As UR enters the summer coming off a historic run to the A10 title and first round upset in NCAA tourney, there is no question they need to capitalize on this run to keep the ship moving. There is a difference between reloading in the offseason and rebuilding - and I am curious to see what people think is the key to making sure we RELOAD, and don't fall into 3-4 year REBUILD (or more) like we did last time after our back to back NCAA appearances.
Recruiting will be key and the transfer portal should help us (I Hope) here with admissions. Maybe there are kids we didn't recruit or couldn't recruit who go elsewhere, play well, and looking to transfer and now they have a year or 2 under their belt of college classes - they can be admitted to UR, whereas right out of HS - that would have been more difficult. Or maybe there is a kid we didn't recruit because didn't think was good enough for A10 level and now is playing at that level and looking to move up. Or someone we lose to bigger school - doesn't get minutes and looking to start over. I think portal helps us in this regard and by all accounts - I think we can all agree our portal pickups have been good.
BUT - we can't survive on portal landings, and will need to continue to get better and better HS recruits as well.
Player development - we need guys like Grace to continue to get better each year, even with limited minutes. Even a guy like Goose - we will need him to get better offensively over the summer. So player development needs to continue to improve.
Scheduling - we need to get a big game or two on TV in our OOC and win some of these games. We need to be talked about not only when and if we make our run at end of the season, but also early in the year as well. This helps with current team confidence and also recruiting.
Meaningful post-season. We need to make NIT or NCAA. Not saying the NIT replaces the NCAA - but rebuilds, I see you making nothing. NIT - your close, and maybe a year away from getting back to NCAA. Make no post-season 2 years in a row - not looking good.
Recruiting will be key and the transfer portal should help us (I Hope) here with admissions. Maybe there are kids we didn't recruit or couldn't recruit who go elsewhere, play well, and looking to transfer and now they have a year or 2 under their belt of college classes - they can be admitted to UR, whereas right out of HS - that would have been more difficult. Or maybe there is a kid we didn't recruit because didn't think was good enough for A10 level and now is playing at that level and looking to move up. Or someone we lose to bigger school - doesn't get minutes and looking to start over. I think portal helps us in this regard and by all accounts - I think we can all agree our portal pickups have been good.
BUT - we can't survive on portal landings, and will need to continue to get better and better HS recruits as well.
Player development - we need guys like Grace to continue to get better each year, even with limited minutes. Even a guy like Goose - we will need him to get better offensively over the summer. So player development needs to continue to improve.
Scheduling - we need to get a big game or two on TV in our OOC and win some of these games. We need to be talked about not only when and if we make our run at end of the season, but also early in the year as well. This helps with current team confidence and also recruiting.
Meaningful post-season. We need to make NIT or NCAA. Not saying the NIT replaces the NCAA - but rebuilds, I see you making nothing. NIT - your close, and maybe a year away from getting back to NCAA. Make no post-season 2 years in a row - not looking good.