MidTennFootball said:

Interesting. Belmont was returning practically all their production, losing their leading scorer would certainly hurt.

She'd definitely be more of a traditional 4, only attempted 18 3's the whole year, not sure it's a great fit playing alongside Boldyreva

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Belmont is losing a whole to the portal, men and I guess women as well. Not a fan, so I am looking forward to quality schadenfreude next season.

complete rebuild. Going to be ugly, uglier than I thought it would be. Good luck on selling tickets.

MTFAN61 said:

Impressive high school biography. Averaged almost 16 ppg senior year. Naismith All-American honorable mention. #15 player in the state. 81-8 record as a starter at Blackman. At 6' 1" nice size as wing.
Apparently played very little at Purdue her freshman year, 0.6 ppg

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Any player that comes from Blackman is going to be tough, tenacious and smart. Monson is no different. Hard to carve out meaningful playing time in that league as a freshman

Interesting. Belmont was returning practically all their production, losing their leading scorer would certainly hurt.

She'd definitely be more of a traditional 4, only attempted 18 3's the whole year, not sure it's a great fit playing alongside Boldyreva

I have never been his biggest fan but I do think a lot of his shortcomings were due to not being used correctly. He did start to click down the stretch and played good low post minutes.

I am sort of indifferent to his departure. I don't think his talent was ever going to be maximized here due to how CNM wants to use his centers. But Nick finding a good enough center with a specific skillset and convincing him to come here... Im not exactly optimistic. Well see.

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A new name that immediately jumps to the top of my board!

BlueraiderSC said:

Are people tailgating?

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I debated it but I think we will just get something in the stadium.

Impressive high school biography. Averaged almost 16 ppg senior year. Naismith All-American honorable mention. #15 player in the state. 81-8 record as a starter at Blackman. At 6' 1" nice size as wing.
Apparently played very little at Purdue her freshman year, 0.6 ppg

TruBluCop said:

What a joke. Sad bunch. Why would a coach take them?

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Agree 100%! Provided they do transfer, it'll be the fourth team for each sister. Even in these Covid years that may be a record.

Scomo64 said:

Hayes girls are back in the portal.

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What a joke. Sad bunch. Why would a coach take them?

If she has any designs on coming home she better make her mind up quick. She has the kind of length we need

I think it's been obvious the last few years that Rick has been preparing Matt to take over, he does as much during TO's as CRI. I'd say naming him CRI's successor should be a slam dunk, but nothing ever is with this administration

jakeboldenbrp said:

Her being from Wayne County is probably why she's so well hidden (same as Savannah Davis at 1A McKenzie). However, her AAU team, AL Southern Starz, is legit. They've produced quite a few Top 100 ESPN/HoopGurlz recruits over the years.

Know who else is on that AAU team with Baugus?

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Macie Phifer

jakeboldenbrp said:

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Freshman Guard from Blackman HS has entered the portal

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Hope she's interested in coming home!!

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Freshman Guard from Blackman HS has entered the portal

You are correct about wrestling. I believe it was 1979... I think it was Tony Rowland that transferred to UNLV and won the NCAA at his weight class...

MTFAN61 said:

I agree that especially the last 3-4 years MT's women's recruiting has been excellent.
Middle Tennessee is one of G5's top 3-5 women's basketball recruiting schools in America. As long as we keep Matt around that recruiting ability will continue to only get higher & higher. We already recruit better than a large portion of the power schools.

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Good for our future prospects if, indeed, he is hired as next HC after Rick. Very few coaches with SEC head coaching experience out there and he's one of them.

I agree that especially the last 3-4 years MT's women's recruiting has been excellent.
Middle Tennessee is one of G5's top 3-5 women's basketball recruiting schools in America. As long as we keep Matt around that recruiting ability will continue to only get higher & higher. We already recruit better than a large portion of the power schools.

MTFAN61 said:

Phifer's recruitment appears similar to Blair Baugus. Recruited by Middle Tennessee, UAB, Belmont, etc thus far for 2025 class. Doesn't appear to be in any hurry though. Speculating she's holding out for a P4 offer. 2025 opportunities are filling up here at MT. Was hoping she would have committed already, but looking more & more like she's willing to risk a great opportunity for what she may consider a higher caliber school.

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Her being from Wayne County is probably why she's so well hidden (same as Savannah Davis at 1A McKenzie). However, her AAU team, AL Southern Starz, is legit. They've produced quite a few Top 100 ESPN/HoopGurlz recruits over the years.

Know who else is on that AAU team with Baugus?

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mtfblue said:

I think Ricks first class had the highest rated recruits, followed by Amber the next year

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Not sure that parallels to today's player ranking services like ESPN/HoopGurlz, etc. with what they had in 2005. I know Holt was a Junior College All-American before transferring to MT. That's why I say that all means nothing to me. Payne was a unanimous 4-star and #89 in the country according to ESPN and couldn't get PT behind these girls you're concerned don't have bigger offers. Same argument could be said for Rellah Boothe who was a McDonald's All-American and transferred in from Texas. Point is -- regardless of where your offers are from or where you're ranked is irrelevant. Lady Raiders have done pretty well for themselves with their scouting philosophy.

mtfblue said:

I thought I was the only one thinking this. We are her best offer.

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Being the first team to the best players in Tennessee and it's surrounding states has worked pretty well for the last 19 years. I'm not going to challenge it now. CRI is really good at identifying that talent and getting that verbal before the bigger offer comes. I'm sure the local "bigger offers" were upset they missed Krystal Horton, Alysha Clark (went to Belmont first), Anne Marie Lanning, Ty Petty, Alex Johnson, Courtney Whitson, Jaylyn Gregory, Ta'Mia Scott.

I don't think it should be ridiculed that they chose MTSU because they didn't have anywhere better to go. It's apart of the recruiting process to lock those players down early before that secret gets out, just like everyone I mentioned above.

I don't think you mean it this way, but it's not good optics to recruits/their parents who may stumble upon these forums (they are free to the public to view) when they search their name and someone is concerned "Where are the bigger offers?"

Im considering stopping by. I haven’t step foot in Floyd for about 5-6 years. It’s not because of the state of the program or my frustrations either. I live in Memphis and my work schedule for years has been Wed-Sun. I always take a week of leave in October with hopes to coming in town for a MT/Titans home game. I’ve timed it very poorly (I have to bid leave almost a year in advance) and both teams always have a bye or away game. I also had a dog who was almost 15 that needed a lot of care. Unfortunately she passed away 3 weeks ago. All those reasons are why I haven’t been to a game in awhile

I’m on vacation this week and my mom still lives in the boro. I’m coming to see her and do a bunch of honey-dos, upgrade her tvs/tech, etc. It just dawned on me the spring game is happening, so I’m considering stopping by for a few minutes

Scoring volume is good. 2p% is good. Assist volume is good but is overshadowed by a very very bad turnover volume. IUPUI ranked 360th (third to last) on KenPom this year. They got two players from 2023 portal that played on abominably bad teams: one barely played and the other was a complete liability on offense. The fact they are still trying their luck at the best players from the absolute worst teams in the country is very discouraging to me.

EDIT: of players who played over 700 mins, Counter was third in the nation in TOPG in 22-23. Was 11th in 23-24.

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