It seems (at least) 2 things are true when it comes to the portal:
1, there is more money flowing to transfer players than anticipated
2, some percentage of guys in the portal end up without a destination
dasher recently commented about some uncertainty around how successful we may be adding players to the roster at this point from the portal, presumably because Lampkin's shenanigans may have impacted our ability to pursue talent.
But are we also not expecting that in this game of musical chairs there are some decent players that won't be guys that command a bag, but if they have to choose between being on a scholarship somewhere to play basketball vs not, they'll want to make sure they can play somewhere?
I'm just having a hard time squaring the money with the scarcity of roster spots. Not to be crass, but it seems like inevitably there's a "bargain bin" shopping phase to the portal, and I feel like we should be positioned to pull a surprise or two there given we have scholarship room and outside playing time opportunities at point guard, forward and center. If a player has multiple years of eligibility left and ends up being roster fodder, it's just not a big deal because they can play musical chairs in the portal the next year, but now with added experience under their belt at a school in a top conference.
Basically, how to portal flyers work in this era of college basketball? Because I don't think having unused scholarships is a sound strategy for us.