As far as the transfer portal goes, we can’t have it both ways. Say Fran goes to the portal and recruits a high level shooting guard over Perkins and Bohannon. Perkins, seeing little opportunity for playing time this year, likely starts to evaluate his options. Maybe he sees more opportunity at a place like Minnesota and it’s adios. So we get a grad transfer for a year or two tops, lose young talent, and are left hanging out to dry in another year and have to go back to the portal.
My point is that you can either run a developmental program and utilize the portal to fill existing holes in the lineup. In this scenario, you don’t have much attrition (mostly positive attrition), you have familiarity amongst your players, and they trust you as coach and believe in your plan for them. You suffer “rebuilding” years, but also have opportunities like last year and the previous couple where you have a bunch of upperclassmen who have played with each other for several years. This is Fran’s preferred way to build a program
On the flip side, if you utilize the portal to bring in the best player available, the scenario I outlined above happens, you suffer both positive and negative attrition, and you basically have to be fully bought in to utilizing the portal as means to sustain your program I.e Iowa State under Hoiberg (except that everybody’s doing it now after he did and not nearly as easy to get the players you want to get). You may have some solid seasons, but it’s difficult to build depth, your team lacks familiarity and, at a school like Iowa, you still never bring in enough talent to make it over the hump and make a run in the tournament.
We can’t recruit over all our players and expect them to stay or for it to be sustainable. Is next year going to be a “special” year? Probably not because of how much we lose. However most expectations are a bubble team, a potential opportunity in the Dance, and even greater opportunity for the next several years
Yeah maybe I have low expectations, but I also have zero influence on the decisions being made so stamping my feet is pointless. I see what Fran’s doing and will choose to be supportive
