Don’t you think it is far more likely that the kid picked Kansas because it’s freaking Kansas basketball? They are the defending national champs while we’ve made the First Four and that’s it in 13 years.
When insiders tell you what happened you don’t really need to think about it and guess. Jamari McDowell was reported to be trending Wake for weeks and then was offered $400k by Kansas and committed there. Reported by both Wake and Kansas best writers.
There are A LOT of reasons for insiders to make claims like this. The main reason is to get more donations for our own NIL funds. Sorry, I just don't believe most of the NIL claims that are out there, and when the players themselves talk about it, they clearly state that it's a lot less than is out there on the internet.
Wake has always had a good number of international players. Duncan, Peral, Makhtar, Vidauretta, Songaila, Vytas, Schoetz, Levy, Mescheriakov, the special grease, Dinos, Big Sam, Sarr, Marsh, Hildreth, Hoard, Okeke, Neath, Antonio, Sy, etc.
Again, none of those numbers are close to reality. UF said they were going to pay $13 million, and then said, "yeah, we actually don't have anywhere close to that" and reneged on the deal completely. Scheierman went to Creighton because they had a really good team coming back, and then UK "leaked" that they couldn't pay him enough NIL so that they could milk their boosters for more money.
Right, so how is it crazy to speculate that KU said they were going to pay a basketball recruit 3% of that total (whether they will renege on it or not)?
Well, like Rashada, I would think McDowell would actually sign an NIL contract before making a final commitment, if his choice is really all about the NIL.
I agree with all of that. But the $400,000 is leaked by Wake/Kansas, not reported by the player. When the players talk, the numbers are almost always magnitudes lower than what is reported.
That is completely and patently false about Creighton. $1.3 million I believe was the number, and the player was extremely outspoken about the fact that he would go to the highest bidder and was looking for a major payday.
I can tell you right now that I’ll pay you $15 million dollars to stop posting for a week. You can report that to whomever you want. Good luck getting that money from me. That’s what is happening in most of these cases.
Who are all these “insiders?”
In rare cases schools are promising money they haven’t yet raised from boosters. With the $13M deal referenced earlier, the player is now suing which is hilarious. But yea, back to my original point, $400k from KU to McDowell is indeed the reason he committed there. Tennessee is another school throwing around similar money and as I’ve followed along with wake this recruiting cycle, once $EC or Kansas type schools get involved you move on to the next target. That’s been the case with half a dozen guys so far. Forbes is still finding a way to build nice rosters which is great.
Les Johns reported the McDowell number a day before his commitment (also mentioned without dollar figure out KU’s 247 board) and Cam Lemons reported on the bag from Nate Oates and Alabama to Davin Cosby.
