I believe if Armoni Brooks does not hire an agent he can come back if not drafted.
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I think he would only be allowed to return if he was invited to the combine and did not get drafted. But I’m not 100% sure of that.
I really am curious who cancelled Mack’s trip. Given the gaping hole we now have, it would have been surprising for us to do it without a solid alternative, unless after doing diligence we determined the potential culture fit issues weren’t worth it.
Pesik’s right that recruits cancel later visits all the time, but it is kind of weird he would still have Oregon as an option and cancel his trip here, especially after they just got Mathis. It seems more likely Mack cancelled, but IDK. I hope this means we’ve got someone we like about to commit.
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Does Landon Goesling have any eligibility left ???
I keed, I keed
Even if we are not adding anyone to the rotation for this upcoming season, our team will be fine. Hinton should take a jump, Mills and Sasser will be strong contributors, and Justin Gorham will be great.
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Thats quite the assumption 
No, the deadline passed for him to declare that he was coming back and he decided to stay in the draft. He can’t come back at this point.
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I hear he told several of the players he wasn’t coming back way before he told the coaches
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These things are all possible but not certain, especially counting on freshmen to be solid contributors (moreso Sasser since he didn’t have the extra semester) and counting on a transfer who was good but not great in the CAA to be great in the AAC.
You should watch some of the highlight videos of ‘the transfer who was good but not great’. Might sing a different tune.
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In my mind, I see our frontcourt situation as losing Brady but replacing him with an upgrade in Gorham. Gorham looks to be a better post player than Brady was, but also has a jumpshot and can use his shooting threat to drive to the rim. He has a diverse skillset that will translate well on our team. There’s also no way he’ll foul as much as Brady did.
Sasser and Mills are in good situations. They will get playtime, but also not be thrust into situation where they need to do too much. We’ll probably expect more out of Mills than Sasser, as Mills has had more time in the system, but all Sasser needs to do to have a successful season in my mind is to limit turnovers, play good defense, and take open shots when they’re given to him. It’s not unreasonable to expect the kind of season from these guys that we just saw Nate Hinton have.
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Pretty much asking for Sasser to play significant minutes and hope we don’t lose someone to a serious injury since we only has 10 players on schollyships.
Are you talking about his highlights from Towson? I’ve seen them. For one, you can put together a good minute or two highlight reel for almost any player and you can’t just watch a minute and a half of him making solid basketball plays and disregard his stats.
I’m not down on the guy at all. Two years ago when people were saying “why are we recruiting some guy who didn’t tear it up at Towson and isn’t even immediately eligible?” I said it was a solid pickup based on his highlights, stats and potential to get better and that he could be a solid contributor for us. I feel even better about it based on what the staff has said about him. But I also think the expectations on here for him have gotten a little over the top.
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Gorham should be better than Brady but is different. Brady did bring some size to bang around. In any event, I don’t mean this to dog Brady because he was a valuable contributor on two really good teams, but “better than Brady” and “great” are not exactly the same thing to me.
I think “expecting” Sasser to replicate Hinton’s freshman year is unreasonable. Nate had better measurables to step in right away at this level. He was also a much more highly regarded recruit. It’s certainly possible Sasser could come in and be as good or better than Nate was last year. It’s also possible he could be another Mike Adewunmi (whose recruiting profile is more similar to Sasser’s than Nate’s).
That’s a good point regarding Sasser. I think Mills’ expectation should be at Hinton levels of production or better, considering that he’s been here longer and how highly he has been touted by Sampson as a scorer.
From what I’ve seen, Sasser has a pretty college-ready body already. Main question for me for both is can they keep up with the rotations on defense? If they can, then I think they’ll be fine on offense.
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my take on gorham: i cant see him as a replacement for brady based on the size difference. i think gorham will be better than brady but they arent in the same position
will also be curious to see how the difference in the size between our leagues will affect gorham- us and tulane are the only 2 aac teams that wont have a 6’10+ player heavily in rotation…no dominant caa bigs
–another interesting transition will be 3pt shooting, he never shot it at towson unless he was forced (shot clock, etc.)…Sampson called him one for the better 3pt shooters on the team…
but i also expect him to be good because all the players seem to gravitate towards him, and he posted stuff about expectations and not afraid of anyone etc… he’s been here a year, so he and the teammates probably know the peaking order,…and i can tell he is high on there and proven him merit in practice
as far as the guards i really like them, if there are no injuries i feel confident in them, we lack depth…which is why i think we have to add someone, 1 injury in the guards and we basically implode…and we’ve had an injury every year …
and tj i think you are underestimating sasser, you have to look at skillset and less rankings…sasser is coming in more skilled than hinton and drastically more than adewunmi …not including rebounds, he could definitely produce what Hinton did last year …especially cause half of Hinton’s points were from lite-ly contested 3s
Hinton was touted for being a 6’6 SG,Adewunmi was a super athlete with little skills…
sasser isnt touted because he lacks athleticism and is only 6’2 with no length…but sasser was one of the best shooters in the state and very good at creating his own shot
his skills are more translatable for a freshmen
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freshman tcu poing guard transfer…
https://twitter.com/htmlcalvin/status/1136663551043690498
not sure how hard we are really after him. but he has listed us amoung his top teams…he is from houston…smu is the only team after him hard from socials…had an smu visit yesterday , lsu visit next week
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He didn’t want to go through CKS June summer drills.
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For a guy who only averaged 13 ppg and shot 40% from the field, took some balls to declared early, especially where he would of been the man this year. With the new 3 pt rule, he would of stood out.
Maybe he just wanted to move out of his parents house and start earning sum 6 figure income overseas or G-League.
He may have the skills to indicate that he’s more ready to play but his measurables indicate that his skills are going to have to be extremely good to be effective at this level and much, much better than Nate’s to have the same impact.
I don’t want to sound down Sasser or anything because I have put a ton of trust in CKS’s and the staff’s ability to evaluate now that they can be a little more selective and I’m glad he’s going to be a part of our program. But it’s also unreasonable to “expect” that our 3 star freshman whose next best offer was either Colorado State or SMU will automatically be as good in his freshman year as a 4 star near top 100 recruit who had offers all over the ACC/SEC/Big 10/etc. and wound up having a very solid freshman season. It may happen and he may turn out better than Hinton, but CKS isn’t going to bat 1.000 and if/when he misses it’s more likely going to be on guys that were less highly recruited overall. That’s just simple probability.
Though I do get what you are saying about someone being highly rated because they are a raw prospect with intriguing measurables. But Nate wasn’t some super raw player like Izundu or something.
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