2026 Portal Prospects

I guess I don't mind.

for years, every young really talented high major kid would go pro way before they were ready and way before they had a degree. you couldn't stay in school and pass up an NBA contract when you might get injured. so high majors would reload each year with 18 years olds. it lead to ugly college basketball.

granted it was good for us. we had 3rd and 4th year guys playing against high major freshmen and sophomores. it gave us a chance. now, not so much because high major kids stay in school. the pay allows that.

but is that really bad for college basketball? high major teams are older and better than ever. this March Madness has been great. imo
 
sman said:
97 ... NIL is voluntary. nobody is forcing teams to increase the payout. each program will decide what level is worth it to them.
I'm sure every college was against giving scholarships in the beginning, too. then they decided it was worth it.
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When these athlete payments were based on private donations, I had nothing to argue against as what an individual decides to support is none of my concern. However, when University funds are “re-allocated” to pay essentially mercenaries then yes I have a big problem with it. There are plenty of schools that already abuse “student fees” (VCU and JMU are prime examples) to subsidize the sports programs and I personally think that is a crime as the schools basically hide the purpose of the fee. The good news is a prospective student does have the opportunity in most cases to choose a school without such fees. Based on what I see across the Country more and more students DON’T care about the college athletics programs and I am sure that many will pivot away from schools that heavily finance such programs internally. Yes the big, public Universities can play the game of the most money wins and there are a few others that have an ultra-wealthy donor that can try to counter the sheer volume of the big ones, but most schools are going to have to be about education and not pro sports. Competition for students is going to be real soon, just look at the demographics. Major change is coming. It is just a question of when and who will force the change.
 
RichmondNative said:
The good news is a prospective student does have the opportunity in most cases to choose a school without such fees. Based on what I see across the Country more and more students DON’T care about the college athletics programs and I am sure that many will pivot away from schools that heavily finance such programs internally.
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absolutely. there are tons of great schools for kids who don't care about athletics. always have been.

RichmondNative said:
Yes the big, public Universities can play the game of the most money wins and there are a few others that have an ultra-wealthy donor that can try to counter the sheer volume of the big ones, but most schools are going to have to be about education and not pro sports.
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plenty of colleges aren't playing the NIL game. schools have that choice.

RichmondNative said:
Competition for students is going to be real soon, just look at the demographics. Major change is coming. It is just a question of when and who will force the change.
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not sure what you mean.
 
understood that there will be fewer college aged kids. not sure how much that affects elite colleges, though. lesser colleges will close. not Richmond.
 
sman said:
understood that there will be fewer college aged kids. not sure how much that affects elite colleges, though. lesser colleges will close. not Richmond.
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Not saying UR is going to close. Saying that there will be a tightening of budgets across the board and cuts will be made to programs. I don’t think “professional sports” are going to be a differentiator for Universities that are elite educators. It is just one other factor to add to the equation.

The bigger threat to UR is the P4 conferences. They can easily shut UR and the A10 out of basketball. The SEC and BIG10 are already scheming against the Big East and I think the ACC is next. There is going to be a realignment and you can easily see where UR is going to land.
 
When schools are paying the an athletes directly we really need to stop the charade of student-athlete and just fully treat the revenue generators as professional leagues. trying to maintain this last facade of academics is leading to the chaos we are seeing.
 
I am waiting for it to get to a point where Elon Musk is looking to enroll to be eligible for NIL since it would be a pay raise…
 
I saw that too sman. I saw Yale play twice recently and this guy is definitely a p5 two way athlete. Really came on scoring late in the year.
 
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