The Valley lost Tyreke Key, Troy Roberts, A.J Green, Noah Carter...4 of the best players in the Conference. Will be hard to replace. WIth 1500+ in the portal, will be like going through your laundry basket looking for a shirt to wear to last minute date....Add to this the NIL and it will be less and less common for mid-majors to have players like Lucas Williamson who come, develop, excel and stay . Lucas talked about his whole experience at Loyola at the banquet. Next year we will have two guys who will be one and done. Everyone will have to play the game as long as it is the law of the land...but much prefer to see guys come, develop and stay.

I don't know how much we can take from the impact of the transfer portal and NIL. It has changed things, but I think this year is the anomaly. I don't think we can draw conclusions from this year.

I think there will be a handful of kids that want to switch programs to get more playing time and get a higher profile. I think players will follow coaches to new jobs or leave when a coach leaves - look at South Carolina, Indiana State and UMass and see how players follow coaches.

However, it's chaos because of the pandemic. The rosters are bloated with players. The recruiting process and the transfer situation is being impacted by the pandemic as much as anything. As the parent of a college scholarship athlete and one who was recruited a few years before him, I can tell you that the landscape has changed dramatically and it has nothing to do with the transfer portal or NIL. It is crazy because of the extra year of players. When your 18 year old son picks a school because he thinks he will get a chance to compete for playing time, but finds out he is competing for time with 24 and 25 year old men who are taking the extra year of eligibility, it's a game changer. The players make friends with students, coaches and fellow players. Players want to play and that is why there is so many kids in the portal and when you get to the portal - it is another wild ride as coaches and players are scrambling to fill roster sports.

I empathize with players like TY Johnson and the other rank and file players.

Ty Johnson is a great example of the quandry, to have guys stay they have to be willing to wait. Ty is leaving for one reason only, he wants to play next year..and not wait behind Marquis and Norris...so the individual and his needs vs the team and its needs ?

Ty could be waiting 3 years if Norris and Marquise take a covid year. Asking players to wait 2 years is reasonable. 3 years of a 4 year career is tough.

To continue then,
What is keeping our program from landing HS players with a skill set that gives them a reasonable shot at playing time?
Further, assuming we want multiple year commitments are we willing to accept the building process at the expense of immediate success. I’m thinking program building needs that mindset and the commitment to the coach, so he doesn’t have pressure to win NOW.
Certainly the pandemic added year has hurt the HS kids.

As much as I like the kids that returned this year. I was all ready to watch and suffer with the new kids. It will also be interesting to see if we can continue our academic success with so many transfers..Last years team accumulated over a 3.2 gpa...and to me that is impressive and desirable.

UMASS is killing it in the portal as well

The next few years in the A-10 are going to be really tough. It was already going to be a great year before Frank Martin and Archie Miller joined two of the sleeping giants. With the way conference strength impacts tournament births, we could see 3-5 bids next year.

I'm interested to see if being the westernmost team in an eastern conference is going to be a benefit or detriment in more national recruiting.

So far, it hasn't proven to be so, with all four transfers either having played in the midwest or being from chicago.

I'd like to see that first, big east coast recruit that we get when competing with other east coast schools, kind of like Dallas Comegys with De Paul

Not to be pedantic, but SLU is further west.