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Ohio State Transfer Portal: Buckeye Basketball Loses Starting Forward Devin Royal · Buckeyes TomOrrow Morning

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Buckeyes tomorrow morning for Monday, March thirtieth. I'm
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  Speaker 1: your host, tom or the ball State game in one
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  Speaker 1: hundred and fifty nine days. The game begins Michigan in
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  Speaker 1: two hundred and forty three days. Our friends at Grateful
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  Speaker 1: griddele Columbus's favorite food truck. They are now on Uber Eats, Grubhub,
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  Speaker 1: and or Dash. Just search for Grateful Riddle there or
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  Speaker 1: check out Grateful Riddle oh dot com for more. The
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  Speaker 1: Ohio State Buckeyes got some news for the basketball team
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  Speaker 1: on Sunday afternoon. Devin Royal, the three year forward for
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  Speaker 1: the basketball team, entering the transfer portal. And this is
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  Speaker 1: a guy who five years ago you would have looked
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  Speaker 1: at the plot with the profile and his career and
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  Speaker 1: where he's from and said, well, he's obviously Wednesday at
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  Speaker 1: Ohio State forever. And now you kind of look at
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  Speaker 1: it and it's like, well, I don't know that this
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  Speaker 1: even constitutes really a big surprise. I'm joined by Tony
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  Speaker 1: Gridermant of Buckeyehuddle dot com. Tony, you know this is
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  Speaker 1: someone who Central Ohio native played an extensive role for
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  Speaker 1: three years. You would normally, you know, traditionally have thought, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: sure this is this is a career Buckeye, And yet
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  Speaker 1: you're not really surprised that he ended up hitting the portal.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, as college sports tend to become more professional, you're
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  Speaker 2: starting to see more professional decisions being made by both
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  Speaker 2: players and coaching staffs. And this is a two year starter.
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  Speaker 2: So yeah, you would expect boy starting as a sophomore,
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  Speaker 2: starting as a senior leader. But when you consider that
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  Speaker 2: the position that he plays, and I know he'd like
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  Speaker 2: to play three, he's not really a three. He's more
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  Speaker 2: of an undersized four in college. They've got Amri Bidam
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  Speaker 2: for that, and Mariy Bidham had a fantastic freshman year,
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  Speaker 2: scoring nearly ten points a game, but really came on
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  Speaker 2: towards the end of the season. And they're also bringing
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  Speaker 2: in Anthony Thompson, one of the top small forwards, top
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  Speaker 2: threes in a nation, five star, top ten prospect. So
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  Speaker 2: you've conceivably got your three and your four covered by
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  Speaker 2: a freshman and a sophomore, and you're looking at Devin Royal,
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  Speaker 2: who do you want to come off the bench? Do
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  Speaker 2: you want to you know? And it's a lot to
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  Speaker 2: put on the shoulders of a true freshman as well.
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  Speaker 2: But now this and what would be his contract here.
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  Speaker 2: I don't think he's an NBA player, but he may
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  Speaker 2: believe he is, or he may believe he's certainly a
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  Speaker 2: professional player somewhere, And there are a lot of places
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  Speaker 2: to go and do that. So in this last year
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  Speaker 2: you might want to go show everything that you can
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  Speaker 2: do and thirty two minutes a night, which you may
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  Speaker 2: not get at Ohio State next year because at this point,
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  Speaker 2: like I said, it's professional now where. And you see
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  Speaker 2: this all the time in the professions, where the older
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  Speaker 2: guy gets waived so that the younger guys can play.
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  Speaker 1: And the other side of this, of course, is the
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  Speaker 1: nil piece. And there was a tweet that came out
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  Speaker 1: several hours before the news broke that basically said, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: he's going to and here's his agent's name, and here's
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  Speaker 1: what he's asking for. And we don't have any way
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  Speaker 1: to know whether that's a real number or not, so
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  Speaker 1: we won't repeat the number here, but you know, it
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  Speaker 1: was a substantial number. And you're also at the point
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  Speaker 1: where as a program Ohio State has, they have substantial resources,
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  Speaker 1: but they don't have unlimited resources. Certainly, and they don't
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  Speaker 1: have the resources the football program has, and they don't
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  Speaker 1: have the resources financially as a basketball program that some
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  Speaker 1: other teams sort of at the top of the sport have.
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  Speaker 1: So you get to this point where you probably have
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  Speaker 1: to make something of a decision. And we don't know
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  Speaker 1: that this came down to money or not, but you
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  Speaker 1: probably as a program also sort of have to look
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  Speaker 1: at you know, we did to show a week or
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  Speaker 1: two ago, but well, here are the holes they have
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  Speaker 1: to fill, and if you have to fill the point
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  Speaker 1: guard or you have to fill a rim protector, the
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  Speaker 1: money has to come from somewhere, and you probably have
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  Speaker 1: to make some difficult decisions on the program side as well.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, and Ohio State does need a point guard. And
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  Speaker 2: the thing is they're not going to be the only
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  Speaker 2: team looking for a point guard, so you're gonna have
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  Speaker 2: to overpay for that point guard. And if you're gonna
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  Speaker 2: have to do that, then you can't overpay for a
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  Speaker 2: forward who's covered, you know, by a true freshman and
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  Speaker 2: a true sophomore. Now would they love to have him back, absolutely,
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  Speaker 2: because he's a veteran, he can provide scoring, He's led
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  Speaker 2: them in rebounding the past two seasons. He's a proven player,
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  Speaker 2: but the terms weren't gonna you know, and when I
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  Speaker 2: say terms, I'm not talking monetary, I'm talking all of
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  Speaker 2: the other terms that would make this happen, just you know,
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  Speaker 2: weren't gonna come to fruition. And so that money has
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  Speaker 2: to go to a point guard, has to go to
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  Speaker 2: a maybe a big man. But they also need depth
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  Speaker 2: and that's one thing that he could have provided. He
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  Speaker 2: could have been a sixth Man of the Year type
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  Speaker 2: of scorer for the Buckeyes. And now who's coming off
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  Speaker 2: the bench for them, who can provide some scoring should
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  Speaker 2: any one of three or four different players get in
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  Speaker 2: the foul trouble. He would have been a valuable asset.
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  Speaker 2: But now if this continues on and he does under
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  Speaker 2: the portal and decide to move on, yeah, the money,
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  Speaker 2: it frees some up, but they've got to go get
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  Speaker 2: a point guard. That's the bigger focus. That's the more
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  Speaker 2: important thing, rather than now we've got three forwards and
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  Speaker 2: we can only play two of them at a time.
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  Speaker 1: And one of the We have a very active thread
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  Speaker 1: talking about the basketball off season and what's going on
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  Speaker 1: and the Devin Royal News was part of that, and
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  Speaker 1: you know, not long after that, the other side of
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  Speaker 1: things are going on. You nlv's point guard is in
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  Speaker 1: the portal average twenty points a game, and so you know,
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  Speaker 1: this is not a thing that's unique to Ohio State
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  Speaker 1: right now by any means. And I'm sure they will
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  Speaker 1: be doing some portal shopping as well. I just I
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  Speaker 1: think this is one of these things where at this
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  Speaker 1: point it's almost expected that you're going to turn over
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  Speaker 1: at least half of your roster, and you know, I
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  Speaker 1: don't know. I guess that's a good thing for an
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  Speaker 1: Ohio State program that you could potentially take a substantial
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  Speaker 1: step forward. They certainly took a step forward this year.
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  Speaker 1: But you're not necessarily constrained by well, here's the roster
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  Speaker 1: you have last year, and the guys are all going
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  Speaker 1: to be one year older and a little bit better.
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  Speaker 1: You could be almost anything you want to be this time.
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  Speaker 1: You know, by the time the season rolls around in October,
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  Speaker 1: it's just a matter of how aggressive do you want
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  Speaker 1: to be, how good is your talent evaluation in the portal,
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  Speaker 1: and how much you know, how much resources which is
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  Speaker 1: a nice way to say money do you have to
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  Speaker 1: throw at the problem.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, And I think what you don't want to happen
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  Speaker 2: is kind of what happened towards the end during the
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  Speaker 2: the changeover from Thad mood Out to Chris Holtman. Is
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  Speaker 2: every year they'd grab a new point guard from the portal,
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  Speaker 2: and he was average. You know, whether it's like Jami
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  Speaker 2: Wheeler or CJ. Jackson or just random names that you
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  Speaker 2: haven't thought about for a while. They did their job
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  Speaker 2: at Ohio State and they did well enough, but they
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  Speaker 2: weren't Bruce Thornton. And as we saw Bruce Thoughton, the
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  Speaker 2: fact that he stayed at Ohio State for four years
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  Speaker 2: proves your point, Tom, because everybody's like, ah wow, how rare,
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  Speaker 2: how amazing a four year player, year starter. We would
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  Speaker 2: have thought we had never seen that before or ever again. Rather,
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  Speaker 2: and he is the rarity rather than the constant changeover.
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  Speaker 2: And the thing is, you've got pieces at Ohio State
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  Speaker 2: right now that you want to keep. And we talked
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  Speaker 2: in previous Basketball show about the pieces being Amari Bynam,
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  Speaker 2: John Mobley, and Devin Royal. And of those three, the
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  Speaker 2: two you keeper Mobley and buying them, those are the
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  Speaker 2: two you don't want to lose. And now you go
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  Speaker 2: and find somebody, you know, to fill out this froster.
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  Speaker 2: But like I said, Ohio State is not going to
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  Speaker 2: be alone and looking for a point guarden. Everybody's looking
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  Speaker 2: for a big man, just like in a portal, everybody's
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  Speaker 2: looking for offensive and defensive lineman. So you better be
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  Speaker 2: ready to spend. And if you're not and you end
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  Speaker 2: up with another you know, is Miechi Johnson done at
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  Speaker 2: South Carolina? I don't know. But when you're bringing in
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  Speaker 2: guys that have started some and they have it seven
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  Speaker 2: points a game and two and a half assists, it's like, well,
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  Speaker 2: now you know what to expect next year. So they
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  Speaker 2: need to hit it big with the point guard. And
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  Speaker 2: they've done a good job so far to this point
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  Speaker 2: and keeping the two biggest players, but now they've got
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  Speaker 2: to go add to it.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, man, I didn't know who I thought they should
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  Speaker 1: go get in the portal, but Michie Johnson would be
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  Speaker 1: an incredible bit to add him once again. Just get
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  Speaker 1: him on that Columbus to Columbia shuttle one more time.
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  Speaker 1: That would be, that would be that would certainly be
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  Speaker 1: the funniest possible way for them to solve their roster
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  Speaker 1: problem the offseason. I don't think that's gonna be what
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  Speaker 1: the at the angle they take, but you never know,
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  Speaker 1: and this will probably not be the last transfer portal
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  Speaker 1: departure show that we will do. There's gonna be plenty
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  Speaker 1: of plenty of transfers in and out, if history is
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  Speaker 1: any guide. We'll be talking about all of that with
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  Speaker 1: our members at the Huddle Board presented by Jeffryby's Columbus
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  Speaker 1: at bucke Huddle dot com. We'll be talking about it
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  Speaker 1: on the buck Eye Tomorrow Morning podcast as well. We
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  Speaker 1: may even talk a little bit on the Buckeye Weekly
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  Speaker 1: podcast at some point. But we also do have football
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  Speaker 1: to talk about this week. Buckeye's practice back on the
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  Speaker 1: practice field Tuesday, Thursday, and then Saturday for the student
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  Speaker 1: appreciation practice. We'll have interview on the first couple of days.
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  Speaker 1: We'll be in there for practice on Saturday, so it
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  Speaker 1: should be a lot to talk about this week at
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  Speaker 1: bucke Huddle dot com and at YouTube dot com slash
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  Speaker 1: Buckey Huddle. That'll do it for today. Thank you guys
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  Speaker 1: all for joining us. Have a great day. We'll talk
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  Speaker 1: to you tomorrow.