What does all of these guys in the portal mean?

We heard last night Armando Baycock coming back to UNC using his final year of eligibility, his fifth season. Gonna go back to play for the Tar Heels, but we also heard Puff Johnson going into the transfer portal. Fourth player that we've seen so far going into the transfer portal from UNC includes Tyler Nicole, Tyler Nickel, Justin McCoy, Puff Johnson, Jontress Stiles.

The four guys that we've seen so far going in to the transfer portal. Ross Martin, inside Carolina, with the nice beautiful echo out there in the background. How you doing out there, Ross? Good. Can you hear me okay and everything?

Yeah, I got you. I just want to know real quick, Ross, who else from UNC on the roster is gonna be leaving? You know, I think I think they're gonna be, I think Caleb Love is the one guy that we're waiting for. I think he is the guy that everybody kind of assumes will be leaving Chapel Hill.

So I would watch that one. But outside of that, the damage may be done in terms of Puff Johnson, Dontress Stiles, Tyler Nickel, the kind of the three big names, the reserves that have left. But yeah, Caleb Love will be the one guy that we're kind of eye. And the general sentiment is that he's leaving Chapel Hill, whether that's for NFL route or for sorry, NBA draft route, professional route, or as a transfer. Ross, what position do you think Caleb Love would play in the NFL?

That's that's what I'm thinking now. It might be a good, good little slot receiver, maybe a little safety. Here's a physical fast athletic kid. Bring the physicality there. So Ross, if I could give you one wish, you can pick any player you want for UNC to get from the transfer portal. Who would it be? Man, you caught me.

I haven't done too much portal research. I leave that to Shirell McMillan. But right now, the guy they're going after is this Timberlake kid, Nick Timberlake out of Towson. I think he might be heading into his sixth college year with a red shirt and the COVID year in there. You know, he shot 42% from three. And so I mean, shooters is what they what they need. I think all UNC fans are you know, the pain of last year's shooting, they want three-point shooters. They want athletic, long three-point shooters.

And Timberlake fits that mold. They're going after some other guys. They've reached out to a couple other names.

You know, we definitely confirmed the Timberlake thing on our side and Hubert Davis made an in-home visit like Tuesday on him. So, but look, I mean, it's they need athletic wings, six-foot-five, six-foot-six guys who could shoot and pour it in. That's what they missed last year. That's where Armando Bacot kind of struggled the second half of the season. They're crowding him in because they you know, they could they could leave Leaky Black. They could leave Puff Johnson. You know, the shooting was not a a great for UNC last year.

So they're gonna try to remedy that in the transfer portal in a big way. Ross Martin inside Carolina joining us here on the Adam Gold Show alongside Luis Fernandez. I'm Dennis Cox. Now something Ross that I'm curious about, we see a lot of teams, a lot of coaches out there. For example, we've seen Kevin Keats go into the portal. We're seeing Steve Forbes, Wake Forest going into the transfer portal a lot. With the NIL game, are, is Hubert Davis, is UNC willing to use NIL money to go get these guys, like you mentioned the Timberlake from Towson or some of these other guys, are they willing to play that game, not just have guys earn NIL money after they arrive on campus?

Yeah, we haven't seen, you know, those offers go out where a kid's asking for, you know, 200k or, you know, 500k like the Miami situation and what we've seen at various places around the nation. That hasn't really been how UNC operates. Now they have a collective, I know, for football and there's other routes in basketball, but really it's, it's kind of the Armando Bay-Cott method where UNC's high profile, they're on national television.

It's a, it's a rabid national fan base. You can get here and if you're, you know, charismatic and you have the, the Instagram following and Twitter following, you can make a lot of NIL money and that's what Bay-Cott's done and that ended up on, you know, he's coming back purely, one of the main reasons is because of how much we make in NIL versus, you know, trying to play the G League or going abroad or trying to make it in the NBA. So, you know, UNC is always gonna be handling NIL differently than a lot of schools and it's more of kind of like, you can make it once you get here.

There's a lot of ways, proven success in football and basketball. Armando Bay-Cott is kind of the poster child for NIL, but it's not like, you know, Huber Davis, I don't think is out there offering deals and offering money for kids to come here. Whereas some schools you're seeing donors operate in that kind of way that's bending the rules and in a kind of a gray area of that NIL donor field.

Is that a mistake though? Not, not dealing like some of these other schools are doing. I mean, I don't know what the right or wrong answer is, but I, for example, I see Kansas State filled that team up through the transfer portal. They're in the Sweet 16 right now. So I just don't know if that may potentially could put UNC behind in the long run. Well, I mean transfer portal, UNC is gonna have to be all in.

Is that what you're referring to or just the NIL? Is it using NIL money to attract transfer guys or even attract freshmen coming in? Not just, hey, make it after you get here.

Hey, we're gonna have something set for you when you arrive and you can make more. Yeah, I don't think they're gonna get into that kind of pay for play. Like, you know, here's, you know, here's 100 grand, here's 200 grand. I think they're gonna use the power of the, you know, the allure of Carolina more to entice transfers here. And they're definitely gonna have to hit the transfer portal. I mean, you're seeing how teams can remake their whole roster. The money issue, I just don't think that, you know, UNC's gonna get to that realm where, you know, Miami did and, you know, they're in the Sweet 16 as well.

Some great examples there, but they're gonna have to hit the transfer portal heavy to get to these guys. And they're gonna have four or five open scholarships now. So we'll see a completely different team next year with, you know, Baycott and kind of R.J. Davis holding it down. We are waiting to hear about R.J. Davis's decision, but we do think he'll be back as well. So, I mean, this is the new world, whether you do what you're talking about with the NIL stuff to get transfers, but flipping your roster is kind of how college basketball works now. You can change your roster in the offseason in a couple weeks and have a whole new team next season.

And local NC State did too. So, it's out there for sure. You have to buy in, whether you like it or not. You're listening to The Adam Gold Show. I'm Louis Fernandez. He's Dennis Cox. Ross Martin joining us. Ross, I think Armando Baycott summed up what his decision was best last night when he tweeted out a picture of Perry Ellis coming back for what feels like he's been here forever now. And in all of this, I think it's easy sometimes to take for granted what Armando has brought to this UNC team, this UNC program as a whole.

You look at, like, what the records he could break, you know, in this final season, his next season coming up here. How big of a deal is this for Carolina to get Armando back for one more year? Yeah, I think it stabilizes UNC right now.

I mean, you see it all on social media. Like, everyone's leaving, you know. Everyone's leaving UNC.

When transfers leave your program, they transfer out. I mean, you get a lot of negative pub, especially a guy like Puff Johnson, Doncho Stiles, Tyler Nickel, you know, guys that I think came in with a lot of potential. So for Baycott to come back, it stabilizes the program. You get a two time first team All-ACC player back for a, you know, a chance to win for a third time. But for his fifth year, that's huge. He's an All-American. He has a rebounding record.

He has a double double record. I mean, he is a beast. And some players, some fans will be like, well, it's time to move on.

It's time to kind of flush the roster. I mean, this guy is a player that opponents game plan for. You know, he is a beast inside, double double machine, rebounding monster, and he can change a game.

He is a very effective and consistent player. So it's huge for UNC next year. Like, they got one of the best players in the ACC back. That's huge for the roster. Now they can add some transfers.

They get R.G. Davis back against me big as well. Add some shooters and I think UNC will be right in it next season.

But Baycott was huge. I mean, he is just likable. He's smart. He's kind of the picture of what you want from a college player. Like, get his degree in the business school.

Going to try for an MBA, I think. He's taking all these records. He's very likable. He's funny. He's great with the media. So to have him back, I think it's a win-win for everybody.

Now, you mentioned R.G. Davis likely coming back. You think Caleb Bove also decides to come back or do you think he's off to other places?

Yeah. I mean, what we're reporting kind of an inside Carolina, you know, make sure a lot of stuff behind a paywall. Strel McMillan kills it for us on the kind of recruiting, transfer, team side of things. But, you know, we're thinking R.G. Davis comes back and we think Caleb Bove leaves the program, whether for the NBA or the NBA draft or international or the transfer as well. So that's what we kind of think.

That's where it's leaning towards. And then we're waiting for Demarco Dunn as well. And I think that along with the freshmen, you know, we believe Seth Trimble and Jalen Washington will also come back as well.

So that's kind of the returners and then UNC loses. Justin McCoy, Puff Johnson, Tyler Nickel and Dontre Stiles and they bring in two new freshmen. So it leaves you with four or five scholarships where they can hit the transfer portal. They can also have some two thousand twenty four kids read class as well. There's a lot of different factors of how you can change your roster. You can bring in kids now that are skipping a year of school to get in early.

You saw Duke do that with their point guard as well. So there's a lot of different angles here to approach. Yeah, Proctor, the guy you mentioned there from how I was wondering your thoughts on this in general, how college basketball coach, where the cheaper Davis, Kevin Keats, John Shire, Steve Forbes, how do you balance going into the portal to grab guys while also filling in freshmen that you can mold into your own as well? Because you can go into the transfer portal and get six, seven new guys every single year. But it is a new team every single year. How do you balance building with freshmen and recruits while also supplementing with the portal?

It's a weird balance. It's almost like free agency, like draft the right guys and supplement with free agents. It's yeah, it's exactly free agency. I think coaches are are still navigating the way to balance it, because I think every coach wants to develop players, bring in some solid recruits. And I think traditional college basketball fans, you know, you want to see them there for their freshmen, sophomore, junior season, see them develop. And by the time they're juniors and seniors, they're starters and having good careers.

But there's also angle. It's like you don't have to wait for them to develop. You can go out and get transfers and you have an impact player come in. Think about Brady Manning, impact player come in and he is your missing piece. And then you go on a final four run like UNC did in 2021, 22. So that's a certainly I think every team is going to do a couple of things. I think every team is going to do a combination of that where you develop some players, you bring in your own recruits, but you can also if there's a hole, if you don't feel like a freshman or sophomores ready, you recruit a transfer over him and that person plays while you wait for the freshman develop.

You see it even more in football. You see, you know, football, it's a development sport where you don't see any offensive lineman, defensive lineman really play until their sophomores, red shirt sophomores. If you can bring in a kid with three or four years of college experience who's been a college strength and conditioning program, you go out and get that player and plug them in.

You can start. You don't have to wait for a freshman to develop. It's a different world. It affects recruiting. It affects roster management. It's affected how many, you know, the high school classes, like how many people are able to be selected and signed into colleges. And obviously the COVID year has also affected those. It's a numbers game too.

There's only so many scholarships. So there's a lot of angles, a whole new world of college basketball now, but it's interesting to see how different programs approach it differently. I think most would kind of want a good balance, but you got to think every team's going to have a couple of transfers every year.

And that's interesting to follow too. It's a different dynamic of the game now. That kind of, I guess it leads to what I was thinking here, Ross. I mean, Hubert Davis, I feel like at this point, he's not only is he a head coach, but he's also a general manager in some ways. You just, do you think that that's just what it's going to be like being a head coach in major college basketball from now on?

Yeah. It's not just bringing in freshmen. Now you got to, you got to understand who's leaving. You got to re-recruit your players. That's another, that's another point you got in. You got to get these players back, like recruit Baycott back, recruit R.G.

Davis back. And then yeah, you have to go out and it really is free agency. It's quick.

Hubert Davis called it speed dating on his radio show a couple of weeks ago. I mean, you, you meet someone, you know, you go out on a date and you try to get a person to commit because there's only a, you know, two or three week window there and other schools are going after the same people. So you find who you, you find your needs, you find your wants and you go out and find the players too. And so, yeah, it's very much like free agency. Certainly different kinds of money involved as well, but it's roster building is a huge part of the, of the off season now.

It's very interesting. It's not just, all right, we're waiting for these freshmen to come in. It's gone and get players you want and bring them in. And I think UNC schools like UNC Duke, like they're attractive for, for players who have done really well, maybe a lower level, you know, cause it's, you know, it's industry standard. UNC Duke, their name brand programs. I think they're attractive for someone who played at a lower level that didn't get recruited like that out of high school.

They now, you know, can go to these big ACC, big 10 SEC schools because they developed improvement on a lower level, lower conference level. As long as you make sure you have your height correct on your profile, you should be okay. That's the only thing you need to make sure you do. That's Ross Martin inside Carolina. Give him a follow on Twitter at RossMartin underscore IC. Ross, thanks for your time. Really do appreciate it.