[NoSkillz]

2029 Offseason

Recruiting (STAGE THREE)

Buffalo gets a modest budget of around $23,000 per phase to spend on recruiting, a sum that goes pretty fast, as I found out in my first go-around with recruiting. Anything not used in a stage will get rolled over to the next phase.

Our two best roster players, Jordan Gailey and Jordan Broderick, are 2.5 star players. I have one 1.5 star player and the rest are all 0.5 stars. I think that's pretty pathetic for a mid-major but fearful of over-reaching, I decide that I'm going to concentrate initially on 3 star guys and avoid messing around too much on 4 star guys.

We are in desperate need of big men so I focus plenty of attention there to start.


CENTERS

I focus my attention in phase three on three centers:

- Freddie Feeney ***, C, 6'10", 263lbs, Vestavia Hills, AL (146th in Nation; 37th at C)
LAST YEAR: 14.2 PPG, 14.1 RPG, 2.1 APG, 0.45 SPG, 0.97 BPG, 28.9 MPG

- Brandon McClain ***, C, 7'0", 259lbs, Louisville, KY (154th in Nation; 41st at C)
LAST YEAR: 12.1 PPG, 10.1 RPG, 1.9 APG, 1.00 SPG, 0.89 BPG, 28.3 MPG

- Scott Callison ***, C, 7'0", 252lbs, Ooltewah, TN (177th in Nation; 48th at C)
LAST YEAR: 14.5 PPG, 11.1 RPG, 1.9 APG, 0.50 SPG, 1.37 BPG, 28.4 MPG

Feeney and McClain have "average" interest in our program while Callison is listed with "very high" interest. All three players go on my call list, I scout all three as well and due to his high interest, offer Scott Callison a campus visit and decide to offer McClain a scholarship.

ACTIONS (CENTERS) -
- Freddie Feeney: Call, Scout
- Brandon McClain: Call, Scout, Offer Scholarship
- Scott Callison: Call, Scout, Offer Campus Visit


POWER FORWARDS

While Jordan Gailey has the ability to play both C and PF, I look at him as a center so I'll need to likely fill at least two power forward positions through recruiting. Here is a list of our initial targets in phase three:

- Shaun Rakocevic ***, PF/C, 6'9", 227lbs, Drexel Hill, PA (145th in Nation; 22nd at PF)
LAST YEAR: 13.4 PPG, 14.0 RPG, 2.4 APG, 0.56 SPG, 0.76 BPG, 28.2 MPG

- Jure Williams ***, PF, 6'11", 240lbs, Orlando, FL (150th in Nation; 23rd at PF)
LAST YEAR: 14.7 PPG, 7.6 RPG, 2.1 APG, 0.73 SPG, 2.97 BPG, 28.4 MPG

- Kellen Abell ***, PF, 6'8", 222lbs, Thiells, NY (200th in Nation; 29th at PF)
LAST YEAR: 9.7 PPG, 11.4 RPG, 2.0 APG, 0.50 SPG, 1.79 BPG, 28.6 MPG

- Darren Suggs ***, PF, 6'11", 247lbs, Lebanon, NH (411th in Nation; 80th at PF)
LAST YEAR: 25.3 PPG, 10.5 RPG, 1.6 APG, 0.48 SPG, 1.21 BPG, 27.0 MPG

- Evan Piatowski ****, PF, 6'7", 248lbs, Kennesaw, GA (126th in Nation; 18th at PF)
LAST YEAR: 24.0 PPG, 12.1 RPG, 2.4 APG, 0.68 SPG, 2.36 BPG, 28.6 MPG

Lots to digest here. Rakocevic, Williams, Abell and Suggs all have very high interest in coming to Buffalo while the four star rated Piatowski is considered to have "below average" interest.

Rakocevic is someone I isolated early - he looks to be excellent defensively and based on the 3 schools that are currently in the running for his services, I think I would stand a decent chance of securing him. Each school is allowed to give one "Major Pitch" per year...essentially the proverbial "bag of money" to entice a recruit to pick your school.

I decide to go "Full Monty" on Rakocevic, calling and scouting him, sending our head coach to visit him, offer him a campus visit, offer a scholarship and deliver our major pitch.

I call and scout Abell and just call to show interest in Williams, Suggs and Piatkowski. I was running out of money quickly so I had to conserve for the other positions in this phase. At one point, I did consider offering Jure Williams a scholarship but he only had one school interested in at this point (High Point) so I figured I could perhaps do more to entice him in a future stage.

Suggs is another interesting prospect, with great high school stats and a superb 3.9 GPA. However, he had Ivy League schools sniffing around him and I felt that Buffalo wouldn't match up. As for Piatowski...he's a four star prospect so I just felt I couldn't waste too much of my budget chasing a dream...

ACTIONS (POWER FORWARDS)
- Shaun Rakocevic: Call, Scout, Coach Visit, Offer Campus Visit, Offer Scholarship, Make Major Pitch
- Jure Williams: Call
- Kellen Abell: Call, Scout
- Darren Suggs: Call
- Evan Piatowski: Call


SMALL FORWARDS

As indicated, we don't likely *need* a small forward in this class but if I found someone interesting, I won't hesitate to use a scholarship on a good one.

- D'Angelo Monroe ****, SF, 6'6", 200lbs, Mill Valley, CA (96th in Nation; 20th at SF)
LAST YEAR: 25.1 PPG, 3.6 RPG, 2.1 APG, 0.77 SPG, 0.65 BPG, 28.4 MPG

- Liam Pipkens ***, SF, 6'7", 218lbs, Summit, NJ (339th in Nation; 64th at SF)
LAST YEAR: 24.1 PPG, 4.3 RPG, 2.0 APG, 2.52 SPG, 0.69 BPG, 27.1 MPG

This is where I got good at filtering based on high school stats, as both of these players were extremely prolific in their senior seasons of HS. The four star Monroe is a complete pipe dream, with very low interest in Buffalo but Pipkens has very high interest in our program. Since I needed to focus on big men and point guards with my limited budget, I simply just called both players to say hello but also offered Monroe a scholarship, sight unseen.

ACTIONS (SMALL FORWARDS)
- D'Angelo Monroe: Call, Offer Scholarship
- Liam Pipkens: Call


SHOOTING GUARD

With five shooting guards on the roster, I didn't engage anyone in Phase Three with my limited budget.


POINT GUARD

A definite need, with only Cole Relvao on the roster at the moment.

- Kris Poster ***, PG, 5'11", 184lbs, Upper Marlboro, MD (143rd in Nation; 36th at PG)
LAST YEAR: 17.3 PPG, 3.9 RPG, 7.4 APG, 0.53 SPG, 0.40 BPG, 28.8 MPG

- Benjamin Cokely ***, PG, 6'3", 178lbs, Tampa, FL (176th in Nation; 42nd at PG)
LAST YEAR: 10.0 PPG, 4.0 RPG, 4.3 APG, 1.07 SPG, 0.57 BPG, 28.3 MPG

Both of these players showed very high interest in our program so I isolated them early. Poster has excellent stats but I was worried about the fact that five teams already have clued in on him so I might be a bit late with my interest. Meanwhile, Cokley wasn't super productive in high school but only has one team looking at him right now.

I decide to go hard after both players, calling and scouting them both, sending my coach to visit both and also offering each of them scholarships. I also offered Poster a campus visit.

ACTIONS (POINT GUARDS)
- Kris Poster: Call, Scout, Coach Visit, Offer Campus Visit, Offer Scholarship
- Benjamin Cokley: Call, Scout, Coach Visit, Offer Scholarship


So to sum up, I have made scholarship offers to five players (keeping one scholarship back for now, as planned), offered all three potential campus visits and offered three out of the five potential coach visits before running out of money.

I'm not expecting any positive answers right away but obviously, I made the biggest push for PF Shaun Rakocevic and would love to get one of those two point guards.

Oh, and one final, embarrassing note. As a newbie, I foolishly thought that the effects of scouting a player wouldn't be seen until after the phase was officially run by the commish. I'd soon find out (but long after spending all of my money), that the scouting takes effect with immediate feedback.

Needless to say, if I had known certain things, I might have done things differently but at the end of the day, it wasn't a big deal.

Hopefully we can keep building upon our recruiting in Phase Four!