WTKA Roundtable 4/3/2025: Those Who Stayed Again

Craig has an eye patch, Sam is ill.

Things Discussed:

• Season Grade: A. Exceeded expectations, put up a banner, Sweet 16 after getting hosed by the committee.
• Dusty May is good at this: Michigan is really good in the last five minutes. They found guys they can use in ways other schools wouldn't have thought about. Knows how to put a roster together, which is critical in an age when you have to remake your roster every year.
• Why you have to rebuild your roster every year: The portal system isn't good for anyone. It's unfair to blame Dusty May (Tom Izzo!) for recruiting over Tre Donaldson because that's the game right now: they needed shot creation and went and got it in the portal. But this sucks for fans who lose the excitement of players getting better, sucks for schools that have to be constantly recruiting their own guys and everyone else's, and sucks for the players who have to transfer all the time.
• NCAA needs a holistic reboot based on contracts, and rewarding schools—perhaps with greater NIL cap space—for retaining and graduating their players.
• Are fans losing interest? They say they are, but it hasn't shown in the metrics yet. Maybe that's what has to happen? Craig: They need a collective bargaining agreement, and there's nobody to bargain with, and that's more than a year or two away.
• Michigan 2025-26: They have guards, need at least one more center and probably want to add another bench shooter (says Brian) or a starting four (Seth) because Johnson has a high foul rate. Depends which center they get and if he and Johnson can be on the court at the same time. Have Goodman to play some four, Grady to be that guy off the bench possibly.
• Nimari: Played very well down the stretch, was creating a bit as well.
• Big Ten Coaching Carousel: Think we won, think it's weird that everybody ended up in not the spot they were going. This time nobody made a bad hire: Nedved is a good fit for Minnesota, DeVries makes sense for Indiana, we like Buzz Williams (kind of a Harbaugh).
• Want to play at Penn next year to say hi to Fran and the Palestra.
• During the break: Craig grades all the NCAA Tournament officials.
• Football: Wide receivers got larger, McCulley sounds like he's going to be WR1 and nobody else is close. Still looking at a 6'5" guy in the portal.
• Need contested ballers and TEs this year to take pressure off Bryce Underwood.
• OL may be dodgy; they moved Link to LT and El-Hadi to LG. Like all the assistant coaches they added, hoping for a big 5th year from Crippen. Babalola? He might be a next-year guy because he's pretty raw.
• Defense: I need to make the Groves thing clear: I'm excited about Falcons on the roster but it's mostly a bit, and I don't want people to think my excitement over these guys is just that. Mangham is getting mention as a starting safety. Rod Moore's injury is holding him out in spring, which makes me nervous, but that could just be a precautionary thing.
• Quietest spring ever? The reporters are focusing on recruiting.