Let's talk '25

[dmjcat]

Convincing yourself this is a bad thing takes a level of cognitive dissonance I’m honestly in awe of. Like watching a sunset at Gates Pass and loudly exclaiming to everyone that the same sun will eventually expand and swallow the earth so what are they so happy about?

Convincing yourself that throwing away a scholarship (and inviting a 3 ring circus to your basketball team) is a good thing is a level of stupidity that I am NOT in awe of.

You guys should have paid better attention when you attended the U of A and were exposed to concepts like "cognitive dissonance" and "stupidity"...

in my defense I was too busy paying attention to all of the hot co-eds!!

[Merkin]

Millionaire and state employee (free child tuition) RichRod giving RhettRod a scholarship is much worse than this.

I just don't see any harm in this. With 16 scholarships now, 8 players will never see the court except in the last 5 minutes of blowout games.

Look at what UA football attendance was when Prime came to town. Wouldn't it be great to see LeBron in person?

[Chicat]

You guys should have paid better attention when you attended the U of A and were exposed to concepts like "cognitive dissonance" and "stupidity"...

You’re right. I was trying to convey how holding the simultaneous beliefs that UA basketball is both doing too much and at the same time not enough with the very same move is asinine but I should have just said “idiocy”.

Convincing yourself that throwing away a scholarship (and inviting a 3 ring circus to your basketball team) is a good thing is a level of stupidity that I am NOT in awe of.

Whose scholarship is he taking?

What constituted a 3-ring circus at USC with Bronny and what evidence do you have that the situations are similar besides that they share a last name?

[pc in NM]

Convincing yourself this is a bad thing takes a level of cognitive dissonance I’m honestly in awe of. Like watching a sunset at Gates Pass and loudly exclaiming to everyone that the same sun will eventually expand and swallow the earth so what are they so happy about?

Convincing yourself that throwing away a scholarship (and inviting a 3 ring circus to your basketball team) is a good thing is a level of stupidity that I am NOT in awe of.

You guys should have paid better attention when you attended the U of A and were exposed to concepts like "cognitive dissonance" and "stupidity"...

in my defense I was too busy paying attention to all of the hot co-eds!!

That's one reason, solely considering my own learning curve, that I'm lucky I went to undergrad in the cold, grey and dreary Midwest!!

[azgreg]

I don't follow Arizona basketball recruiting very closely. I follow USC basketball recruiting even less. Is there any evidence that have Bronny James on their roster helped their recruiting?

[dmjcat]

You guys should have paid better attention when you attended the U of A and were exposed to concepts like "cognitive dissonance" and "stupidity"...

You’re right. I was trying to convey how holding the simultaneous beliefs that UA basketball is both doing too much and at the same time not enough with the very same move is asinine but I should have just said “idiocy”.

Convincing yourself that throwing away a scholarship (and inviting a 3 ring circus to your basketball team) is a good thing is a level of stupidity that I am NOT in awe of.

Whose scholarship is he taking?

What constituted a 3-ring circus at USC with Bronny?

Whose scholarship is he taking? A player who actually has some talent and deserves it

What constituted a 3-ring circus at USC with Bronny? If you didn't notice the distractions USC was surrounded with during the "Bronny Year" you obviously were not paying attention.

[Chicat]

Whose scholarship is he taking? A player who actually has some talent and deserves it

What constituted a 3-ring circus at USC with Bronny? If you didn't notice the distractions USC was surrounded with during the "Bronny Year" you obviously were not paying attention.

Gotcha. No actual answers.

Gonna file this one under “Complaining Just To Complain” along with the others and move on.

As of today, Bryce James is a Wildcat. I’m planning on rooting for him and I’m going to be psyched for the media coverage if his dad makes it to our games. You may have another agenda, but that’s on you.

[dmjcat]

Whose scholarship is he taking? A player who actually has some talent and deserves it

What constituted a 3-ring circus at USC with Bronny? If you didn't notice the distractions USC was surrounded with during the "Bronny Year" you obviously were not paying attention.

Gotcha. No actual answers.

Gonna file this one under “Complaining Just To Complain” along with the others and move on.

As of today, Bryce James is a Wildcat. I’m planning on rooting for him and I’m going to be psyched for the media coverage if his dad makes it to our games. You may have another agenda, but that’s on you.

Gotcha: You can't handle the truth.

As for Bryce James, I will cheer for him the same way I cheered for Josh Pastner whenever he got off the bench during a 100 point blowout. I'm not going to be surprised if Bryce portals out by his Junior year so has a chance to start at a Loyola Marymount or Pepperdine. You may have another agenda, like trolling, but thats on you.

[pc in NM]

Re: Bryce James - fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

1. Clearly, not as highly regarded a prospect as was Bronny.

• "He is ranked as the No. 30 overall prospect in California and the No. 47 shooting guard nationally by 247 Sports"

• IMNSHO, Bronny was almost certainly over-rated solely due to his parentage

• Bryce is not a "blue chip" recruit, but has potential to develop - nothing wrong with a four-year player!

2. The cost-benefit of being Lebron's son on a college team

• Few, if any, famous parent's kids were as over-hyped or garnered more media attention upon entering college than Bronny

• IMNSHO, that level of media attention did distract from the USC program and added coaching headaches - more from the media than LeBron, btw...

• Bryce comes with lower expectations, and coaching him up, and giving appropriate PT should be less of an issue

• As for LeBron's role as a parent, and/or his attendance at games? GREAT!! (It's his second kid, so it'll be different, and could be as good as was Big Bill Walton's parent role!!)

3. Welcoming and Supporting new Wildcat Bryce James

• As with EVERY recruit, I will welcome him, support his development, and be as loyal to him as with ANY new recruit

• I will continue to support him, regardless of his level of performance and/or contribution, unless/until he violates ethical/legal standards as a U of A student

• And, I'll despise anyone who rags on him solely because of talent or performance concerns - just as I have throughout my tenure as a U of A fan (e.g., Kenny Lofton, Mustafa Shakur, etc.)

[Alieberman]

I don't know if this will ultimately be looked back on as a good thing or not so good thing... but I do know that the thought of him "taking away" a scholarship from someone is fucking absurd.

[dmjcat]

[TheCat]

You never know how folks will develop. Three star TJ McConnell turned out alright same with 100 ranked Gil Arenas. Probably more so the unranked Steph Curry or Russell Westbrook. There was an interesting article that went back about 20 years and looked at rankings in high school against how they turned out. You would be surprised at the top 10 ranked recruits that you have NEVER heard of (college or pro) as little as 8 years ago.

[Chicat]

I don't follow Arizona basketball recruiting very closely. I follow USC basketball recruiting even less. Is there any evidence that have Bronny James on their roster helped their recruiting?

No, but he was their last signee and it was understood from the get-go that he was likely a one-&-done. So not much pull for his class or future ones, but I’m guessing Bryce would likely be around a few years. Plenty of opportunities for CTL to drop Lebron's name into conversations with recruits and their families/reps.

[TheCat]

If you don't think it helps in recruiting about a month ago King James was asked where he would have gone to college if he had gone. I expected him to say Duke because of this relationship with Coach K......answer "probably Arizona".

[azcat49]

I thought that was Luca Doncic? If James said that as well then no doubt it would help

[azgreg]

It was Luca.

[Abrahamarvel]

I remembered during Bronny's recruitment, they are saying Bryce would be a better prospect?

[pc in NM]

LeBron talks the talk!!

[Chicat]

Ha! That’s awesome. Can’t wait to hear RJ and Channing’s response.

[Postmaster]

Local news showed a tweet thread about James' decision . One post was Kevin Love. Paraphrasing: ugh, now I guess I'll have to be an Arizona fan.

[84Cat]

Local news showed a tweet thread about James' decision . One post was Kevin Love. Paraphrasing: ugh, now I guess I'll have to be an Arizona fan.

[84Cat]

[84Cat]

Alijah Arenas, the No. 10 overall prospect in the class of 2025, announced his top 5 schools today on his father’s podcast.

Finalists: Arizona, USC, Kentucky, Louisville, and Kansas.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wLYbWM2rfM

[Lando05]

Alijah is announcing live on Gil's arena live YouTube show today. He just did a visit to USC for the UCLA game this week.

[Lando05]

Smoke not good for Arizona.. Tommy needs to really change his high school recruiting approach. I had issues with Miller, he would never loose a recruit like this especially in the NIL era. Tommy needs to maximize our NIL resources, no reason we can't be top 15 in NIL at a minimum. This is Arizona we should be getting top 15 recruiting classes with a couple 5 stars. Not relying on the transfer portal and international recruits.

[84Cat]

Here we go

[dmjcat]

Smoke not good for Arizona.. Tommy needs to really change his high school recruiting approach. I had issues with Miller, he would never loose a recruit like this especially in the NIL era. Tommy needs to maximize our NIL resources, no reason we can't be top 15 in NIL at a minimum. This is Arizona we should be getting top 15 recruiting classes with a couple 5 stars. Not relying on the transfer portal and international recruits.

And how exactly is CTL supposed to "Maximize" our NIL?? Rob a bank???

The NIL he has is solely up to the alumni and thus far, they are not ponying up.

[84Cat]

Fuck, Arenas to USC

[Beachcat97]

Fuck, Arenas to USC

This one hurts.

[MrKyle]

Fuck, Arenas to USC

Yea that one is unreal - should have been in drivers seat for Gil's kid

[dmjcat]

Fuck, Arenas to USC

Yea that one is unreal - should have been in drivers seat for Gil's kid

Why should we have been in the drivers seat??? Other than, maybe, Louisville every other school that made his final list most assuredly had larger NIL packages for him. The kids are going to go where the $$$$$$$$ are.

Wake up folks, this is NOT 2013. We are not going to be signing Top 10 recruiting classes every year in the NIL era. We are not going to consistently out-recruit SEC/B1G schools that have tens of millions more $$$revenue$$$$ and significantly more NIL to dole out than we do.

[84Cat]

Fuck, Arenas to USC

Yea that one is unreal - should have been in drivers seat for Gil's kid

Why should we have been in the drivers seat??? Other than, maybe, Louisville every other school that made his final list most assuredly had larger NIL packages for him. The kids are going to go where the $$$$$$$$ are.

Wake up folks, this is NOT 2013. We are not going to be signing Top 10 recruiting classes every year in the NIL era. We are not going to consistently out-recruit SEC/B1G schools that have tens of millions more $$$revenue$$$$ and significantly more NIL to dole out than we do.

Since you've said this a 1000 times, way don't you just make this your signature so we don't have to read it every time someone doesn't commit to Arizona. We all fucking know this already. You aren't telling anyone anything they already don't know

[Lando05]

Smoke not good for Arizona.. Tommy needs to really change his high school recruiting approach. I had issues with Miller, he would never loose a recruit like this especially in the NIL era. Tommy needs to maximize our NIL resources, no reason we can't be top 15 in NIL at a minimum. This is Arizona we should be getting top 15 recruiting classes with a couple 5 stars. Not relying on the transfer portal and international recruits.

And how exactly is CTL supposed to "Maximize" our NIL?? Rob a bank???

The NIL he has is solely up to the alumni and thus far, they are not ponying up.

Miller would never have lost a recruiting battle like this with NIL. Tommy's high school recruiting sucks and our NIL not being in the top 15 in the country says to me we aren't maximizing it. That responsibility lays with Tommy. Go raise the money with the boosters and alumni. If a booster can ear mark $1 million for Love, i doubt it would be hard to make sure we raise enough to not loose any bidding war for the son of Gilbert Arenas. Terrible look for the program and another big domestic prep recruit miss by Tommy.

[dmjcat]

Fuck, Arenas to USC

Yea that one is unreal - should have been in drivers seat for Gil's kid

Why should we have been in the drivers seat??? Other than, maybe, Louisville every other school that made his final list most assuredly had larger NIL packages for him. The kids are going to go where the $$$$$$$$ are.

Wake up folks, this is NOT 2013. We are not going to be signing Top 10 recruiting classes every year in the NIL era. We are not going to consistently out-recruit SEC/B1G schools that have tens of millions more $$$revenue$$$$ and significantly more NIL to dole out than we do.

Since you've said this a 1000 times, way don't you just make this your signature so we don't have to read it every time someone doesn't commit to Arizona. We all fucking know this already. You aren't telling anyone anything they already don't know

If you "Already know it" then why did you believe we should have been in the drivers seat??. You obviously don't believe that NIL is the single biggest driving point in recruiting.

[MrKyle]

Fuck, Arenas to USC

Yea that one is unreal - should have been in drivers seat for Gil's kid

Why should we have been in the drivers seat??? Other than, maybe, Louisville every other school that made his final list most assuredly had larger NIL packages for him. The kids are going to go where the $$$$$$$$ are.

Wake up folks, this is NOT 2013. We are not going to be signing Top 10 recruiting classes every year in the NIL era. We are not going to consistently out-recruit SEC/B1G schools that have tens of millions more $$$revenue$$$$ and significantly more NIL to dole out than we do.

I know you've been tooting the NIL horn for a while now - does it play a part, absolutely.

I'm sure you also know why we should have been in the drivers seat for him being who his dad is and what he meant to our program as well.

I'm not expecting us to stack up 5 star after 5 star either, but this is a kid we should have went all-in on. Unless we are ending up with Peat/Burries both and he was the odd man out.

If we've got donors earmarking $1mil for caleb love but we can't put together a solid package for a top prospect (who is the son of a UA great bball player) then CTL is struggling to do his job of selling the program/NIL to our donors.

[dmjcat]

Smoke not good for Arizona.. Tommy needs to really change his high school recruiting approach. I had issues with Miller, he would never loose a recruit like this especially in the NIL era. Tommy needs to maximize our NIL resources, no reason we can't be top 15 in NIL at a minimum. This is Arizona we should be getting top 15 recruiting classes with a couple 5 stars. Not relying on the transfer portal and international recruits.

And how exactly is CTL supposed to "Maximize" our NIL?? Rob a bank???

The NIL he has is solely up to the alumni and thus far, they are not ponying up.

Miller would never have lost a recruiting battle like this with NIL. Tommy's high school recruiting sucks and our NIL not being in the top 15 in the country says to me we aren't maximizing it. That responsibility lays with Tommy. Go raise the money with the boosters and alumni. If a booster can ear mark $1 million for Love, i doubt it would be hard to make sure we raise enough to not loose any bidding war for the son of Gilbert Arenas. Terrible look for the program and another big domestic prep recruit miss by Tommy.

So you believe that UA football/basketball coaches are now responsible for fund-raising in addition to coaching??? I think you are in for a very hard reality check. UA Alumni have never been in the top 40 (or 50 for that matter) when it comes to donating to the athletic dept. I remember a statement that Mike Stoops once made:

"We may have got it as good as it can get. You have to be realistic with what your expectations are and you should have high expectations, I certainly did. But what you're capable of and what the circumstances that are dealt to you, it's hard to achieve those big goals of winning a championship there," Stoops said of his time at Arizona. "There's a reason they haven't won a championship at Arizona and it's not bad coaching or bad players. You can blame it on anything you want, football and championships are about commitments made university wide. It's a commitment made to winning, not at all costs but there is a cost.

"When you don't have a football facility and every Mountain West team has one and you don't, that's a problem. We were playing at a BCS level and I feel like I was fighting with a toothpick and they've got a bat."

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/111 ... nt-matters

[Lando05]

Smoke not good for Arizona.. Tommy needs to really change his high school recruiting approach. I had issues with Miller, he would never loose a recruit like this especially in the NIL era. Tommy needs to maximize our NIL resources, no reason we can't be top 15 in NIL at a minimum. This is Arizona we should be getting top 15 recruiting classes with a couple 5 stars. Not relying on the transfer portal and international recruits.

And how exactly is CTL supposed to "Maximize" our NIL?? Rob a bank???

The NIL he has is solely up to the alumni and thus far, they are not ponying up.

Miller would never have lost a recruiting battle like this with NIL. Tommy's high school recruiting sucks and our NIL not being in the top 15 in the country says to me we aren't maximizing it. That responsibility lays with Tommy. Go raise the money with the boosters and alumni. If a booster can ear mark $1 million for Love, i doubt it would be hard to make sure we raise enough to not loose any bidding war for the son of Gilbert Arenas. Terrible look for the program and another big domestic prep recruit miss by Tommy.

So you believe that UA football/basketball coaches are now responsible for fund-raising in addition to coaching??? I think you are in for a very hard reality check. UA Alumni have never been in the top 40 (or 50 for that matter) when it comes to donating to the athletic dept. I remember a statement that Mike Stoops once made:

"We may have got it as good as it can get. You have to be realistic with what your expectations are and you should have high expectations, I certainly did. But what you're capable of and what the circumstances that are dealt to you, it's hard to achieve those big goals of winning a championship there," Stoops said of his time at Arizona. "There's a reason they haven't won a championship at Arizona and it's not bad coaching or bad players. You can blame it on anything you want, football and championships are about commitments made university wide. It's a commitment made to winning, not at all costs but there is a cost.

"When you don't have a football facility and every Mountain West team has one and you don't, that's a problem. We were playing at a BCS level and I feel like I was fighting with a toothpick and they've got a bat."

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/111 ... nt-matters

If you don't think it's thier job to maximize NIL, booster donations, and any other way to improve the program I don't know what you think being the head of a program like Arizona basketball means.

We have a top 8 college basketball program there's no excuse for we can't have a top 15 NIL. Before NIL was even legal Miller sure pulled it off because he maximized the resources available to him with Arizonas brand and alumni. Tommy hasn't done that yet and he better figure it out quickly.

[MrKyle]

Smoke not good for Arizona.. Tommy needs to really change his high school recruiting approach. I had issues with Miller, he would never loose a recruit like this especially in the NIL era. Tommy needs to maximize our NIL resources, no reason we can't be top 15 in NIL at a minimum. This is Arizona we should be getting top 15 recruiting classes with a couple 5 stars. Not relying on the transfer portal and international recruits.

And how exactly is CTL supposed to "Maximize" our NIL?? Rob a bank???

The NIL he has is solely up to the alumni and thus far, they are not ponying up.

Miller would never have lost a recruiting battle like this with NIL. Tommy's high school recruiting sucks and our NIL not being in the top 15 in the country says to me we aren't maximizing it. That responsibility lays with Tommy. Go raise the money with the boosters and alumni. If a booster can ear mark $1 million for Love, i doubt it would be hard to make sure we raise enough to not loose any bidding war for the son of Gilbert Arenas. Terrible look for the program and another big domestic prep recruit miss by Tommy.

So you believe that UA football/basketball coaches are now responsible for fund-raising in addition to coaching??? I think you are in for a very hard reality check. UA Alumni have never been in the top 40 (or 50 for that matter) when it comes to donating to the athletic dept. I remember a statement that Mike Stoops once made:

"We may have got it as good as it can get. You have to be realistic with what your expectations are and you should have high expectations, I certainly did. But what you're capable of and what the circumstances that are dealt to you, it's hard to achieve those big goals of winning a championship there," Stoops said of his time at Arizona. "There's a reason they haven't won a championship at Arizona and it's not bad coaching or bad players. You can blame it on anything you want, football and championships are about commitments made university wide. It's a commitment made to winning, not at all costs but there is a cost.

"When you don't have a football facility and every Mountain West team has one and you don't, that's a problem. We were playing at a BCS level and I feel like I was fighting with a toothpick and they've got a bat."

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/111 ... nt-matters

They absolutely are responsible for fund-raising in addition to coaching - that is part of the gig. Recruit, coach, fund-raise/glad hand with donors.

I believe that for the football team it is a tougher battle and could see where Stoops is coming from - we also added to our facilities etc since that point.

For basketball I don't think it is unrealistic for us to have a very competitive NIL program - and our coach / AD need to be responsible for that at the end of the day.

[dmjcat]

Smoke not good for Arizona.. Tommy needs to really change his high school recruiting approach. I had issues with Miller, he would never loose a recruit like this especially in the NIL era. Tommy needs to maximize our NIL resources, no reason we can't be top 15 in NIL at a minimum. This is Arizona we should be getting top 15 recruiting classes with a couple 5 stars. Not relying on the transfer portal and international recruits.

And how exactly is CTL supposed to "Maximize" our NIL?? Rob a bank???

The NIL he has is solely up to the alumni and thus far, they are not ponying up.

Miller would never have lost a recruiting battle like this with NIL. Tommy's high school recruiting sucks and our NIL not being in the top 15 in the country says to me we aren't maximizing it. That responsibility lays with Tommy. Go raise the money with the boosters and alumni. If a booster can ear mark $1 million for Love, i doubt it would be hard to make sure we raise enough to not loose any bidding war for the son of Gilbert Arenas. Terrible look for the program and another big domestic prep recruit miss by Tommy.

So you believe that UA football/basketball coaches are now responsible for fund-raising in addition to coaching??? I think you are in for a very hard reality check. UA Alumni have never been in the top 40 (or 50 for that matter) when it comes to donating to the athletic dept. I remember a statement that Mike Stoops once made:

"We may have got it as good as it can get. You have to be realistic with what your expectations are and you should have high expectations, I certainly did. But what you're capable of and what the circumstances that are dealt to you, it's hard to achieve those big goals of winning a championship there," Stoops said of his time at Arizona. "There's a reason they haven't won a championship at Arizona and it's not bad coaching or bad players. You can blame it on anything you want, football and championships are about commitments made university wide. It's a commitment made to winning, not at all costs but there is a cost.

"When you don't have a football facility and every Mountain West team has one and you don't, that's a problem. We were playing at a BCS level and I feel like I was fighting with a toothpick and they've got a bat."

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/111 ... nt-matters

If you don't think it's thier job to maximize NIL, booster donations, and any other way to improve the program I don't know what you think being the head of a program like Arizona basketball means.

We have a top 8 college basketball program there's no excuse for we can't have a top 15 NIL. Before NIL was even legal Miller sure pulled it off because he maximized the resources available to him with Arizonas brand and alumni. Tommy hasn't done that yet and he better figure it out quickly.

Wrong!

We WERE a Top 10 basketball program for a good portion of the last 25 years PRIOR to NIL. Thats not the case anymore. There is a reason that the SEC schools have rapidly risen to the top and its called MONEY. And the UA doesn't have a lot of that, and the boosters haven't historically ponied up that kind of $$$$ and I don't expect them to in the future.

The only realistic hope for the UA going forward is Congressional level action that will put guard-rails on the entire NIL mess (especially the $$$ portion of it). We need rules that put a ceiling (a low one for the UA's sake) on compensation.

[Merkin]

So you believe that UA football/basketball coaches are now responsible for fund-raising in addition to coaching???

Well, yea. Even Lute did the meet and greets, and had nothing to do with coaching.

What does Tommy feel about NIL?

https://tucson.com/sports/arizonawildca ... 0adb4.html

At Arizona, men’s basketball coach Tommy Lloyd has consistently declined to comment about the specifics of NIL, and those around him say he won’t make NIL the first topic of a recruitment with players, parents or agents.

But Matt King, Arizona’s new director of basketball operations, says the Wildcats are “100% on par with other elite programs” in the NIL marketplace.

[dmjcat]

So you believe that UA football/basketball coaches are now responsible for fund-raising in addition to coaching???

Well, yea. Even Lute did the meet and greets, and had nothing to do with coaching.

What does Tommy feel about NIL?

https://tucson.com/sports/arizonawildca ... 0adb4.html

At Arizona, men’s basketball coach Tommy Lloyd has consistently declined to comment about the specifics of NIL, and those around him say he won’t make NIL the first topic of a recruitment with players, parents or agents.

But Matt King, Arizona’s new director of basketball operations, says the Wildcats are “100% on par with other elite programs” in the NIL marketplace.

Of course CTL is not going to make NIL the first topic of conversation with top recruits..........if he did we couldn't even get in the kids door for a visit (we don't have the money)

In the case of Kings comments, you do realize that he's not going to admit that we don't have the kind of money that the SEC/B1G schools have??? To do so would put the UA at a serious disadvantage in recruiting before we even contact a kid. As far the reality of NIL, BYU just coughed up somewhere between $5-7 million$ for one player. If you believe that the UA is "On par" with that then I have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.

[Fishclamps]

Yeah this sucks but Gil said from the beginning he wasn't gonna influence his kid on what school to pick.

His kid has spent his entire life in Southern California, grew up watching USC and UCLA more than Arizona probably, and also has ties to Muss through his dad. Doesn't entirely seem like it was gonna be a slam dunk for Arizona NIL or no.

The only way this ends up being a disaster is if we lose out on Burries as well.

[Chicat]

So when recruits, their families, and/or their handlers were getting paid under the table we could bring in top-10 recruiting classes but now that the payments are out in the open we don’t have the money? Someone explain to me how that works.

Also, how is it that USC, a school where basketball is definitely second banana to their powerhouse football program, has a better NIL structure in place than Arizona where basketball is king but that fact is somehow no fault of Arizona’s? And please don’t look foolish by saying it’s because they are in the B1G because no money from the conferences can go to NIL funds.

[Fishclamps]

I would assume like most schools, the bulk of their NIL is funneled towards the football team, aka the money making sport.

[MrKyle]

[tweet]https://x.com/MattRMoreno/status/1885075571635523682[/tweet]

If this is true man that looks bad for CTL...

[EastCoastCat]

If the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree Gilbert’s kid probably marches to his own beat.

Where did Bill Walton’s kid go again?

Or it’s that SC opened up the bank…

[dmjcat]

So when recruits, their families, and/or their handlers were getting paid under the table we could bring in top-10 recruiting classes but now that the payments are out in the open we don’t have the money? Someone explain to me how that works.

Also, how is it that USC, a school where basketball is definitely second banana to their powerhouse football program, has a better NIL structure in place than Arizona where basketball is king but that fact is somehow no fault of Arizona’s? And please don’t look foolish by saying it’s because they are in the B1G because no money from the conferences can go to NIL funds.

We were bringing in Top 10 classes because the billionaire booster class (like Phil Knight) were not engaged in paying basketball players under the table. If he was then Oregon would have been hauling in Top 10 classes years ago. They are now that NIL is in effect.

Regarding USC/B1G please don't look foolish and tell me that you are not aware that NCAA schools are going to be engaged in revenue sharing (and B1G schools like USC have a hell of a lot more of that than the UA) beginning in 2025?

https://apnews.com/article/ncaa-settlem ... 358b9bb339

[Postmaster]

What did happen to all of the "shoe money" that was getting spread around?

[Fishclamps]

https://x.com/MattRMoreno/status/188507 ... lbert-2025

If this is true man that looks bad for CTL...

Am I crazy that I don't think it's a bad look at all? If anything Tommy is honest to a fault.

Hes not gonna hold your hand, he's not gonna sit there and make you feel like you're God's gift to basketball, and he's certainly not gonna call you everyday.

The dude is just business, and guessing he gives out his standard pitch of player development and helping you get to the league.

Probably not the best pitch for getting all the best players to Arizona, but probably better if you're looking to build a team of cohesion and not one of 5 dudes trying to play ISO ball to pump up their stats.

[MrKyle]

https://x.com/MattRMoreno/status/188507 ... lbert-2025

If this is true man that looks bad for CTL...

Am I crazy that I don't think it's a bad look at all? If anything Tommy is honest to a fault.

Hes not gonna hold your hand, he's not gonna sit there and make you feel like you're God's gift to basketball, and he's certainly not gonna call you everyday.

The dude is just business, and guessing he gives out his standard pitch of player development and helping you get to the league.

Probably not the best pitch for getting all the best players to Arizona, but probably better if you're looking to build a team of cohesion and not one of 5 dudes trying to play ISO ball to pump up their stats.

I see that viewpoint and agree to a degree. I think it needs to change a bit if we want to land higher quality prep talent with TL though; cohesion is a big thing no doubt. We've seen over the years that just stacking up 5 stars doesn't guarantee anything (hello UK).

I think we'll see a lot about CTL with this season and next in regards to roster construction and recruiting as everyone is his now.