New Arkansas coach Eric Musselman landed his first new face of the spring signing period Saturday when Jeantal Cylla committed to be at Arkansas as a graduate transfer.
If you’re complaining about transfers being a problem, you’re living in the past. Thanks to the NCAA throwing the rule book in the trash a page at a time it’s a way of life now.
The Razorbacks will be the third team Cylla has played for in his collegiate career. That’s not a knock on him, by the way, because he appears to be another solid, well, journeyman that’s becoming a trend.
After graduating from North Carolina-Wilmington, where he averaged 13.7 points and 4.6 rebounds while shooting 42 percent from the field and 31 percent on 3-pointers last year, he now fills a roster spot for Musselman on a team that needed some experience.
It was the problem Mike Anderson pointed to this past season where there were some highs, but too many lows, which ended up costing him his job.
Enter Musselman, who guided Nevada to three straight NCAA appearances and a Sweet 16 using transfers. It was something some Hog fans have noted, questioning if that will work here.
Recruiting high school players is the old way of doing things when coaches got four or five years to develop players and their program. Now they’re lucky if to three years. More likely two years if things aren’t progressing rapidly.
You can thank the NCAA. There once was a time when transferring meant losing a year of eligibility while sitting around just practicing. The smart ones spent it getting ahead of academics. Dumb ones flunked out and were never heard from again. Most were somewhere in the middle, hoping everything worked out because there was no way to move again.
Now, in football, the past two Heisman Trophy winners were transfer quarterbacks. Think about that for a second.
That means two schools didn’t do a whole lot of either evaluation, development or coaching and let two Heisman-winning players get away. You can justify it nine ways to Sunday and back, but that’s the bottom line.
By the way, both of the coaches who let Baker Mayfield and Kyler Murray leave are no longer coaching at Texas A&M and Texas Tech, respectively. Suit yourself, but I don’t believe in coincidence.
Yes, that means in some cases the inmates are running the asylum. Coaches who win — Dabo Sweeney and Nick Saban are the most high profile examples — are the best at coaxing talented players to maximize THEIR potential for the team’s benefit.
Gone are the days when a coach just simply laid down the law and worked players until the malcontents simply quit or everybody fell in line. If they quit that meant they were usually finished or playing at a lower-classification school.
Now you have good players making two or three stops in college.
Recruiting these days is much more than chasing high school kids. Now coaches see who’s in the mysterious NCAA Transfer Portal. If you want proof the NCAA has just completely given up, well, there you have it.
Little Rock attorney Tom Mars apparently figured out the worst you can do going up against the kangaroo court that runs college athletics is get a tie. Representing transfers he’s discovered you’ll usually win against the NCAA … and never have to go to court.
The way eligibility waivers are being handed out these days is drawing us closer to complete free agency in college athletics.
Whether that’s good or bad is somebody else’s argument to have.
It’s the way it is.
Musselman is just recruiting players to make the Hogs better as fast as possible. Just like Chad Morris is doing in football and every other coach in every other sport at the UA.
And in the end, wins are what Razorback fans want.
Whether the players come in as freshmen or fifth-year seniors with one year of eligibility really doesn’t matter. Let’s be honest, if you sign four of the best players in the country every year they are going to be gone to the NBA and you’ve got to do it again.
Exactly what the difference is in recruiting escapes me.
Wins are what matter.
