We're past the transfer portal deadline, so I figured it's time to look back and see how this thread aged. The staff did a good job on another thread revealing what next year's roster will look like, so I'll hold off on that analysis.
I said I wanted to see us do a hard roster reset and choose a lane. And that our most likely path towards contention is to build through continuity. That's not exactly groundbreaking, as bear2be2 and others have been pounding that drum for years, but it appears that's the direction we took. We'll still probably need one more year to see full results, but this was a huge step towards getting back to the Baylor Basketball that win at the highest level.
I also said we needed to move on from Jason Smith at GM. The Jake Lindsey hire confirms that we did. I'm pleased with that, as we missed on far too many high-dollar NIL takes.
All the "for sure gone" guys are gone (Agbim, Skillings, Rataj, Powell). Both "almost definitely gone" guys (Carr and JJ White) look to be gone. Carr to the draft, but I never saw JJ White announce anything. My thought is either he isn't going to get an appeal for the ~6ish games he played, or he is medically retiring from basketball. On the fence was Tounde Yessoufou, and while he's still technically on the fence, it sounds like he's leaning towards staying in the draft.
Where I massively missed is thinking the staff might prioritize James Nnaji over Mayo Soyoye. I thought the fact they added Nnaji and he had an NBA-ready body and 4 years to play meant that he would be in the picture. With him entering the portal and it sounding like we made the decision to part ways with him, it's become clear that we signed him to be a high-impact mid season add and he's just not at the level we thought he was. He's probably not a high level D1 player, unfortunately.
I said we'd need to add the following:
Scoring and more specifically, shooting.
The Mingo addition gives us scoring and slashing. The addition of Decker gives us shooting. We probably need one more piece in the backcourt. I would love to get Kayden's younger brother, Dylan, but it sings like he's on track for a redshirt due to an injury (I believe an ankle?). Getting Tounde back would have been huge here, but I don't think it's in the cards.
Another ball handler.
We got another ball handler in Kayden Mingo. We have a big gap in spacing, however, as both Mingo and Isaac Williams aren't volume shooters from outside.
A junkyard dog.
I think Chatman gives us the junkyard dog piece we've been missing. He's a really good rebounder and I bet we're going to see a lot of lobs to him off Mingo and Williams drives. We may even bring back a version of something Kendall Kaut dubbed "The Awesome Play" that we team as a designed set for Quincy Acy that freed him up for some wide open dunks. If Perez, Bodo Bodo, and Soyoye are ready to contribute the minutes we'll need from them, I think this could be our best frontcourt since 2022.
Overall, I'm pleased with what we've added so far, but we will need 1-2 more pieces to make this something really special.
