Is Seton Hall better off with yearly free agency?

[HallGuy2323]

As much as it stinks having to get to know a whole new roster every year. Is there a part of this where it brings more excitement?

Let’s say from 1995-2015. How many years did you know going in that we had absolutely no chance because our roster was nearly the same as the previous season and we couldn’t recruit good enough new talent.

How many years did we have no chance because the Big East was loaded with returning stars and top freshman?

Now, it sucks losing the good players we do get every year but now we don’t know whether we’ll finish near the top or be the worst.

Is it possible this current situation is better suited for schools like Seton Hall? I’m leaning towards yes.

 

[HALL85]

Willard got the team to the NCAA five years in a row. That won’t happen again under this system.

 

[SPK145]

Absolutely not, Seton Hall's claim to fame has always been to develop talented but not highly rated players. Sha would be great at this but no longer will have that chance.

 

[dehere23]

Agree with SPK. Eventually Sha would have figured out the right type of kid to recruit and kids would be limited anyway with the ability to transfer.

Makes it more impressive for those coaches who show - and I mean consistently, substantively show - they can win in different eras with different rules.

 

[PirateBlue08]

Absolutely not, Seton Hall's claim to fame has always been to develop talented but not highly rated players. Sha would be great at this but no longer will have that chance.

But when in the past could we go from having the most abysmal team maybe in SHU history to having a pretty competitive team that almost was in the tournament conversation the following year?

I agree with the OP that there may be a silver lining to it. The only question is sustainability, but honestly I think that's every school's question even the Big 12 who recently met to discuss it.

 

[mbraue]

Willard got the team to the NCAA five years in a row. That won’t happen again under this system.

Would have made the tourney Kadary's last year here and probably last year under the new rules with more teams allowed in.

 

[HallGuy2323]

Absolutely not, Seton Hall's claim to fame has always been to develop talented but not highly rated players. Sha would be great at this but no longer will have that chance.

What claim to fame? We’ve had two separate “extended” periods of success in our history since the start of the Big East. The other 80% of the time was not good. You missed me point

 

[Fishjam]

You ask 2 very different questions. As to whether this current system is better suited to schools like Seton Hall, I don't see any way in which this situation is better for Seton Hall. From every measurement of success, its not good for SH.

Our Program is struggling in every way possible, especially in comparison to the 7-year period of extended winning we had immediately preceding this new era in which we were 144-80, had 2 BE Championships and many players who earned Big East and National Honors.

Since the advent of the NIL/P4P/Unlimited transfer era, which coincided with Sha's arrival, we are 70-65, 0 for 4 in making the NCAAT, have just 1 BE season above .500, just 1 Win in the BET. We lose our top players after every season.

And those are just on the floor problems. Off the court, its worse. Our student interest and support is way down, our total attendance and season-ticket holders are down, we lose our best players every year. We are bottom third of BE in budget to pay players. Leadership-wise we are not setup to prosper under the new landscape. There are huge changes in rules and trends every year but our decision-making never adopts trends early and chooses to play it safe.

We were a 20-Win NCAAT team each of the last 7 Willard years except for the Covid-interrupted season. Our niche was finding under-valued underdogs who were willing to put in work over 2-4 years under our individual instruction program. We never lost good players we wanted to keep. Willard, Sha & Grant found their identity as Coaches, players spent their whole careers at SH and made great strides year to year. We weren't great at HS recruiting but we did well bringing in traditional sit-out transfers as well as Grad-transfers to bring in veteran players to complement our core.

To the other question of whether this system is more exciting? That's a matter of opinion. The month of April and May have taken on supreme importance as a complete 13-15 man roster must be built in a 6-8 week period. That can be exciting for fans as its a shrinking of the recruiting process into a round of speed dating and who can scout/find and make the best deals with players. I'd say that this is definitely a period of time I take great interest in but knowing SH's place in the financial pecking order, it can also be an extremely frustrating time of year.

Its easier to dump poor players now and to obtain proven players quickly. But to me there's nothing more exciting about it. I'd rather have the old rules with more player retention, individual improvement and team-building over the current system. That's my opinion and I believe that SH had a better chance to succeed under the old system.

 

[Anon1774390042]

Im confidential that we will continue to grow our NIL each year and expect that we will at least keep pace with other teams. Perhaps we won't get to peak NIL of UCONN, SJU and 'Nova but we should have enough to get a representative roster.
Maybe one of these years George Kurtz will throw is $5 - $10 million for NIL and we go get a blue chip roster.

 

[Fishjam]

But when in the past could we go from having the most abysmal team maybe in SHU history to having a pretty competitive team that almost was in the tournament conversation the following year?

I agree with the OP that there may be a silver lining to it. The only question is sustainability, but honestly I think that's every school's question even the Big 12 who recently met to discuss it.

I'd rather keep the All-Big East players that we have lost then we wouldn't have had that abysmal team. Same token, I'd feel a lot better about next season with Budd, Hines & Simpkins coming back.

 

[PirateBlue08]

I'd rather keep the All-Big East players that we have lost then we wouldn't have had that abysmal team. Same token, I'd feel a lot better about next season with Budd, Hines & Simpkins coming back.

How about a season ago? Would you feel great knowing your core returning players were Coleman, Aligbe, and Dual?

My point isn't that this is great for SHU in all ways. Only that a silver lining is that it's easier to turn things around with an entire new roster than before.

 

[HallGuy2323]

How about a season ago? Would you feel great knowing your core returning players were Copeland, Aligbe, and Dual?

My point isn't that this is great for SHU in all ways. Only that a silver lining is that it's easier to turn things around with an entire new roster than before.

Exactly.

 

[HALL85]

It’s also easier to go from a 4th place finish to 11th, when you have to replace an entire roster.

 

[PirateBlue08]

It’s also easier to go from a 4th place finish to 11th, when you have to replace an entire roster.

Yes that much we already know. I think the OP’s point is it also works the other way, which is actually a benefit.

 

[Hall1996]

It definitely hurts a school like SHU much more than it benefits, sure it does allow for faster rebuilds when teams are bad, but the reverse can and did happen where a “good core” leaves.

 

[Seton75]

Willard got the team to the NCAA five years in a row. That won’t happen again under this system.

Not sure about you, but after his first few years here, I thought 5 bids in a row was a pipedream.

So, I 'm dreaming.

 

[HALL85]

Not sure about you, but after his first few years here, I thought 5 bids in a row was a pipedream.

So, I 'm dreaming.

Dreaming is your best and only option in this new marketplace

 

[Section112]

From a fan perspective its terrible. Since the late 70's I've been a fan then a grad of SHU and I've watched college ball since. Watching players grow and get better was a significant part of the experience. Think about Copeland and Dehere and Powell and Carrington and Fuquan and Mamu and many more players we had. Watching them develop from freshman to really talented players in their later years was fantastic. We won't have that any more and its definitely hurting attendance and season tickets. And the money it takes to be mid tier just keeps growing faster than even the D1 coaches can imagine. No way this is better for Seton Hall. This environment clearly benefits the big state schools with large budgets.

So far we have had 1 decent year in this environment if you count last year and we didn't even make the tournament. If that is your definition of better for Seton Hall, then you have very low standards and don't appreciate the college game.

 

[The Crows Nest]

You ask 2 very different questions. As to whether this current system is better suited to schools like Seton Hall, I don't see any way in which this situation is better for Seton Hall. From every measurement of success, its not good for SH.

Our Program is struggling in every way possible, especially in comparison to the 7-year period of extended winning we had immediately preceding this new era in which we were 144-80, had 2 BE Championships and many players who earned Big East and National Honors.

Since the advent of the NIL/P4P/Unlimited transfer era, which coincided with Sha's arrival, we are 70-65, 0 for 4 in making the NCAAT, have just 1 BE season above .500, just 1 Win in the BET. We lose our top players after every season.

And those are just on the floor problems. Off the court, its worse. Our student interest and support is way down, our total attendance and season-ticket holders are down, we lose our best players every year. We are bottom third of BE in budget to pay players. Leadership-wise we are not setup to prosper under the new landscape. There are huge changes in rules and trends every year but our decision-making never adopts trends early and chooses to play it safe.

We were a 20-Win NCAAT team each of the last 7 Willard years except for the Covid-interrupted season. Our niche was finding under-valued underdogs who were willing to put in work over 2-4 years under our individual instruction program. We never lost good players we wanted to keep. Willard, Sha & Grant found their identity as Coaches, players spent their whole careers at SH and made great strides year to year. We weren't great at HS recruiting but we did well bringing in traditional sit-out transfers as well as Grad-transfers to bring in veteran players to complement our core.

To the other question of whether this system is more exciting? That's a matter of opinion. The month of April and May have taken on supreme importance as a complete 13-15 man roster must be built in a 6-8 week period. That can be exciting for fans as its a shrinking of the recruiting process into a round of speed dating and who can scout/find and make the best deals with players. I'd say that this is definitely a period of time I take great interest in but knowing SH's place in the financial pecking order, it can also be an extremely frustrating time of year.

Its easier to dump poor players now and to obtain proven players quickly. But to me there's nothing more exciting about it. I'd rather have the old rules with more player retention, individual improvement and team-building over the current system. That's my opinion and I believe that SH had a better chance to succeed under the old system.

As usual...great job summarizing the situation. Always appreciate reading your informative posts...kudos

 

[Hall1996]

To expand on original poster question, who has benefitted from free agency other than the players and their agents?

In BE, I know posters will say SJU and Uconn, but how much has it helped them? Pitino and Hurley both great coaches that were brought in to turn their programs around.

Nationally, there has been no team to go from nowhere to super team in NIL/free agency era. Michigan turned it around quickly, but they were decent under Howard until last 2 seasons.

 

[radecicco]

To expand on original poster question, who has benefitted from free agency other than the players and their agents?

In BE, I know posters will say SJU and Uconn, but how much has it helped them? Pitino and Hurley both great coaches that were brought in to turn their programs around.

Nationally, there has been no team to go from nowhere to super team in NIL/free agency era. Michigan turned it around quickly, but they were decent under Howard until last 2 seasons.

Generally you are correct but there are an few exceptions— in what world would BYU land a top three NBA pick without a major commitment to NIL from its boosters. If you have the $$$ you can move into the upper echelons.

 

[sobo1]

Not only is Seton Hall worse off in yearly free agency, but an argument can be made that no other program in the nation has been hit harder by annual free agency. It will take catching lightning in a bottle for seton hall to have any meaningful success going forward.

People point to last year as a "success" but when you break down the numbers, we had one quad-1 win all season. Pre portal era we would have more than that in a week. We have a grand total of two quad-1 wins (maybe 3 - VCU might have been top 50) since the full impact yearly free agency.

 

[dehere23]

To expand on original poster question, who has benefitted from free agency other than the players and their agents?

In BE, I know posters will say SJU and Uconn, but how much has it helped them? Pitino and Hurley both great coaches that were brought in to turn their programs around.

Nationally, there has been no team to go from nowhere to super team in NIL/free agency era. Michigan turned it around quickly, but they were decent under Howard until last 2 seasons.

It's helped SJU and Uconn in that they can compete in this era, at least right now. But agree with you that the reality is Hurley at Uconn is going to win NIL or not NIL because of what Calhoun transformed that job into, and because there wasn't such a huge drought between Stuttering Jim and Danny. He built Wagner and URI into teams that made the dance and I have no doubt that if this were 20 years ago, Hurley would have Uconn atop the Big East.

And Pitino wins everywhere, in any era, regardless of whether it is a football school high major, basketball school high major, or mid-major. Uunless he's coaching the Celtics, lol. He's been able to adapt and succeed at the college level for 40 years with entirely different types of programs, players and circumstances.

 

[HallGuy2323]

Not only is Seton Hall worse off in yearly free agency, but an argument can be made that no other program in the nation has been hit harder by annual free agency. It will take catching lightning in a bottle for seton hall to have any meaningful success going forward.

People point to last year as a "success" but when you break down the numbers, we had one quad-1 win all season. Pre portal era we would have more than that in a week. We have a grand total of two quad-1 wins (maybe 3 - VCU might have been top 50) since the full impact yearly free agency.

You’re all forgetting we have had many more poor and average seasons than successful seasons under the old rules. Your views are skewed by the somewhat recent success of Willard.

Are we ever going to be a final four contender in this system? No. But we also probably won’t go thru 4-6 year periods of awful play with bad rosters like in the past.

 

[cernjSHU]

If I can expand on Section112, from a fan of the program who has attended 90% of the home games since I was a freshman in 1985, this era sucks. I gave up my season tix last year because I knew what this program would become. A constant change over of players and we become a feeder program. Gone are the days where we would see the progression of players like Gordon Winchester, Donald Copeland, Myles Powell and Mamu. Gone are the days of true Pirate basketball players like Jerry Walker and Terry Dehere.

I was a big fan of Budd Clark but we could not even keep a diminutive PG who could not hit three point shots. As SPK said, Holloway’s strength is to develop players over four years into the tough nose player and perform as a team. This robs our coach of his greatest strength.

Attendance suffers in part that there is really no team identity. They are one year rentals. Where is the pride in that?

 

[Fishjam]

To put some perspective around how we have fared in the unlimited transfer era, EvanMiya ranks teams for Overall Transfer Activity each year. It rates each team's inbound transfers versus their outbound transfers. Here is how Seton Hall has ranked nationally among approximately 365 D-1 Teams.

2026 - 357th (Lost Hines, Budd, Simpkins, Dar, Williams, etc)
2025 - 334th (Lost Dual, Coleman, Gus, Middleton, Aligbe, etc)
2024 - 360th (Lost Kadary, Dre, etc)
2023 - 262nd (Lost Samuel, Tae Davis, Femi & Tray Jackson)
2022 - 15th (Sha's 1st year before Unlimited transfers and NIL wasn't yet a huge factor - added Dawes, Davis, Femi, Ndefo and KEPT EVERYONE Kadary, Samuel, Jackson & Harris).

If we were able to keep our top 2 or 3 returning players each year since 2023 one could make a case we'd have been in the NCAA Tournament in each of the last 3 seasons and we'd be well set up to make it 4 in a row this season.

We have to get to a place as a Program where we can keep a core group of players for more than 1 year. That is a sweet spot where players will grow and become who Sha expects them to be and as long as our budget remains bottom-third and Sha remains the coach, we are not setup to have success with 11-13 new guys each year.

 

[dehere23]

To put some perspective around how we have fared in the unlimited transfer era, EvanMiya ranks teams for Overall Transfer Activity each year. It rates each team's inbound transfers versus their outbound transfers. Here is how Seton Hall has ranked nationally among approximately 365 D-1 Teams.

2026 - 357th (Lost Hines, Budd, Simpkins, Dar, Williams, etc)
2025 - 334th (Lost Dual, Coleman, Gus, Middleton, Aligbe, etc)
2024 - 360th (Lost Kadary, Dre, etc)
2023 - 262nd (Lost Samuel, Tae Davis, Femi & Tray Jackson)
2022 - 15th (Sha's 1st year before Unlimited transfers and NIL wasn't yet a huge factor - added Dawes, Davis, Femi, Ndefo and KEPT EVERYONE Kadary, Samuel, Jackson & Harris).

If we were able to keep our top 2 or 3 returning players each year since 2023 one could make a case we'd have been in the NCAA Tournament in each of the last 3 seasons and we'd be well set up to make it 4 in a row this season.

We have to get to a place as a Program where we can keep a core group of players for more than 1 year. That is a sweet spot where players will grow and become who Sha expects them to be and as long as our budget remains bottom-third and Sha remains the coach, we are not setup to have success with 11-13 new guys each year.

Great points.

One - while I agree with you — the 2025 rating sort of underscores some of the guesswork in these exercises. We were rated as being hit really hard by the departures, but the guys we brought in definitely worked better for Sha compared to a bunch of the former 4/5 star types that hadn’t yet performed in college.

Two - we can only get to where you want to be if Sha is part of the draw to both come AND stay here. We have $10M supposedly this year, so part of the reason for yet another turnstile offseason goes beyond money.

 

[radecicco]

Apparently the extra money came in after Hines and Clark left. We offered Clark $2.5 million and he got $3million. No way we’re keeping Hines once Hurley wanted him. Those two are not Holloway.

Simpkins, maybe he didn’t want to play for Holloway or maybe it was $$$. Not saying Holloway is an easy coach to play for.

But let’s be clear, money is the #1 concern for these players (and their agents). Everything else is a distant second.

 

[Fishjam]

Great points.

One - while I agree with you — the 2025 rating sort of underscores some of the guesswork in these exercises. We were rated as being hit really hard by the departures, but the guys we brought in definitely worked better for Sha compared to a bunch of the former 4/5 star types that hadn’t yet performed in college.

Two - we can only get to where you want to be if Sha is part of the draw to both come AND stay here. We have $10M supposedly this year, so part of the reason for yet another turnstile offseason goes beyond money.

Yeah, the ratings are based solely on individual player ratings. Coaching, fit, role, etc. aren't factored. Also, the players who play for Sha all get a decent boost to their defensive rating which is highly valued in Miya's ratings. They also get a boost playing against a harder schedule whereas the majority of our transfers come from lesser conferences.

I agree that Sha needs to adjust to reach maximum potential. Even adding money to the budget each year, it has not changed the fact that we bring in the lowest rated players in the BE every year and that we can't keep our successful players. Sha is a good coach who gets the most out of his talent but unless the talent improves, it just isn't enough. He either needs to make the necessary changes to how he spends his budget or he needs to look at the team culture and why any kid with options runs for the door. Another option would be to sign these guys to 2-year deals with buyouts for either side. It involves a little more risk, but we need to take some chances.

Even if we truly got near $10M (call me skeptical again), he spreads it almost evenly across 13 players. It causes him to bargain hunt for every player and puts us so far behind our peers who have more money and spend it more heavily for difference-making players. If he would pay a higher rate for a core of 2-3 surefire BE players, I think the team would be far better off. His best team had 3 guys carry the load who all averaged 15 points per game.

The BE has 6 teams with Top 13 in the Country Transfer Classes and that doesn't include International additions. We again are last at 79th. Our peers are not having issues bringing in talent or keeping players. We have to get better at both.

 

[SOpirate]

Absolutely not, Seton Hall's claim to fame has always been to develop talented but not highly rated players. Sha would be great at this but no longer will have that chance.

Yeah, Sha really got stuck coaching in the wrong era. I fully believe had it not been for the NIL/transfer portal madness, he would've at least kept SHU at the Willard era level, if not surpassed it. That being said, though, it's on him to adjust to the times. He did well last year, let's hope he can replicate it again.

 

[NIL BAD]

Yes & No

Yes - We now have immediate access to better players at the mid major level that we haven't had in the past.


No - Makes player development a non factor.

 

[dehere23]

Yes & No

Yes - We now have immediate access to better players at the mid major level that we haven't had in the past.


No - Makes player development a non factor.

Agree on 1. But on 2, I think player development is still a factor. One, if you can retain kids (we can’t, regardless of their level of play, for a multitude of reasons). Two, player development within season is still a factor (you had teams last year that looked wildly different in February compared to November). Three, being known as a strong player development program only helps you with the roster construction.