Kevin Stacom: Murphy's Law and the Transfer Portal
Kevin Stacom, Sports Analyst
Kevin Stacom: Murphy's Law and the Transfer Portal
“In any field of endeavor, anything that can go wrong, will go wrong.”
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There is no need to beat a dead horse and enumerate all that did go wrong this season for PC, between your best player (Bryce Hopkins) not being available, just about every other player nursing an injury or illness preseason and into the regular season, Abdur-Rhahim coming up lame after his best 8 three-point game vs St.John’s, etc, etc.
Suffice it to say it’s no time to dwell on an unfortunate season as everyone involved—administrators, coaches, players, fans, NIL contributors, conference honchos, media executives, the NCAA, lawyers, and agents— all the people collectively involved being hurled forward downstream in a rapidly increasing current, trying desperately to grab on to something stable to prevent a destructive descent down an impending waterfall.
As it relates to all the chaos that has become almost normal for discussion of college sports and basketball in particular, two of the Big East’s more prominent coaches, Dan Hurley and Rick Pitino, recently made a couple of very blunt comments to illustrate just how dramatic the college landscape has changed.
First up, Dan Hurley in a recent 60 Minutes interview said, “50% of my roster is considering going into the portal, or knows what school they’re going to.”
What this obviously implies is that not everyone is going to be a good Boy Scout and wait till the prescribed time period for the portal to commence (the official portal window this year is 30 days, March 24 to April 22)...human nature strikes again!
I spoke to a good friend who has been a longtime NBA player agent. Like many of his colleagues, he has found a whole new class of clients in the college realm, and he confirmed that just like players and agents not adhering to all the NBA rules for teams communicating with free agents, the college world is wide open and totally fluid.
Now, it might be a little easier for Coach Hurley to be a bit more blasé about that situation than most, since he has the 2nd or 3rd best recruiting class in the country coming in for 2025, depending upon which scouting service you read, but it does illustrate that even the most successful programs are not immune to all the instability and feeding frenzy that big money and one-year contracts induce.
The other related quote came very directly and honestly from St John’s coach Rick Pitino, who was not shy about sharing his main strategy for acquiring talent:
“We’re not recruiting any high school basketball players…because we’re losing Deivon (Smith), Kaday (Richmond), and Aaron (Scott). You can’t replace them with high school kids," said Pitino.
One of the main reasons our old friend Coach Pitino can be so confident and upfront in that regard is due to a fellow alumnus of my old High School in Queens (Holy Cross) and St John’s graduate, Mike Repole. Mr Repole is the cofounder of Glaceau (Vitamin Water), which Coca-Cola purchased for $4.1 billion, and BodyArmor Super Drink, which Coca-Cola bought for $5.6 billion.
In a NY Times article updated March 13th, he is described as follows:
“He is a trash-talking everyman who favors workout gear and travels with a team of assistants.”
“He was going to be 50 percent of our N.I.L. money,” Pitino said to the Times. “Without Mike Repole, we did not have the funds to do what we wanted.”
You can only imagine the chemistry between Repole and Pitino, as he states in the article, “I’ll always be Mike from Queens.”
I’ve been told you have to take a lot of these numbers with a grain of salt because these NIL agreements are all confidential and people are apt to either low-key or exaggerate depending on their agenda, but it was estimated that St John’s spent between $3.5 to $4 million for their now ranked #6 team.
I mention all of this to provide some context to the world that Providence College is forced to compete in now, and specifically, the critical importance of selecting the best available talent that fits your team’s needs in the portal. I am not privy to any specific numbers, but Providence will have a decent amount of money to spend
Obviously the key for Coach English and his staff will be to decide which of the current players in their program they seek to retain to add to a couple of highly rated freshman, and most critically chose wisely from the all powerful portal.
Everyone is learning and adapting on the fly, and the pressure in acquiring talent has never been greater and with the "Now (That) It’s Legal" (NIL), the wolves are out in force.
In this season of our discontent I’m betting that this St. Patrick’s Day brings good fortune that extends throughout that crucial portal period and provides the raw material necessary for the revitalization of the program.
Our luck is due to turn!