You're a good poster, you can't really believe half the things you typed there. A bunch of meaningless losses in the NIT is going to hurt recruiting for the conference and the next media deal? If a single recruit brings up the fact that Butler and Xavier lost in the NIT as a reason for not considering UConn Dan Hurley is gonna rightly laugh in their face
Recruiting has always been dirty. There have been people in the know who reported how coaches leveraged things about JC in getting players he's recruiting. Like everyone else I take what people post with a grain of salt. But over time when I observe a pattern of posters that prove themselves reliable on many subjects and a pattern with certain coaches who appear sneaky or corrupt I have to increase the probability that even without direct evidence there could be validity to the matter.
If we are blind or biased or emotionally moved in our thinking it most certainly is likely that a 17 - 22 year old can be emotionally swayed in deciding teams. Cooper Flagg chose his school based on his childhood admiration of a program, not on the evidence of which coach was better. How logical was that? We've had players who chose UConn for the same reason who had offers from coaches with better resumes than JC. JC's first appeal to players was they should come to UConn because you get to play against some of the best teams and coaches in the country. I look at that now and say to myself JC could have been a good car salesman.
Somewhere between 95% and 99% of the posts in this forum are emotionally centered. There are usually multiple underlying factors that can and should be weighed in examining a problem, a subject or a discussion. Most of us present the points that support our need or desire and dismiss or ignore the points that refute that position. And worse we're oblivious that our own irrationality/bias/blindness is front and center in these matters. Humanity is no different than any living species. We are programmed for survival. Where we are different is that we extend that need to abstract things. And that combined with emotions makes us act irrationally.
Those losses in the NIT should be examined logically. If I was a recruit I would weigh things the way I normally do and come to the conclusion that is in line with the thinking in this forum. But for the reasons I've overly elaborated I don't have confidence in human rationality and therefore believe that those losses will be used against the BE and, like it or not, will have some impact. The negative extent is not quantifiable.
The BE is a small fish in a big pond. We don't have a lot of suiters clamoring to add us to their portfolio. That means that the limited number of suitors determine what and how things happen. They want to make as much profit as possible and because FOX has very little competition they will take advantage of any negative in negotiations.
