When Dooley signed 6 high schoolers people defended that in real time. After the season all but a few acknowledged that was bad. They knew it all along because anyone paying attention to the landscape could see ECU was the outlier signing more than anyone in the nation. at a time when the environment with super seniors and portal at 1700+ transfers and older than ever, as it still is.
-"just target players on schools in the smaller conference and steal their best players. That is what people are doing to ECU so ECU needs to do it too".
-"Yeah, I genuinely don’t see why ECU basketball as it currently exists would ever target a high school player or spend any time recruiting in that setting."
-"then don't go heavy on freshmen, let some other teams be the farm team"
-"I feel like we have an opportunity with the right strategy. Let the P5 schools develop the freshman then plunder teams for the kids that want to see more playing time."
-"The sad reality is we need to thank God that there is a portal right now because we can and should use it to find 3-4 players who can become immediate starters."
-"I do think recruiting the portal is going to be the future of college sports. It will be interesting to see how high school sports are affected."
"Time to see how good MS is with his own portal recruiting"
-"Recruit mostly from the portal. If you get a lot of freshmen and they are successful, they will just leave the portal after a few years anyway."
-"It's time to become Transfer U"
-"It’s been shown it can get the right players in the transfer portal, and you could still have a decent season. Really intrigued now to see how connected he is."
-"Yeah the obvious go-to microwave route now is going to be the portal, and we should absolutely be looking for the same things "
-"Transfer U is about to happen. Load em up"
-"Yep. He should definitely be able to sell that pitch to some guys from better programs who want a bigger role or guys that put up good numbers in lower leagues looking to make a jump. "
-"There's a ton of talent in the portal, I'm hoping the coach gets after it and brings in guys that don't accept losing."
-"Ideal class is 75/25 Transfer to HS recruits IMO"
-"Square 1 is not the same as it was 5-6 years ago. Transfers are everywhere, its more important than HS recruiting "
-"yes in the portal you need some proven production"
-"There are MM and HM head coaches I've talked to that straight up say they are not recruiting HS players at all. College basketball teams are as old as they've been in 20-25 years due to transfers. The portal by far has overtaken HS recruiting.“Why recruit a kid as a freshman, watch him be good then leave us, when I can take a guy already looking for his next destination” ….just heard that this morning."
My opinion isn't different from what the majority thought was the right direction. It was only after it was clear ECU is doing the exact opposite, that they didn't want to hear about the portal and took their frustrations on anyone still expressing the same thoughts they said, wanted, and actually believed. ECU compiled one of the youngest teams in the nation with 1 senior (Debaut), 1 super upperclassman who hasn't played but 27 games in 4 years, or in 20 months, the one JUCO missed last year, and the 2 transfers played 147 minutes combined. I've never seen any team built like this, much less in the super-senior era.
With 5 high schoolers and last year Fr kept with free transfers, even in the best-case scenario if they do hit, the team will likely just continue to be the feeder for schools like Pitt, Wichita State, Georgia Tech, Syracuse, Virginia, UConn, who have taken most of the best players from ECU the last two decades. They take them for their prime years after ECU found them and worked them through the rocky times like a farm team. Even mid-major schools like Cal Fullerton, Tennessee Tech, UTEP, UNCW, ODU, and UCF have taken key players as well. Logic would tell you it's only likely going to get worse as it's easier to transfer now and especially if they are good with NIL money at stake.
You never have to field a team this inexperienced and unproven or wait on a rebuild. Patience isn't even a word that should exist now in college basketball with this level of free agency. Growing your own talent with unheralded freshmen instead has clearly been deemed a losing approach by nearly all other coaches except a few getting elite recruits. Even the few teams like Duke and Arkansas that signed more freshmen than ECU still got more proven transfers taking 4 & 5.
Gardner had one of the best freshman years in basketball, and the team was ranked #258 in NET. Even in the 2nd year when Newton came on as a freshman with him ECU finished ranked #208. They both played like top 10 AAC players in conf only games that year and ECU was still 11th. You'd have to string together a whole lineup of players like that to even have a chance to win early and then hope to keep them.
The best stretch of talent collection over the last 25 years was when Lebo recruited transfers with D1 experience heavily when there were less than even a third of the transfers there are now before the portal, free transfer & NIL made it easy. Paul, Richmond, Kemp, Washington, Whisnant, Armstrong, etc. If he could do it then there are no excuses now. You can't even judge what kind of transfers ECU could have access to if they don't want them.
Even if this team exceeds expectations and bucks the odds for a year or two. You must hope they don't leave for the next 2 to 3 years which is still the likely outcome. Nearly all teams are losing players to the portal now, power teams, winning teams it doesn't matter. You have to expect that, and if you ignore the portal you'll always be trying to win with freshmen. I think the community had it right, but I hope we are all wrong and this works.
