I hadn’t thought of this before, but Muss may be using the portal this season to concentrate on improving spots 9 and 10 on the roster.
Even though he will still probably continue to use a 7-8 man rotation the last 1/3 of the season, he got a first hand look at what losing to injury, 2 of your very best players could do to your regular season. If his players 9 and 10, could have replaced players 7 and 8 without a big drop-off, he wouldn’t have ended up 10th in the SEC.
He’s bringing in 2 or 3 transfers that have 2-3 years eligibility left that he may want to bring back the following season if they’ve further developed their skills. That would cut down on his portal needs next season.
So true. These changes to the portal will also change the mind of the players in how to use it. They may see that 9-12 probable minutes at their current school while experiencing long tourney runs, isn’t so bad. While getting those 9-12 minutes, they could be graduating and be able to transfer the next year and get those additional minutes they wanted to end their college career.
I agree it is perhaps an outlier. But I think it is an outlier because he needed to replace his entire backcourt. That won’t be needed every year since transfers coming in are not all graduate transfers like years before and they may not be draftable NBA guys,
But that does not change the plight of high school freshmen. If they don’t get to play in the first year, they may still leave and if Muss wants to get better players, he may still ask a freshman that didn’t get to play, to leave, since portal allows first time transfer to get immediate eligibility at another schoool.
That’s not quite confirmed yet, as Devo and Walsh may both be back. If neither one comes back, then yes, it would be another reason added to the outlier.