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25-26 Basketball Roster

I fully expect to see Kojenets leave. I would be very surprised to see Newton come back. Everyone else is up in the air.
 
Word on the street is that Starwood is no longer with the program, but until I can get confirmation on that I'll assume he's still on the team.
 
Poke in New England said:
Anyone watched Summers play in person?
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I've watched a couple of his Laramie High School games. Haven't seen any of his AAU games. It's always difficult to judge Wyoming high school basketball because the overall competition level is not great.

He had a good motor on the glass and had surprisingly good court vision for a big guy. However, he looked a little slow and a bit heavy for his frame, but it appears he has leaned down quite a bit.
 
So far, I think Sunny could upgrade each of these. With the exception of Obi. This is the new norm. Rebuild every year and hope to catch lightning in a bottle once in a while and get a run at the NCAA tournament. It sucks, but there’s nothing coaches or ADs can do about it right now. It’ll be interesting to follow up with the players that chased money for 4-5 years in college once they’re done. How many have a degree or career to fall back on? How many make it to the pro level? How many are broke within the first 2 years without college sports? And how many coaches are going to just keep going when an 18 year old gets a guaranteed $7 million for just showing up on campus, making several more dollars than they are, with no real ramifications? Like the kid going to byu next year. That’s freakin’ crazy to me! Should make an interesting documentary for Netflix down the road.
 
Cowboy20 said:
So far, I think Sunny could upgrade each of these. With the exception of Obi. This is the new norm. Rebuild every year and hope to catch lightning in a bottle once in a while and get a run at the NCAA tournament. It sucks, but there’s nothing coaches or ADs can do about it right now. It’ll be interesting to follow up with the players that chased money for 4-5 years in college once they’re done. How many have a degree or career to fall back on? How many make it to the pro level? How many are broke within the first 2 years without college sports? And how many coaches are going to just keep going when an 18 year old gets a guaranteed $7 million for just showing up on campus, making several more dollars than they are, with no real ramifications? Like the kid going to byu next year. That’s freakin’ crazy to me! Should make an interesting documentary for Netflix down the road.
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I think we all kind of know how this is going to turn out.

Giving hundreds of thousands of dollars (or in some cases millions of dollars) to 18 and 19 year old young men to play sports with little to no guidance from anyone around them...what could go wrong?

My "guess"...most of them won't play professionally, and of those that do, most will have a very short career. Most of them won't obtain a college degree. Most of them will be in a bad to mildly below average life situation by age 30.
 
TheRealUW said:
I think we all kind of know how this is going to turn out.

Giving hundreds of thousands of dollars (or in some cases millions of dollars) to 18 and 19 year old young men to play sports with little to no guidance from anyone around them...what could go wrong?

My "guess"...most of them won't play professionally, and of those that do, most will have a very short career. Most of them won't obtain a college degree. Most of them will be in a bad to mildly below average life situation by age 30.
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I would be very interested in the data on this. The scenario you are describing might be something that has changed in the last 30 or so years.

The conversation about the "right" way to pursue athletics has really transformed in my lifetime. When I was very young, professional athletes often had regular jobs outside of their professional sports careers. During the '80s and '90s we saw the full transition into full-time professionalism in athletics. There were many cautionary tales during that transition. The money exploded...lessons were learned. I think those lessons have seeped into the business of athletics in a way that is hard to overestimate. Young, gifted athletes are much more mature and have a much better approach to that side of things in general than they did a generation ago when this was much newer. There are still examples of guys being silly with money and all that...but I think the direction is generally that they do better than they used to.
 
TheRealUW said:
I think we all kind of know how this is going to turn out.

Giving hundreds of thousands of dollars (or in some cases millions of dollars) to 18 and 19 year old young men to play sports with little to no guidance from anyone around them...what could go wrong?

My "guess"...most of them won't play professionally, and of those that do, most will have a very short career. Most of them won't obtain a college degree. Most of them will be in a bad to mildly below average life situation by age 30.
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Nah. They will all sock it away in S&P funds and have a solid nest egg by 35. 18 and 19 year olds always make prudent financial decisions.
 
307bball said:
I would be very interested in the data on this. The scenario you are describing might be something that has changed in the last 30 or so years.

The conversation about the "right" way to pursue athletics has really transformed in my lifetime. When I was very young, professional athletes often had regular jobs outside of their professional sports careers. During the '80s and '90s we saw the full transition into full-time professionalism in athletics. There were many cautionary tales during that transition. The money exploded...lessons were learned. I think those lessons have seeped into the business of athletics in a way that is hard to overestimate. Young, gifted athletes are much more mature and have a much better approach to that side of things in general than they did a generation ago when this was much newer. There are still examples of guys being silly with money and all that...but I think the direction is generally that they do better than they used to.
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I'm not sure where to find the most up to date hard data, but there are fairly recent articles that paint a pretty bleak picture in regards to how professional athletes do financially in the long-term.

I remember an article from Forbes around 2015 reporting that 80% of retired NFL players go "broke" within three years of being out of the league.

Poor access to competent financial planning advice, a significantly warped perception for how long their athletics careers would last, lack of planning for a second career after sports, and hanger-on's (family, friends, girlfriends, etc) were all problems in 2015 that still exist today.

The average NIL deal for a college football player in a power conference is $39,944. There are a ton of players jumping around from college to college simply for an extra $10-20k per year. Most of the players at that level are never going to the NFL, and their athletic careers will likely end when their NCAA eligibility runs out. I have to image that transferring between schools 2-3 times is probably not friendly to obtaining a degree - at least not one that would actually make you employable in the modern work force.

I hear a lot of talk about how NIL and the new profit-sharing model are just free market capitalism finally benefiting the "working class" players instead of the well-off university, conference, and NCAA executives. That may be true in the short-term, but I'd be willing to bet that in the long-term you will see ex-college athletes have worse long-term financial outcomes as a direct result of the money available to them in college athletics. That really shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. We've long marveled at how many lottery winners end up worse off financially a decade after their lottery win. In my opinion, NIL will not be a net positive for college athletes, but I'm probably in the minority when it comes to that opinion.
 
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TheRealUW said:
I'm not sure where to find the most up to date hard data, but there are fairly recent articles that paint a pretty bleak picture in regards to how professional athletes do financially in the long-term.

I remember an article from Forbes around 2015 reporting that 80% of retired NFL players go "broke" within three years of being out of the league.

Poor access to competent financial planning advice, a significantly warped perception for how long their athletics careers would last, lack of planning for a second career after sports, and hanger-on's (family, friends, girlfriends, etc) were all problems in 2015 that still exist today.

The average NIL deal for a college football player in a power conference is $39,944. There are a ton of players jumping around from college to college simply for an extra $10-20k per year. Most of the players at that level are never going to the NFL, and their athletic careers will likely end when their NCAA eligibility runs out. I have to image that transferring between schools 2-3 times is probably not friendly to obtaining a degree - at least not one that would actually make you employable in the modern work force.

I hear a lot of talk about how NIL and the new profit-sharing model are just free market capitalism finally benefiting the "working class" players instead of the well-off university, conference, and NCAA executives. That may be true in the short-term, but I'd be willing to bet that in the long-term you will see ex-college athletes have worse long-term financial outcomes as a direct result of the money available to them in college athletics. That really shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. We've long marveled at how many lottery winners end up worse off financially a decade after their lottery win. In my opinion, NIL will not be a net positive for college athletes, but I'm probably in the minority when it comes to that opinion.
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The long reported bad outcomes of lottery winners is one of those myths that just doesn't die. Media over-reports those times when people fantastically crash and burn so you don't really get a good idea of actual outcomes. Google around a bit and you actually see that the lottery winner's being worse off later is an urban myth....but, back to athletics.

It's really hard to make the case that these players getting this money is going to cause them to be worse off. For the athletes who are not going pro (the vast majority), they have had bad graduation rates for a long time. Does it go from bad to worse? maybe...but you can't go past zero. That means that the main difference is, do they make some cash while they are not earning their degree or do they not get any cash? When they did not earn any cash...those players (who never did earn degrees at a high rate) had pretty depressing outcomes 10 years on. Nowadays...they can capture some money while playing and, if they have the same behaviors as before, will have depressing outcomes just like before.

The players that are serous about getting degrees (and there are still a lot of them) will still get their degrees...even if they transfer around a bit chasing some cash...the players who are chasing the dream but don't have a backup plan will now get some $$ before flaming out...and the superstars will make generational money and then go pro.
 
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