UMD's Coach Sandelin Vents About the Portal
by ndmd99 (2024-04-02 19:58:56)
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“The perception is you can go and get anyone you want,” Sandelin said. “That’s not the reality. The reality is, is if you’re not a certain program or working with a certain agent, you’re not getting that person. I’ve got three guys (associate coach Adam Krause, along with assistants Cody Chupp and Brant Nicklin) in there that have been working their butts off trying to find out who might become available through agents. They’re doing their job and they’ve been working hard. It’s just ridiculous to me how this is going down. I’m not afraid to say it. I’m getting too old to sugar coat stuff. It’s changing our world. It’s like guerrilla warfare right now.”

You could probably substitute JJ for Sandelin and that quote would still be accurate. This is the problem we're facing. And it won't matter who is our coach -- they'll still need to solve this same problem.

1st rounder Matthew Wood is the prime example. Before the portal opened, the favorites were already named (Gophers, UND, UW). He entered the portal yesterday with a "Do not contact" status.

A massive problem is 4 of the privileged blue blood recruiting schools are in the B10 -- both UMs, MSU, and UW. The other schools that seem to have big advantages are UND, BU, and BC.

FYI the portal was open at any time for 5th year players (this is the last year player's are eligible for a 5th year). Biondi and Murphy are both 5th years.

Underclassmen could enter the portal starting 2 days ago. I think the portal stays open for 45 days.

The only Irish player I have seen in the portal so far is Fin Williams (who left mid-season).



How did MSU suddenly become a blue blood recruiting program
by zahm82  (2024-04-02 21:39:49)     cannot delete  |  Edit  |  Return to Board  |  Ignore Poster   |   Highlight Poster  |   Reply to Post

after sucking for the last decade. I understand they have a history and a charismatic young coach. I know I'm biased, but don't understand why a kid would pick MSU over us all things being equal?
Coached NTDP in 21-22
by ndmd99  (2024-04-02 22:47:20)     cannot delete  |  Edit  |  Return to Board  |  Ignore Poster   |   Highlight Poster  |   Reply to Post

He had proven success coaching/developing players like Cooley, McGroarty, etc. He also got some decommits/portal help from NTDP kids (Ike Howard and Augustine). MSU also dumped a bunch of money into facilities when he came on campus.

Some of it was luck too -- literally Levshunov came on the market last summer when virtually every team already had their rosters filled out.

They aren't immune to decommits though. Christian Humphreys flipped from MSU to Mich.

It'll be interesting to see how Hastings does with higher end draft picks. He has some high end commits, but this year he benched a couple high draft picks at times that are now in the portal (Stramel 1st Rd, Cleveland 2nd Rd, Whitelaw 3rd Rd). If there's anything that would make agents/NHL teams/players think twice about attending a school it's drafted kids not getting ice time.

It's still hard to tell how much NIL is playing a role in this.

There are a lot of mid-tier teams that are screwed in the current climate. I don't think we're in that crew. There are a lot of positive factors that signal we should be able to compete in recruiting.

B10 and blue bloods have a big advantage when it comes to $$$. I don't know how to post it, but I have a budget graph (think it comes from title 9 data). 3 teams above $5M annually (UND 5.5M, Minn 5.3M, and us at 5.2M). The rest of the top 10 are between 4.1 and 4.5M (Mich, BC, UW, PSU, DU, MSU, Prov). OSU is the lowest B10 school budget at #11 (3.7M). There's a pretty big slope down in numbers after that. I still think we can compete. It's a good setup for both coaches and players (and it's notable that even though we had a tough season we don't have anyone in the portal). That's why I'm still patient at this point and want to see what effect Sheahan may have on this recruiting cycle (assuming he doesn't bolt for another job).

Gopher fans are pretty confident Wood will end up there. But there's another tweet from a couple hours ago from Mike McMahon that now said he's down to Minn, UND, UW, and "other Big 10 schools". So who really knows.