I got away this weekend for a bit and spent time with my family and my best friend from high school and college and his family so that was a nice respite from GT hoops and the insanity of the last year.
Who are your winners and losers with the new acc football schedule?
KQ-
Winners- NC State (two hardest games at home Clem/UNC and a lot of non-bowl teams), Pitt (same as NC State two hardest conference games are at home, UNC/FSU, lot of chum)
Losers- Clemson (their schedule got harder), Miami (they got GT, at UNC, at NC and at FSU in four of five games), Syracuse, Duke (their schedule got harder (Clem, NCSt, at FSU, at UNC)
Wait and see- BC and GT look a little more favorable on paper, but I need to see some questionable teams like UVA or Miami and how good or bad they are.
Does basketball have a redshirt rule like football where you can play in a few games?
KQ- No and this is one of the dumbest things right now once they added it in football. You should be able to play in 7-10 games and keep your shirt. I think it would help CBB. There are a lot of guys who wasted a year on playing in a few games because maybe they were going to be in a rotation or were not ready or a team had a rash of injuries like GT for example and the use of Freds Pauls Bagatskis. That is really common plus it would help eliminate some of the injury medical requests they have to deal with.
Are you aware of any situations at other programs similar to what happened with Jose and Moses not deciding until kinda late on whether or not to go pro? Interested in knowing how other coaches would’ve handled that.
KQ- It happens quite often. That particular cycle was extra hard because of all the weird covid lingering stuff like the NBA season was delayed you have scouting issues and then a bunch of uncertainty late. GT has had this happen a few different times, Iman Shumpert was also a late decision when BG was hired, though in that case I knew he was leaving if he got a first-round grade and BG knew. Alvarado's decision was a financial one. Had NIL been on the table like it is now, you could probably have made him stay, but UK was pushing hard too for him to go there. Moses is just a different kind of kid, his family pushed him to go when he wasn't ready. Both of them would've maybe benefitted from another year, but Alvarado obviously carved out his own path. Moses actually went overseas and turned down NBA deals because he got more money than the NBA offers weirdly.
Illinois got in this a few different times including with Kofi Cockburn who was in the last cycle and he declared in late April when they thought they were getting him back and now he is overseas.
It is really hard to control what happens in those circumstances unless you have serious NIL money like UNC had to keep their core together, but Hubert Davis is having some growing pains as a coach with them right now despite keeping their core.
Louisville last week signed a naming rights deal for its football stadium for $41 million over 20 years. Louisville will receive $1.7 million next year and the payment will slowly escalate to $2.48 million by the final year. For as badly as GT needs money right now and with the prestige of BDS@HGF at an all-time low, would GT ever consider this? With all the new activity in midtown you’d imagine there would be some cash to be had for selling the naming rights and GTAA would go a long way towards catching up with the Joneses.
KQ- This has been mentioned on here before and it has been discussed. Obviously they aren't going to make it something stupid, but if the right deal came along I'm sure they could work something out. Louisville's stadium is interesting because it is right literally off the interstate like where the Varsity is on the downtown connector here so it is a good billboard for something. Also it has had naming rights forever until Papa John pulled out of there in 2020. It was Papa John's Stadium since the late 1990s when it first opened. So that is a different deal.
It was mentioned in a thread that J Batt was speaking at a GT NIL event last Thursday, but I never saw details posted. Did you hear anything coming out of that? Also about a month you had heard they were working on this - any movement on the micro donations? Still fully believe GT has a lot of fans untapped who won’t give $500 when they’re pissed, but who would give it to you through $50 ten times throughout the year after big wins on the field or the court.
KQ- Not my turf, if someone on here wants to delve into whatever went on that is fine, but I try to steer clear of the fine details of NIL stuff like those meetings for the most part.
