OSU Men's Basketball Recruiting/Projections/General Discussions

[OSU_Buckguy]

i don't see porter getting anywhere near dakich's minutes, though. andrew averaged 19 minutes. if porter averages over 8, i'll be surprised. well, maybe he'll average 8+ because of blowout time or because of missed time from walker or washington; however, i don't see porter getting many meaningful minutes beyond a minute here or a few minutes there. as stated before, this is a guy who has battled a back injury. many who follow usu expected that he was going to hang up his jersey after last season. they were surprised when he announced he would be a grad transfer.

regarding team morale and chemistry, i was mostly referring to porter not being a playing-time threat to walker, washington, or even our wings. porter is obviously not a wing, but if he's on the court, then there is going to be a wing on the bench as a result. i mean, it's not as though we're going to see many sets consisting of porter, 3 wings, and a post.

 

[Egger33]

I like the Porter pick-up. Smart player and high character kid. As Buckguy mentioned, shouldn't cause issues off the court or in the locker room. Might even provide some leadership and aid team unity. And he is a guard who played a lot for a team that won a lot. He's a Dakich Plus.

Does Sotos play next year if the NCAA approves the no penalty one time transfer rule and they implement it right away?

 

[OSU_Buckguy]

Does Sotos play next year if the NCAA approves the no penalty one time transfer rule and they implement it right away?

no, he's sitting no matter what. sotos didn't commit to ohio state to compete with walker, washington, and now porter. he committed to osu so he can be "the guy" up top after walker departs. sure, sotos will still compete against washington and meechie for playing time at the point, but one of those two will play a lot of his minutes at the 2, while the other one will be a true freshman.

 

[nomatta]

Didn't that injury happen his frosh season? I get that it might be a lingering thing that affects his play, but Porter was still playing a lot to end their past season and making positive contributions. Logged 26 minutes in their big conference tourney final win over SDSU.

I am almost surprised he didn't just return to Utah St. Must be some reasons outside of basketball that he is coming to OSU.

 

[OSU_Buckguy]

Didn't that injury happen his frosh season? I get that it might be a lingering thing that affects his play, but Porter was still playing a lot to end their past season and making positive contributions. Logged 26 minutes in their big conference tourney final win over SDSU.

porter also missed some minutes during this season's conference tournament. played only 5 in the game preceding sdsu. throughout his career, he's been playing through a lot of pain. usu fans mostly assumed that porter would play somewhere if he could, but they doubted if he could.


usu fans:

Aggie fans knew that he was gone but we believed that he was done playing. Abel is a former walk-on that earned a scholarship last year. He's a decent player but he has a bad back. He sat out a good chunk of the MW Tournament and it was said many times that no one knew if he'd be able to finish out the season. He finishes his Master's degree in June and said he was ready to be done playing. He was honored on senior night. It definitely came as a surprise that he entered the transfer portal. I can't see him moving up or even making a lateral move. I could see him going to somewhere like Utah Valley or Southern Utah but really this doesn't make sense.

He was never coming back next year. It was either hang it up due to his back or grad transfer and try and play. He had already graduated and we knew he was moving on so not strange to do it IMO.

I know, I'm surprised he got an offer from somewhere big. But maybe cause of back problems, he isn't capable of playing 32 minutes a game, so he decided to go somewhere that would only use him for a few minutes a game instead off the bench instead of the smaller schools that would try to get 30 minutes a game out of him.

 

[nomatta]

It didn't limit his minutes much overall, though. He had 3 games the whole season where he played 10 and under. Most games he was over 20 and he had quite a few 30 plus games, including 43 minutes in an OT game.

But what they're saying about him possibly wanting a season at a bigger program where he can still play but won't be relied on for heavy minutes... makes sense. I do see it as possible that he will be playing 15mpg or so. Kind of depends on what kind of line-ups work best and if we give backcourt minutes to some of these wings like Musa and Eugene (neither is a ballhandler, tho).

Man, we are gonna have a lot of players coming off injuries!

 

[LitlBuck]

probably the one to watch: grad transfer abel porter.

 

[OSUBasketballJunkie]

 

[OSU_Buckguy]

not that i was assuming branham would be a buckeye, but i do wonder if branham-to-osu depends on the availability of freshman playing time. as a freshman, he'd be competing against 5 senior combo/wings (washington, towns, sueing, jallow, and ahrens) and 1 sophomore (brown). good lucking finding another program with as much experienced wing talent as our projected 2021-22 team.

if branham sees himself as a one-and-done player, then i think osu has pretty much no shot. why would he go to osu just to sit on the bench or get scattershot minutes? on the other hand, if he seems himself playing at least two years of college ball, then the world is his after the freshman season.

however this recruitment shakes out, i think osu has a much tougher "sell" than initially assumed. top-30 players generally want clear(er) paths to immediate playing time. our best shot at a 2021 wing might be a player ranked a bit lower.

further discussion here since it's more of a general point...


recruiting blue-chip 2021 wings like branham and kendall brown has made complete sense. i'm not questioning why ho1tmann has targeted whom he has. you miss 100% of the shots you don't take, and blue-chip players generally need to be wooed early on. furthermore, one of the two wings is a home-state guy. not selling out for a great home-state player is not a good look.

however, based on what i posted in the quote above, i have a hard time seeing either player committing to osu if they have strong one-and-done aspirations. if we put all our eggs into those two baskets, which i don't foresee ho1tmann doing, then i think we'll ultimately find ourselves in a tough spot scampering for adequate talent. and because of all that we lose after the 2021-22 season, we'll need some talent that will impact us immediately.

the formation of the 2021-22 team puts us in a tough bind for the following year. programs like duke, kentucky, and unc can withstand that turnover. all i see for osu, though, is continued reliance on transfers. the program that ho1tmann seems to be building is one that has to continually rebuild itself every offseason.

for the sake of long-term continuity, it may be best to fill the 2021 class with only high school graduates. for the sake of immediate success, it will probably be best to continue scouring the transfer portal.

or maybe the age of building teams from the ground up has passed us by altogether.

 

[gobucks33]

further discussion here since it's more of a general point...


recruiting blue-chip 2021 wings like branham and kendall brown has made complete sense. i'm not questioning why ho1tmann has targeted whom he has. you miss 100% of the shots you don't take, and blue-chip players generally need to be wooed early on. furthermore, one of the two wings is a home-state guy. not selling out for a great home-state player is not a good look.

however, based on what i posted in the quote above, i have a hard time seeing either player committing to osu if they have strong one-and-done aspirations. if we put all our eggs into those two baskets, which i don't foresee ho1tmann doing, then i think we'll ultimately find ourselves in a tough spot scampering for adequate talent. and because of all that we lose after the 2021-22 season, we'll need some talent that will impact us immediately.

the formation of the 2021-22 team puts us in a tough bind for the following year. programs like duke, kentucky, and unc can withstand that turnover. all i see for osu, though, is continued reliance on transfers. the program that ho1tmann seems to be building is one that has to continually rebuild itself every offseason.

for the sake of long-term continuity, it may be best to fill the 2021 class with only high school graduates. for the sake of immediate success, it will probably be best to continue scouring the transfer portal.

or maybe the age of building teams from the ground up has passed us by altogether.

Won’t Branham be playing sg and a little point here not sf?

 

[OSU_Buckguy]

Won’t Branham be playing sg and a little point here not sf?

branham looks to me like a shooting guard in the purest sense. brown actually has a little more point in him than branham does.

regardless of either branham or brown's particular skills, i don't think they'll look favorably upon a 2-guard and wing lineup full of seniors -- not if they see themselves as one-and-done players.

 

[OSU_Buckguy]

please ding me when branham commits to osu.

 

[ShowMeBuck]

branham looks to me like a shooting guard in the purest sense. brown actually has a little more point in him than branham does.

regardless of either branham or brown's particular skills, i don't think they'll look favorably upon a 2-guard and wing lineup full of seniors -- not if they see themselves as one-and-done players.

That’s really interesting and not something I’m savvy enough to realize. It’s almost an entirely different thought process than goes into football recruiting.

It’s a shame, I was starting to really get into college hoops with Holt coming on board.

It just reinforces my previous inclinations of why I think basketball (NBA especially) is a bad product.

As an example:

College football recruits attitude- what school can get me to the league?

College basketball recruits attitude- I’m already great so do I even need school and if so, where will I get the most minutes and have the most time to shine for my ultra brief tenure?

 

[OSU_Buckguy]

That’s really interesting and not something I’m savvy enough to realize. It’s almost an entirely different thought process than goes into football recruiting.

It’s a shame, I was starting to really get into college hoops with Holt coming on board.

It just reinforces my previous inclinations of why I think basketball (NBA especially) is a bad product.

As an example:

College football recruits attitude- what school can get me to the league?

College basketball recruits attitude- I’m already great so do I even need school and if so, where will I get the most minutes and have the most time to shine for my ultra brief tenure?

agreed.

regarding college football versus college basketball, though, just imagine the attitude shift if college football players could go to the pros after one year instead of three. just like the basketball players, they'd be prioritizing immediate playing time. they'd immediately appear more selfish.

it's a different topic, but it's the system that sucks here. i don't fault the players. this one-year-removed rule bears all sorts of bad fruit. college football would be much worse if the same format applied. college basketball either needs to remove the restriction altogether or go the baseball route of draft eligibility (i.e., either directly out of high school or after at least 3 years of college).

heck, it's not even college basketball's decision to make. our sport is at the whim of the nba.

 

[ShowMeBuck]

agreed.

regarding college football versus college basketball, though, just imagine the attitude shift if college football players could go to the pros after one year instead of three. just like the basketball players, they'd be prioritizing immediate playing time. they'd immediately appear more selfish.

it's a different topic, but it's the system that sucks here. i don't fault the players. this one-year-removed rule bears all sorts of bad fruit. college football would be much worse if the same format applied. college basketball either needs to remove the restriction altogether or go the baseball route of draft eligibility (i.e., either directly out of high school or after at least 3 years of college).

heck, it's not even college basketball's decision to make. our sport is at the whim of the nba.

Yeah I agree. Football would be same if same rules.

I’m just saying all of it sucks now.