I thought about saving this for 10 Thoughts, but I'll post it here.
It's basketball portal season and Ole Miss enters said season with as many as 11 roster spots available. I think the number is more likely eight or nine, but regardless, there's a lot of roster space that is currently vacant. So, yes, Ole Miss will be very, very active in the portal and the word on the proverbial street is Ole Miss has a pretty nice amount of salary/NIL/whatever you want to call it to compete nationally. Chris Beard affirmed that Friday. I'll write about what he said in 10 Thoughts.
As for coverage, don't let anyone in media, self included, tell you they're super sourced with the current Ole Miss basketball staff. They're not. This staff is very locked down as it pertains to recruiting efforts.
You'll read a lot about Ole Miss contacting different portal targets. It's noteworthy, but with a caveat: Ole Miss -- and most every other high-major program -- will be contacting hundreds of potential targets. Andy Kennedy joked with me once that he sat in his living room, poured a glass of wine, and called guy after guy. He called it "speed dating." People around the Arkansas program joked about how the Razorbacks basically reached out to damn near everyone in the portal last year. They weren't alone.
Taking that contact and writing a story about how the player would fit at Ole Miss is silly. Let's be clear: If you can play point guard, if you can shoot 35 percent or better from 3, if you can defend with any level of proficiency and/or you have the ability to rebound the basketball while playing with toughness, you fit. Building that roster and creating chemistry and team culture is Beard's job, but if a player has some of those characteristics, he fits.
What will be newsworthy, at least in my opinion, is when a player actually visits. That's what I'm going to work to find out -- who visits.
The portal is already open for guys who play at programs where there have been head-coaching decisions. The portal opens for everyone else Monday and will start getting very populated as NCAA Tournament and NIT teams lose. I would advise taking reports of early leaders with a grain of salt over the next few days. After talking to a lot of people in Nashville associated with different programs, the expectation is this is going to be a pretty wild cycle and things almost certainly will change rapidly. Throw in the fact that most guys are also shopping for highest bidders, and what was true on Monday might no longer be true on Tuesday.
We'll do our best to keep up with it, but again, we're focused more on visits than contact. Contact doesn't mean much. Visits typically do.
It's basketball portal season and Ole Miss enters said season with as many as 11 roster spots available. I think the number is more likely eight or nine, but regardless, there's a lot of roster space that is currently vacant. So, yes, Ole Miss will be very, very active in the portal and the word on the proverbial street is Ole Miss has a pretty nice amount of salary/NIL/whatever you want to call it to compete nationally. Chris Beard affirmed that Friday. I'll write about what he said in 10 Thoughts.
As for coverage, don't let anyone in media, self included, tell you they're super sourced with the current Ole Miss basketball staff. They're not. This staff is very locked down as it pertains to recruiting efforts.
You'll read a lot about Ole Miss contacting different portal targets. It's noteworthy, but with a caveat: Ole Miss -- and most every other high-major program -- will be contacting hundreds of potential targets. Andy Kennedy joked with me once that he sat in his living room, poured a glass of wine, and called guy after guy. He called it "speed dating." People around the Arkansas program joked about how the Razorbacks basically reached out to damn near everyone in the portal last year. They weren't alone.
Taking that contact and writing a story about how the player would fit at Ole Miss is silly. Let's be clear: If you can play point guard, if you can shoot 35 percent or better from 3, if you can defend with any level of proficiency and/or you have the ability to rebound the basketball while playing with toughness, you fit. Building that roster and creating chemistry and team culture is Beard's job, but if a player has some of those characteristics, he fits.
What will be newsworthy, at least in my opinion, is when a player actually visits. That's what I'm going to work to find out -- who visits.
The portal is already open for guys who play at programs where there have been head-coaching decisions. The portal opens for everyone else Monday and will start getting very populated as NCAA Tournament and NIT teams lose. I would advise taking reports of early leaders with a grain of salt over the next few days. After talking to a lot of people in Nashville associated with different programs, the expectation is this is going to be a pretty wild cycle and things almost certainly will change rapidly. Throw in the fact that most guys are also shopping for highest bidders, and what was true on Monday might no longer be true on Tuesday.
We'll do our best to keep up with it, but again, we're focused more on visits than contact. Contact doesn't mean much. Visits typically do.
