2026 Vols Transfer Portal Thread

My only curiosity to our approach:

How does our “data driven” approach to valuing players actually line up with the market value / actual $ offers?

And will that approach be adjusted too late to earn us some major contributors like it didn’t seem to in football?

Not hating, I actually agree with our approach but it’s still a thought I have.
"Torture the data long enough and it will confess to anything"

I trust CRB and staff - support them 100% - but, they value certain things above other things just like any other staff given our style of play. We expect out bigs to switch a lot and we apparently limited JP's PT because he wasn't enough of an enforcer like Uros. Add in his foot injury which we know well more about than anyone else and it was very predictable we wouldn't match the highest bidders. I just hoped it would be close but suspected it wouldn't be.

Edit: Just to be clear...I don't really think they are "torturing" the data - that was an offhand comment. "Beauty in the eye of the beholder" is much more appropriate.
 
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The market sets his value to the market, but our coaches set his value to their organization.

It's just like ticket prices, right now. The market sets the value of tickets to the market, but I set my own value of those tickets relative to my income and desire to pay for them. The market says a half court ticket to watch UT play Florida is $500 (example). My personal value is at $200. That's what it is worth to me to see that game live in person. So I won't see that game live in person.

The market says JPE is worth $3-4 million. Our staff, with 3 years of worth of experience with him, his skills, his intangibles, his health, believe he's worth $2-2.5 million to their organization.

Yes, they will likely have to pay $3 mil to replace him with someone else, but they will also be able to pick someone they believe can provide similar production and may not have the injury risk that he brings. It's all a calculated risk.

Yes, the market has gone crazy. No doubt there. And it will just keep going up.
This...it was a very predictable outcome with JP as I just said in another post.
 
I'm surprised how much Barnes is overturning the roster. Like virtually everyone with experience who could be culture guys.

Evans and Brown are just freshman who haven't really been in the system long.
Hopefully it's his continued evolution to get more scorers whom we teach defense vs. specialists who limit our offense.
 
I don’t think Rice proves anything either way. Using his injury to justify not paying him is outcome bias. At the time, nobody passed on him because they expected him to get injured. Once he gets hurt, you can’t evaluate his ROI vs his NIL anymore, so he’s basically a non-factor in judging that decision.

You can say the allocation worked out in our favor with Ament, but you can’t use Rice's injury as proof he wasn’t worth it.

I never did. I simply stated it "ended up being the right move". You as well as john are assigning that to be about his injury, not me.

It was the right move because 1. Nate was our white whale & had a great season 2. we made the EE with the roster that was created instead
 
I don't disagree, but there is a reason why the really great coaches are far and few in between. Barnes is chasing another Final Four appearance before he retires, nothing wrong with that. But if he is going to chase the Dusty May method, That seems to be a very abrupt change for him. Like even if Evans and Brown stay, they aren't going to be the voices in the locker room. Just wild that Barnes is doing this abrupt shift. Him evolving in his thinking this late is interesting. Would have loved to see this happen a few years ago.
To the bolded...100 and I'm here for it. b2b E8 beatdowns and passing time will do that I guess. Love CRB and to his credit...he has evolved and thrived in the NIL world despite many doomsday predictions on this board (i.e., "old dog, new tricks", etc.) but, given hindsight, he didn't go far enough which I think/hope he realizes.
 
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And that amount simply gets added on top to their current NIL spending this year. They got a free $4 million from LSU. And I’m sure they were spending atleast$3-4m on their team.

So yes, Gainey will very much likely have $7-10m to spend in his first year. Won’t be the case every year though.
Are you confident buy out money paid to an athletic department can be allocated as NIL payments?
 
4 of Michigan's starter from the portal were 2 studs (Lendlborg and Cadeau) and 2 backups (Mara, Johnson). So I don't think you need 5 studs, but you sure don't need any weak links in the top 6-7. They had 5 guys avg > 12 ppg
And May did a very good job of getting them to buy in and play their role. It's more than just throwing out $ for players.
Can't wait to see who Barnes gets and how he can get them to play together. I sure hope we get a several guys that can get to the basket and finish/dish (instead of only 1).
 
I never did. I simply stated it "ended up being the right move". You as well as john are assigning that to be about his injury, not me.

It was the right move because 1. Nate was our white whale & had a great season 2. we made the EE with the roster that was created instead
That’s fair, I understand you weren’t tying it to his injury, and we both agree the outcome worked out for us. Ament had a great season and making the EE was a success.

I just think saying it “ended up being the right move” is still outcome-based reasoning. It worked out, but that doesn’t necessarily validate that specific decision at the time (even if we all agree with the decision). With Rice’s injury, there’s really no way to evaluate whether passing on him was the right call in the first place.
 
Michigan says hello
It’s why I said high reward. It’s potentially a good thing, but for every Michigan there’s plenty where it didn’t work out. If you look at the remaining elite 8 teams and where the starters began their career, Michigan was an outlier. Most had 3-4 guys that stayed their career at that school and supplemented in the portal.
 
It’s why I said high reward. It’s potentially a good thing, but for every Michigan there’s plenty where it didn’t work out. If you look at the remaining elite 8 teams and where the starters began their career, Michigan was an outlier. Most had 3-4 guys that stayed their career at that school and supplemented in the portal.
I bet that number goes down as more time passes
 
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