alumni than us.  After that, it's just a numbers game.  If the BFV has the same amount of success that in getting the same percentage of SLU alumni to donate as one of these schools, then those other schools still will have three, or four, or five times as much to spend on building their teams than we would.  In the past, we have had some success by convincing some local kids to stay home rather than go to the big guys.  Now, we have no chance if we are offering a kid $30,000 and another school is offering $100,000.  Over time, SLU and schools similar to SLU will fade into insignificance and it will not be because of our coach, our AD, or the guys volunteering their time to run the BFV.  It will be 100% because the system that was already stacked against us suddenly became even way more stacked against us.

You'd also have to factor in football, though. 85 scholarships per team, bigger crowds, more attention, more NIL funding required. Even if there's only one NIL collective at a given school and if donors are giving to a single collective and not just one sport, a football program is going to be taking the bulk of that funding. It makes it harder to do an apples-to-apples comparison but you have to carve out the football part of it and that leaves even the biggest schools with only so much funding for basketball.

Yes, the big programs are still going to have more money to spend on basketball. But there are three things that contradict the "more alumni, more money, we can't compete" theory:

1. Big East schools are still competitive. 7 Big East programs already have 2 or more 2024 commitments, and they're mostly beating power conference teams for these players.

2. Some of the biggest success stories in NIL so far are from private schools outside the Big East - Duke, Miami, USC, Baylor, TCU, and even Notre Dame are all doing really well with recruiting right now.

3. The balance of power really hasn't shifted. The same bluebloods that already existed are still the same programs winning recruiting battles. They're succeeding because they have a fan base that won't accept anything less and they're ponying up for it.

We shouldn't see NIL as yet another reason we're at a competitive disadvantage. NIL is an opportunity for schools outside the existing power structure to compete. If we were to fund NIL as if we were already a power, we would start to compete with those teams. And since we're nowhere near that level in the meantime, it's a matter of getting the most value out of what we have.

I don't disagree when you say the system is stacked against SLU and the A10, but NIL isn't the reason why.

[3star_recruit]

2 minutes ago, Pistol said:

You'd also have to factor in football, though. 85 scholarships per team, bigger crowds, more attention, more NIL funding required. Even if there's only one NIL collective at a given school and if donors are giving to a single collective and not just one sport, a football program is going to be taking the bulk of that funding. It makes it harder to do an apples-to-apples comparison but you have to carve out the football part of it and that leaves even the biggest schools with only so much funding for basketball.

Yes, the big programs are still going to have more money to spend on basketball. But there are three things that contradict the "more alumni, more money, we can't compete" theory:

1. Big East schools are still competitive. 7 Big East programs already have 2 or more 2024 commitments, and they're mostly beating power conference teams for these players.

2. Some of the biggest success stories in NIL so far are from private schools outside the Big East - Duke, Miami, USC, Baylor, TCU, and even Notre Dame are all doing really well with recruiting right now.

3. The balance of power really hasn't shifted. The same bluebloods that already existed are still the same programs winning recruiting battles. They're succeeding because they have a fan base that won't accept anything less and they're ponying up for it.

We shouldn't see NIL as yet another reason we're at a competitive disadvantage. NIL is an opportunity for schools outside the existing power structure to compete. If we were to fund NIL as if we were already a power, we would start to compete with those teams. And since we're nowhere near that level in the meantime, it's a matter of getting the most value out of what we have.

I don't disagree when you say the system is stacked against SLU and the A10, but NIL isn't the reason why.

Before NIL we could at least land the occasional top 100 player.   Those days are over.  Our old-school whales are not interested in paying 100K for a high school player who hasn't accomplished anything.  And the rest of us together don't have that kind of money.

Can you imagine our whales ever adopting the mindset that spending 100K on the occasional Carteare Gordon is the cost of doing business?  I can't.