After hearing the news about Hysier Miller today, I think I now understand what Tony Bennett was trying to say.
The former UVA coach had mentioned NIL and the transfer portal era as reasons he was resigning, and if you want to see some practical examples of what he was talking about, look west to Blacksburg and consider what just happened to Virginia Tech.
The Hokies had been decimated by transfers related to other schools making better NIL offers after last season ended. Coach Mike Young went to work starting to rebuild the roster, and it seemed at one point he put together a pretty good group that would be competitive this season.
In early April he got a commitment from Jordan Ivy-Curry from the University of Texas at San Antonio, a 6-3 guard who averaged 17.1 points a game. Only a week or so later, the Hokies picked up a commitment from Miller, a 6-1 guard from Temple who had averaged 15.9 points per game. Quickly, Young now had an experienced backcourt that could score and run an offense.
By the end of April, Ivy-Curry was gone. He decommitted, put his name in the NBA draft, withdrew his name from the draft, then committed to the University of Central Florida, all in about the time it takes to order a ham sandwich. Curry, it would seem, wasn’t looking for a program to finish his college career playing for, more he was looking for a deal he could finish his college playing days under.
And he found it.
Earlier today, the other half of that backcourt left Blacksburg. Virginia Tech officially announced “Temple transfer point guard Hysier Miller has been permanently released from the Virginia Tech men’s basketball program due to circumstances prior to his enrollment at Virginia Tech. There will be no further comment by the university on this matter.”
The Hokies didn’t comment, but folks back in Philadelphia had their suspicions. Pat Forde of Sports Illustrated noted in this story that Temple was already being investigated because of unusual wagering activity on its games back in early March. Temple’s game with UAB had been flagged by a gambling watchdog company because the line on that game moved significantly from UAB being a 1.5-point favorite to an 8-point favorite in a very short period of time. UAB would end up winning 100-72.
Forde also added that a source said the gambling watchdog company – U.S. Integrity – had been watching Temple games for some time, and that other sources were telling him new information regarding this matter had come to light earlier this month regarding the Temple investigation.
No one is saying what that information is. But if one week new info comes to light, and a week or two later Miller is dismissed, a reasonable person might think they’re related.
So Young has now lost both parts of a promising backcourt he thought he had nailed down just six months ago. He has to now go into battle in the Atlantic Coast Conference having to rely on a somewhat experienced sophomore in Brandon Rechsteiner, and an inexperienced true freshman in Ben Hammond stepping up to fill those minutes.
You could have been optimistic about how the Hokies would do in 2024-2025 before today, but now the ground under their feet looks a bit unsteady.
It feels like this is the scenario all schools are going to face more and more who are not blue bloods with unlimited sources of NIL money. There was a time when coaches recruited their teams in the spring, worked and developed those players in the summer, then they started play with that group in November. Since the Hokies played their last game in 2024, Young has lost the majority of his team, built it back, and has now lost a portion of that new team again.
Without playing a single regular season game.
Some may put the blame on Young, saying he just needed to go after better players, or done more exhaustive vetting on the two he got commitments from. But that’s the rub. If you’re flush with cash, you can buy anything you want with relative confidence. If you’re not, and your school places a greater emphasis on football than basketball (which is common at many places), you have to find a way to make do with what you can get.
Which means taking a chance or two along the way. Sometimes it works. Sometimes you get burned. Sometimes you get frustrated if that happens, and sometimes it gets tiring having to play these games over and over again.
But to quote an old mafia saying, this is the life we have now chosen. I’m not arguing the pros and cons of NIL, I’m just saying it would appear we’ve gone from a time when you knew who your team was at one point every year, and now you don’t. Managing a college basketball program in many ways has become like herding cats, requiring a different mindset, a lot of luck, and buckets of money.
It’s not something everyone can do long-term before it drives you crazy.
Which is why I think I now understand what Tony Bennett was trying to say.
We once cheered for guys who wanted to be Hokies. We knew who they were and supported them. Now we just cheer for a uniform color. For the fan, the connection to “our team” is already gone. I’m glad that I live close to Emory & Henry. I grew up supporting them and, until the sport at the formerly Div. 1 level collapses and has to be restructured, I’ll enjoy small college sports.
I consider myself lucky to have been able to enjoy the golden age of basketball in the 70s when players stayed for four years, there was time to watch a player long enough to really become a fan, and the rivalries like what you saw in the Big East and ACC were really intense. It’s a different game now, and as you say, you’re now cheering for the uniform, not the player because each year, you don’t really know who is going to be wearing that uniform…
College sports has become a Goat Rodeo. At least the pro teams continue to have some control over their rosters. Seems all pretense of an athlete picking a particular college institution because of the education it offers is totally out the window. These are sad times for college sports whose teams are also preoccupied with playing the “Which conference offers us the best $$$ deal?”
It’s true. Although your comment earns bonus points for invoking the term “goat rodeo” 🙂