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WFU Hoops: '24-'25 Roster Construction Thread: +Spillers/Biliew/Cosby/Johnson/Abass

daaberry said:
I saw Boopie may have bought a Maybach for his 21st bday. Strangely that came from former Deac Torry Johnson’s social media.
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He bought it because of the bag. He bought (and twittered pics) after wake's cash infusion last year.
 
Hey, y'all wanna hear a story about Jamie Newman transferring to the Dawgs and JT Daniels, D'Wan Mathis, Carson Beck, and Stetson Bennett IV making him realize he sucks ?
 
I can see how Dallas might be more appealing than W-S to Boopie. Its time to let him go
 
Fear not. Moar bags are coming and the cost of upkeep for fancy cars like that is next to nothing.
 
That Pope story gave me a bad Thad Matta flashback and now i have a headache.
 
deacfan123 said:
It would be impossible to put into words how little I give a fuck about Kentucky's head coach doing extra shit to get one of our old players. Fuck Kentucky now and forever. Hope they suck next year.
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I hope we see Kentucky + Sarr 2.0 next year. They were SO BAD that season he left Wake for KY. I have a feeling they're gonna be junk again in 2024/2025 and will still somehow make the tourney.
 
Brendan207 said:
I hope we see Kentucky + Sarr 2.0 next year. They were SO BAD that season he left Wake for KY. I have a feeling they're gonna be junk again in 2024/2025 and will still somehow make the tourney.
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i don't trust anyone that would want to play for danny manning and not for steve forbes
 
06deacon said:
It probably helps that UNC is able to heavily make it worth it for their starters who are borderline pro prospects to $tay in chapel hill, whether through NIL or pre-NIL under the table shit.
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That was the rumor for many decades. Players stayed in Chapel Hill instead of going to the NBA because they didn't want to take the cut in pay.
 
myDeaconmyhand said:
I know Wake fans aren’t interested in reading a puff piece about Kentucky, but I thought you all would be interested to hear about Andrew Carr’s experience trying to visit Kentucky -

theathletic.com

Mark Pope went the extra (300) miles to land a high-profile transfer at Kentucky

The new Wildcats coach went out of his way to make a former Wake Forest star feel at home in Lexington.
theathletic.com theathletic.com

Recruiting in the transfer portal has often been compared to speed dating. Connections are formed not over months or even years, as is typically the case in courting high school prospects, but often in just a matter of days.

“You’ve got only two or three weeks to get to know what type of people you’re dealing with,” Wake Forest transfer Andrew Carr says.

So how do you make a quick and lasting impression? In the case of new Kentucky coach Mark Pope and his pursuit of Carr, it was by going the extra mile — or 300 miles — to pick up his stranded recruit in the middle of the night.

“It just meant the world to me, how important Coach makes you feel,” Carr says. “Not a lot of head coaches would do that. It’s pretty special and says a lot about him.”

Pope was already having quite a day last Friday. He’d taken a last-minute, early-morning flight across the country to Las Vegas to secure the commitment of San Diego State transfer Lamont Butler. He’d flown back across the country to Lexington to welcome Saint Mary’s transfer Aidan Mahaney for his official visit and take him out to dinner. And little did Pope know at the time, he was just getting started.

Carr and his parents were also having quite a day. The 6-foot-11 forward had taken an official visit to Texas Tech and was headed to Kentucky — with a Sunday trip to Villanova to follow — but the family’s flight out of Lubbock, Texas, was delayed. It meant they’d miss their connection in Dallas to Lexington. They let UK’s staff know their predicament, and “they were amazing,” Carr’s mother, Darby, says. There were no more flights getting into Lexington that night, but the staff booked them on multiple options arriving at various airports within reasonable driving distance of campus.

“So when we landed in Dallas, we started running,” Darby Carr says. “Got to one gate for a flight to Cincinnati and the doors were closed. Then we ran to the next gate, which was for Nashville, and we were able to persuade the folks at the counter to let us onto that flight as the doors were closing.”

And so began Pope’s late-night adventure.

The Carr family figured they would just rent a car in Nashville and drive the rest of the way to Lexington. Pope would not allow it. First, he tried to hire a car service to drive them, but none would be available when their plane landed around midnight.

So Coach Pope insisted,” Andrew says. “He made sure that he was the one who picked us up.”

When the Carrs touched down in Nashville, they had a message from Pope. He was already in his car and well on his way south to retrieve them. Not wanting to just sit around and wait at the airport, they told him they’d get in an Uber and start riding toward him. They met at a Shell gas station off the highway in Bowling Green. Pope had Diet Cokes for Darby — her favorite — and snacks for the family when they climbed into his car after 1 a.m. The Popemobile dropped the Carrs off at their hotel in Lexington around 4 in the morning and returned to get them for breakfast by 9.

“We had absolutely no idea he’d flown to Vegas and back that morning on top of all this,” Darby says. “It makes quite an impression. And I will say: That drive was a treasure. The time that he and Andrew got together in the car, just sitting in the front seats talking, asking each other questions back and forth, just having time to really get to know each other and talk basketball, was so valuable.”

Carr’s parents sat in the back trying to eavesdrop but not interrupt the instant chemistry.

“To me, it was the energy, the enthusiasm” from Pope, Carr’s father, Phil, says. “It was just, ‘I need you on this team. You’re just the right guy for this team. We have to have you on this team.’ And they’re riding and talking, mostly about basketball but also philosophies on all kinds of things, and Pope is telling stories about his time at Kentucky and how special it was. Listening to that was really, really awesome.”

Pope and Carr got so lost in their conversation, in fact, that Pope missed a turn and extended the drive by several minutes. Nobody seemed to mind. The next day, on the actual visit, any remaining doubts were put to rest.

In the lobby of the men’s basketball office inside the Joe Craft Center, Pope asked Carr to visualize flipping the number eight in a display about Kentucky’s national championships to a number nine. He described — from personal experience as captain of the Wildcats’ 1996 title team — what it’s like when they raise a new banner at Rupp Arena.

“Being in that moment, it really hits you about what you’re able to accomplish there and how special the place is,” Carr says. “Coach Pope does a great job of displaying the great tradition of Kentucky and how much it means to the fans and the state, and that we’re playing for that ninth banner. You can really tell how much an impact this place and the people around it made on him and how he just wants that for me — I can feel that — and he wants that for everybody who plays there.”…
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I hope all goes very well for him, and I expect him to do well! Except, of course, when we play them. We’re not leaving open the baseline three for him.
 
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