You’re seeing stars all over the place and getting excited but maybe not sure what to make of it?!?!? Let’s dive in…
The immediate: This is the bad news part. I think we will be picked to finish 12th in the sec next year by the media. I don’t think with our additions we passed anybody this off-season that finished ahead of us (except Vandy) last year and some teams behind us have actually hit the portal/high school better than us. Vandy is going to definitely be dead last this coming year. South Carolina, LSU and Ole Miss are a mixed bag with us. I think LSU and Ole Miss edge us out in the preseason ranks due to their returners and portal additions. Next year will be predicted to be another grind for us type year.
The high school kids are really nice pick ups for us. If this were 6 years ago, we would dance in the streets all year long. And we can still do that. But the portal creates a microwave type effect with folks. People want it now. High school kids, unless you are recruiting them like Kentucky is doing 😳😳😳, are more of a crock pot type situation. So Mike White will probably be predicted to look pretty bad record wise compared to his peers at this time next year. You don’t lose 12 out of the last 15 games and then use 4 out of 8 scholarship spots on high school players and think this is going to get better fast. Other teams are rolling majority portal, we are going more high school than them. Which leads us to…
The Future: It will be all about holding on to those high school kids and developing them. It takes almost all of them at least two years to be truly productive except the absolute elite. You have to keep them happy, even though times might be rough next year, and growing. Mike White is an extremely stable human being. If someone can do this, he probably is the guy for it. Let’s hope he picked the right kind of high school kids.
Philosophy: is high schoolers Mike White’s philosophy or was it necessity? Great question. We flexed STRONG in the portal with Jalen Deloach. Heavy weight recruiting battle win there. We appeared ready to flex strong again with a masterclass in recruiting Amaree Abram and somehow that got away. We go with the high schooler instead. The backstory on that situation would be rich to know. Nice solid portal wins in Melendez, Tchewa, and what looks to be Thomasson in the portal. But we hit the brakes at four. Probably needed 5-6 portalers to change our predicted level for next year.
But we do have a down low that suits Mike White, I truly believe. Big and tough. It will be fun. We are just going to be viewed as being short on playmakers and shooters.
X Factors in next season: I would mark down Thomasson, Tchewa, and Deloach as being productive. They should all three be around double figures. I’m not sure how much higher the ceiling is for Justin Hill and Moncrieffe, both whom I like. But Melendez, Jabri and Holt are the X-factors. If any 2 of them step up and really start playing well, our outlook would be way better for next year.
Projected Starting Lineup:
Hill
Thomasson
Melendez
Deloach
Tchewa
Lineup that I don’t think would happen but that I would absolutely love, the jumbo package:
Thomasson 6’3
Melendez 6’7
Jabri 6’8
Deloach 6’9
Tchewa 7’0”
Fun Fact: everyone of our players on the team next year will have been ranked a four star at some point other than Hill, Thomasson, and Tchewa (and he was ranked in the top 150 transfer rankings)
Go Dawgs!
The immediate: This is the bad news part. I think we will be picked to finish 12th in the sec next year by the media. I don’t think with our additions we passed anybody this off-season that finished ahead of us (except Vandy) last year and some teams behind us have actually hit the portal/high school better than us. Vandy is going to definitely be dead last this coming year. South Carolina, LSU and Ole Miss are a mixed bag with us. I think LSU and Ole Miss edge us out in the preseason ranks due to their returners and portal additions. Next year will be predicted to be another grind for us type year.
The high school kids are really nice pick ups for us. If this were 6 years ago, we would dance in the streets all year long. And we can still do that. But the portal creates a microwave type effect with folks. People want it now. High school kids, unless you are recruiting them like Kentucky is doing 😳😳😳, are more of a crock pot type situation. So Mike White will probably be predicted to look pretty bad record wise compared to his peers at this time next year. You don’t lose 12 out of the last 15 games and then use 4 out of 8 scholarship spots on high school players and think this is going to get better fast. Other teams are rolling majority portal, we are going more high school than them. Which leads us to…
The Future: It will be all about holding on to those high school kids and developing them. It takes almost all of them at least two years to be truly productive except the absolute elite. You have to keep them happy, even though times might be rough next year, and growing. Mike White is an extremely stable human being. If someone can do this, he probably is the guy for it. Let’s hope he picked the right kind of high school kids.
Philosophy: is high schoolers Mike White’s philosophy or was it necessity? Great question. We flexed STRONG in the portal with Jalen Deloach. Heavy weight recruiting battle win there. We appeared ready to flex strong again with a masterclass in recruiting Amaree Abram and somehow that got away. We go with the high schooler instead. The backstory on that situation would be rich to know. Nice solid portal wins in Melendez, Tchewa, and what looks to be Thomasson in the portal. But we hit the brakes at four. Probably needed 5-6 portalers to change our predicted level for next year.
But we do have a down low that suits Mike White, I truly believe. Big and tough. It will be fun. We are just going to be viewed as being short on playmakers and shooters.
X Factors in next season: I would mark down Thomasson, Tchewa, and Deloach as being productive. They should all three be around double figures. I’m not sure how much higher the ceiling is for Justin Hill and Moncrieffe, both whom I like. But Melendez, Jabri and Holt are the X-factors. If any 2 of them step up and really start playing well, our outlook would be way better for next year.
Projected Starting Lineup:
Hill
Thomasson
Melendez
Deloach
Tchewa
Lineup that I don’t think would happen but that I would absolutely love, the jumbo package:
Thomasson 6’3
Melendez 6’7
Jabri 6’8
Deloach 6’9
Tchewa 7’0”
Fun Fact: everyone of our players on the team next year will have been ranked a four star at some point other than Hill, Thomasson, and Tchewa (and he was ranked in the top 150 transfer rankings)
Go Dawgs!
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