Over the summer I identified 26 east coast/regional mid major transfer recruits that I thought would perform well and could have helped ECU.
Most were from NC and the boarder states, and I included a couple the staff coached that went to mid majors as well.
Here is how they preformed.
All in all I think this turned out just about as well as I could have expected. The worst player on the list is Doug Edert, and he was a star player in the Elite 8 last year. He just sucked for whatever reason on Bryant. There are maybe 2 picks that didn't preform in Teasett and Abee. There is no excuse why ECU can't compete with schools like this for those players.
Some like Haase helped lead one of the biggest turnarounds in NCAA history at Southern Miss. 342 NET to 88 NET and an Sun Belt Championship and NIT bid. The Youngstown State team I had 4 players out of my 26 on my list. They won the Horizon and are going to an NIT as well. They had never been to an NCAA or NIT in 43 seasons of D1 and have a worse win percentage than ECU. Mwamba is playing on a top 40 NET NCAA Oral Roberts team.
This is the list of newcomers ECU signed alternatively. If there was any year their stats were relevant compared to mid majors it's this year since ECU played a 200+ overall SOS. It's worse than some mid majors. Also many of these freshman were out of the rotation by AAC play so it's more like their numbers came vs the 350th ranked OOC
Ausar is basically the only player that would rank above the bottom 3 of the 26 in my list.
Other 1st Year Coaches
I identified three 1st year mid major coaches who I liked the classes they signed better.
This one where the pool was so much smaller, especially in a demographic below ECU. There wasn't any success stories I could find outside of obvious ones from the P5 like Kansas State anyway. It went less well but not really because of the newcomers I thought were good. They were mostly good and the drivers of their team success unlike at ECU. I still take those newcomers who can't transfer and were better.
FGCU 17-15 .......181 NET
They were led by two transfers averaging 15ppg/ 17.7 PER and 13ppg/ 17.9 PER
Milwaukee 21-11.....210 NET
Bart Lundy was on my coaching short list. They were led by two JUCO's, one from Clayton averaging 17ppg/ 18.3 PER. Former ECU recruit Elijah Jamison was a freshman that played pretty decent there too.
Sacramento State 14-18.......224 NET
There best player was a 7-1 transfer 13ppg 9rpg / 24 PER and multiple other starters
It doesn't sound any better than ECU #208 but considering what they are and work with I think it was.
Basketball Budget
#122 ECU
#189 Milwaukee
#265 Sacramento State
#270 FGCU
I don't know of any other mid majors that were bad that more successful.
How much better could ECU have been with just 2 or 3 of the low major transfers I identified instead of the 8 ECU signed? You can grade that for yourself.
