Is the "free transfer" every year or something a player will only have available once in their career? If they are unlimited I suspect that the only reason to keep SJU season tickets is as a donation, or if you just enjoy watching basketball with no regard to the success of the teams involved. So if they are unlimited no need to read on.
But if it's the latter wouldn't it make sense for non-elite programs to target freshman and sophmore transfers and not spend so much recruiting time on high school players? This would give you a chance within a few years of actually having a roster of experienced players who have played in your system. Bringing in players who continuously play their junior and senior years somewhere else seems counterproductive to success. An SJU coach has not recruited a four year player since Amar. As of now without mentioning names there is a shot we could end that dubious streak next year. On the other hand bringing in one-year senior rentals for anything more than to plug a hole doesn't seem like a good formula to me either. Not just experience, but experience within a program has value.
Trying to figure out how SJU ever finds any success in this new system. Finding lower ranked players and coaching them up is not going to accomplish anything for SJU except to be a farm team for the teams that end up playing in the tournament. So when it comes to high school guys forget about potential - if they can't make an immediate impact don't bother with them. Lose the JUCO coaches phone numbers too. There are pages and pages (and pages and pages) of posts here from multiple posters how the real benefit of a JUCO comes in his second year due to the adjustment to D1. I agree! That would mean if a team has any interest in a JUCO they might as well let some less aware program handle the adjustment year. Like SJU just did with Cole and Moore.
And sure, this is not only a SJU problem, but losing four underclassmen a year is a problem and I'm looking at this from a SJU perspective. The players SJU has lost played real minutes and made real accomplishments this year. The idea that they will not improve and would not have accomplished even more next year flies in the face of coaching players up being a recipe for success, as you just coached them up to help someone else.
The rules have changed. I'm not anti-player so I'm not against it. But the programs that adapt to the changes are going to be the winning programs and the ones that do not are going to be left behind until they realize the full ramifications and adjust to the new order of things.
