Jumbo Package: Many teams are spending recklessly to beat the House deadline and avoid the cap

Let’s start with the gruesome news first. Alabama is essentially down to one scholarship TE until summer because of one injury after another.

That means both true freshmen are missing spring, including one of my favorite players of this signing class, 6’6 245 hella’ athletic Kaleb Edwards.

Marshall Pritchett, a true freshman out of Rabun Gap, Georgia, will miss the rest of spring with an injury, per Bama247. Pritchett is expected to recover in time of preseason camp.

In a video posted by Yea Alabama on Tuesday, Pritchett was seen with a large brace along his right leg.

It’s not just a setback for the younger players, but for the unit and the offense as a whole, since Grubb was expected to prioritize tight ends much more this season.

After three years of development, and being mentored by Jaylen Brown, JD Davison is finally fulfilling that potential he flashed as a star freshman. He’s the overwhelming favorite to win the G League MVP, and he is getting serious long-term consideration from the Celtics.

It’s great to see him finally take basketball seriously, and not just lean into his God-given talent

Spirits at Alabama basketball are remarkably high, following ‘Bama’s Elite 8 run. And, they should be. This team played to its ceiling. Here’s how Nate Oats and the players took stock of the season, and what they want their legacy to be:

Grant Nelson

“I mean, how hard we worked, how much ‘Mudita’ we showed on the court. I think it showed tonight that we didn’t give up. That was a big thing for us this year. We’re not going to give up at the end of games. I’m thankful for that. I’m glad we’ve got guys who are going to come in and play for each other.”

Labaron Philon

“As one of the best Alabama teams in history. We did a lot of things great, we did a lot of things not great, but we always kept our heads up. I’ve never seen anybody just go at another teammate or anything crazy like that. We all loved each other. It was all love and it’s always going to be that.”

And, Nate Oats reflecting on both the exit to Duke, as well as this being the best three-year run in Alabama history:

I told our guys, we’ve raised this program to a level where the standard is really high. 99 percent of college basketball players would trade places with these guys with the year we had. But we’re disappointed. We had bigger goals, and it’s disappointing to go out like we went out.

But I thought our guys stayed together. They kept playing hard. Duke was good. We didn’t do a good job attacking their switching on defense. We shot 34 percent. We shot 35, they shot 54. It’s hard to overcome that. You get out-rebounded 11-2.

We had said coming into the off-season that if we have a tough shooting night — two years ago when we were the No. 1 overall seed, I think we shot 3 of 27 from three and lost. But we had gotten 20 O-boards. We’ve got to figure out ways to win when we don’t shoot it well.

The offensive rebounding was a big one we kind of said we need to be elite at, get to the free-throw line. We didn’t do any well. We got to the free-throw line a fair amount, but it was not enough.

No surprises there: better defensive play in the backcourt, manufacturing points when jumpers won’t fall, and far better offensive rebounding. Things we’ve addressed here ad naseum over the last several months.

He’s also correct on expectations and the elevation of the program. A decade ago, we were sweating out maybe earning an NCAA appearance; this time around, people are legitimately disappointed with “just” an Elite 8 bid.

Apropos of nothing, we just needed some good Gumpy #content

Interesting remarks here in a Kirby Smart interview.

If it seems like spending has spun wildly out of control, that’s because it has. Coaches and less-scrupulous agents, and guys solely about the bag (which he also addresses), are manipulating two dates against one another, with schools caught in the middle — the Portal closure window, and the House settlement date: April 7 (perhaps). A small group of folks are scrambling to pay out as much as possible before they are cap-limited. And Kirby also talks about that particular manipulation of the process and especially tampering. Good stuff here, pulling back the curtain of the abattoir and seeing all of the offal on the slaughterhouse floor.

The biggest thing going on is you’ve got two dates you’re operating off of – there’s a portal date, there’s a House settlement date,” Smart said. “There’s a lot of people doing, they’re not illegal things. They’re just manipulative money things to try to, ‘move this, move that so I can free up this.’ What’s going to happen, there’s probably going to be a bubble or a spike. Agents are literally trying to take advantage of that every minute they can. They want to get all they can for their client. But at the end of the day, it may backfire because there’s going to be a correction in the market at some point when this cap hits – if the cap is truly what the House settlement wants it to be. If there’s truly a cap, if you just keep trying to frontload and pay out people.

“What’s going on in basketball now and football now, people are trying to beat a date. Then, what’s going to happen when those people expect the same money the next year and it’s not there because you’re in a cap? There’s going to be a correction eventually. I don’t think any of us know what’s going to happen.

Throw some kerosene on that fire, baby.

Texas A&M confirmed Williams’s departure.

“We would like to thank Buzz for his years of service heading up our men’s basketball program,” Aggies athletic director Trev Alberts said in a statement. “We wish he and Corey and their family all the best moving forward. We are excited about the future of Aggie basketball, and we will find the right leader for our program.”

Keep an eye on this, as the largest university in the nation, and among its most wealthy, will have their pick of coaches. So far, the buzz to replace Buzz seems to be centering on…former Texas HC Chris Beard. After the ‘Horns stole Schlossnagle in the winter, and basically killed A&M’s baseball program, I can absolutely seeing the Trustees making the spite move. And, let’s face it, Ole Miss can’t afford to outbid Aggie or offer the luxury of being “home” (Beard is a Houston guy).

Finally, I leave you with this, Jeremy Pruitts’ $100 million lawsuit against Tennessee, alleging (as we have always suspected) that he was a patsy for Phil Fulmer, and threatening to tear the roof off the entire rotten edifice of Vol athletics. I pray that he does not settle this: I need to read these depositions like a dying man needs to slake his thirst.

“With a direct financial stake in the outcome, and in the face of a glaring conflict of interest, the NCAA empowered the University of Tennessee to use its own attorneys to investigate the University, including Pruitt, and to determine the scope of the investigation into alleged rules violations during Coach Pruitt’s tenure as head coach,” the filing reads. “UT had a vested interest in the pre-determined outcome of the one-sided ‘investigation,’ so that it could justify its failure to pay Jeremy the millions of dollars due under his buyout and other incentives stipulated in his contract.”

Have a great day, Roll Tide