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Seems like smart pickups. Tavarez continues our tradition of picking up guys who lit us up... seems like he will probably start and be our main outside threat. Amos a good functional piece, despite the bad year with Wisconsin last year. If Love isn't ready to start, although hopefully Love is an efficient 3 and D guy from the start. But I'm sure he'll get plenty of minutes regardless, because he seems big enough to slide down as a stretch 4 for chunks of the game.

If we can pick up another sharpshooting guard and a beefy big, I think we'll be in pretty good shape -- then it's a matter of getting the team to gel enough early so we can finally have a strong non-con. That has always been a challenge for Drew and we've got a lot of new faces to incorporate.

Reading on Twitter when Amos transferred, Wisconsin fans seemed more upset about him transferring than I would've thought. Mentions of him being a potential starter or 6th man for them had he stayed. Feel more positive about the pickup now.

Also, we just got another. Kayde Dotson, a guard from New Mexico. Minimal stats last year, but was only a freshman.

Kayde Dotson was one that got away. Highly recruited.

Last year, he choose New Mexico lover Lamar, La Tech, NC A&T, UTSA, Appalachian St, Richmond, the Bonnies, Sam Houston St, Stephen F. Austin, SMU, and Grand Canyon.

He didn't go to Xavier with Pitino.

Nice to get some PG depth behind Moore ( and maybe Tavarez?).

Winner. Two state titles and one runner up in Texas as a high schooler. Didn’t get much run as a freshman with Pitino

Good to finally have some portal news!

Love these guards we are grabbing. Tavarez and Dotson both shot it over 40% from the arc. Tavarez gives us something we haven't had here. Namely, he's a guy that can score off the bounce, the catch, and he can create and make shots when guarded with a hand in face. He absolutely torched us when we played Charleston last year. He also appears to be getting better each year. Dotson only played a little over 6 minutes as a Freshman, yes he'll only be a sophomore, and only shot 36 3's, but his reputation out of high school was he could score from all three levels. Dotson is also the type of player Porter used to recruit. He was extremely successful in High School. He won two State titles and finished as a runner up the year he did not win it.

Coupled with the German kid and hopefully Chuck Love and Daniil we seem to re-building our 3 point shooting pretty well. Two keys to next year, Chuck Love, due to his size has to contribute and Daniil must settle in and become a better shooter. Moore, Tavarez, Dotson are not big kids. I think they are all in the 6'2" to 6"3" range.

Like the Amos pick up as well. He has a lively body and is very athletic. His minutes were down at Wisc versus what he got at NIU, but he was very solid at NIU. He will certainly help from an athletic and length standpoint out on the wings. I don't know if he's big enough to play the 5 and I would like to see a true bigger post player to come in and give us some more inside scoring and defense. I like the fact as stated by JArsy_22 that the Wisc fans were upset with him leaving.

Also, I don't know if we can keep some of these guys, but we will have some guys here with good eligibility left. Love, Anderson are gonna be freshman. Young will be a redshirt Freshman. Dotson and Daniil will be sophomores. Tavarez will be a junior. The German kid I am not sure, but he might be a freshman as well. Miles and Moore are juniors This team, depending on what we do about getting another post player could be real good next year, but it might actually project out in 2026-27 to be hell on wheels if you keep them together and they jell. I don't think we have had a team that potentially had this many contributors with this much eligibility since 2017-2018 or so.

Guardedly optimistic in the direction we are moving.

JArsy_22 wrote:

Another add today. Tavarez earlier and now Xavier Amos from Wisconsin

Is it just me, or does Amos kinda look like Des! LOL

Mudville21 wrote:Is it just me, or does Amos kinda look like Des! LOL

Yeah, the hair for sure. When I scroll by this picture, I keep thinking it's Des!

Rumors are we are in a battle with TCU for Oregon St. transfer Liutauras Lelevicius, who was a contributor there as a freshman. 6'7 from Lithuania. Would be a massive pickup to round out the transfer class. Shot 38% from deep. 8.7 PPG, 4 RPG

goramblers2011 wrote:Rumors are we are in a battle with TCU for Oregon St. transfer Liutauras Lelevicius, who was a contributor there as a freshman. 6'7 from Lithuania. Would be a massive pickup to round out the transfer class. Shot 38% from deep. 8.7 PPG, 4 RPG

Wow, that guy's numbers jump off the page. He could be a star.

Some Amos Gossip.

Was chatting with a friend of mine whose twins played AAU with Amos. Here were his thoughts on Amos:

"Huge Get. Shoots it much better than you would expect. Definitely athletic. Probably needs some freedom offensively as he has a little trouble in systems because he's too unselfish. Really outplayed Huff, who's at Gonzaga, in the State Championship game. He's got an NBA body. He's a super smart kid. No stupidity."