Just for fun....had Painter used the portal..

[northside100]

it's a mute point, he wanted out of the BIG10

Moot 😉

Agree

 

[qazplm]

I think he got more from k state

Then whatever it would have taken. He fills the exact hole we have, another athletic big that can get rebounds, play inside or out, and let us play defensively against teams with multiple athletic big men.

Once we lost Jacobsen, we lost the ability to do that very well. Furst and Berg aren't the answer for that.

It's a moot point obviously, but he's just the type of player to fill that hole. I'm pretty sure Painter would have figured out a way to use a guy like that.

 

[qazplm]

Just add the athleticism on defense and maybe some scoring from the 4/5 spot. I’d say he’d be a nice fill in next to TKR. But I guess he wasn’t known as a dominant rebounder.

Exactly. His last year stats at Illinois were 12 pts, 37 percent from three, 6 boards a game, 3 assists. Is he a star? Of course not. Is that way better than what you are going to get from any healthy big on the current roster not named TKR right now? Absolutely.

Obviously I have no idea if he's have been a cultural fit. But assuming he would have, I don't see how this staff doesn't turn him into an upgrade over what we have healthy right now.

None of this is an attack on Painter. It's a hypothetical question of who would have helped IF we had used the portal. Obviously, we didn't use it and at the time, they hadn't changed the rules so we couldn't use it because we were capped. But yeah, he would have helped. I don't see how that's in question.