seriously? If that’s your criteria, about 2/3 of the MWC coaches would be hitting the bricks with him.

this is kinda concerning about Omer and his brother. UNM lost something like 8 guys, added 3, so there’s openings.

yeah Omer joining his brother certainly wouldn’t surprise me. I know it’s still early in the portal process, but it sure would be nice to start seeing some signings after all the departures

The portal closes on the 21st but I doubt that we'll hear much for quite a while. It's going to be interesting to see the roster we end up with considering how many players we've lost already. I'm hoping that we have come into some cash for NIL. If it's true that we are paying Incarnate Word $75,000 to come to Davis for a game, one would think we've got some money to spend on the program and we certainly wouldn't burn through it just bringing in teams for home games.

I have my gripes about Les, I don't think he's been successful enough in a looooong tenure to justify continue keeping him around. That being said, I think our portal situation is more a reflection of college sports and not of Les specifically. Even the top programs in the country who are national championship contenders are losing players who are looking for the biggest paycheck. College sports are fundamentally broken right now.

You have to put a hard cap on either the NIL or transfer portal (or both though I think that has a miniscule chance of happening). For example, you either get 1 transfer with no exceptions or you cap NIL at let's say 100k per player max, but the current transfer rules stay in place. I think that would cut down big time on what has essentially become free agency at the college level.

I’m guessing this is the standard payout for getting a home-only series, but that we more than make it up for going on the road to P4 teams.

This decision of Les’ future reminds me of the calls to fire Biggs way back. He was also way underfunded (we were nowhere near our scholarship limit) but managed to compete well. Brought in someone without changing the finances and it was a disaster. We’re now competing in a world with UNR, UNLV, UNM who have bigger sponsor bases, WAY bigger attendees figures and have been getting TV/tournament revenues - it’s gonna be a struggle to bring in and keep players for some time.

Just looking at the Big West and Mountain West tabs on the portal page is sad:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1mPXctsKVPp6BXtieX1QRf5GuXu3ZFQUbXdqAV1_k45A/htmlview?pli=1#gid=1972197097

I don't think the portal situation is the reason we should fire him. I'm saying that I think a part of the issue with sustained success, funding and the portal are intersectional in the core issue of Les having such a long tenure at Davis and lacking the success to back keeping him on at this point. The energy is not in the building. While obviously the portal, attendance and funding have a ton of external context other than Les, I don't see how keeping him on and having a stagnant program with no juice (and this is from personal experience, talking to family and 10+ students) makes any sense. In the portal era losing a ton of guys in unfortunately the norm, but I also hear from everyone on here that he's an amazing recruiter... and then we have mediocre season after mediocre season... and then half the team leaves... and then we keep the coaching staff (which is the longest tenured in D1). Its insanity.

Just for a change of pace, note that Hawai`i has been aggressively pursuing transfers for next season after losing just about their whole team from last season's Big West championship team. See:
https://hawaiisportsradio.com/2026/04/07/uh-mens-basketball-2026-offseason-recruiting-transfer-portal-tracker/

Doesn’t matter much who is on staff with the level of resources available. Agree that Les is not the guy to lead any sort of initiative to put the program on strong financial footing but moving on right now would cost lots of dough. Would be better to put that money into the roster in order to help attract some decent candidates next cycle. Of course this will never happen.

Yep, was just about to post this too. They have 6 incoming transfers. We (and Air Force) have none.

That's a huge amount of recruiting activity by Hawai'i. I wish we had the same kind of coverage being reported for the Aggies but I'm not surprised that we haven't heard anything official. Aggie Athletics generally never releases any information about recruits until the ink dries on their commitment signing.

Daughtery Jr is in the portal now, but I thought he was a senior already

that happened last year with several guys like TY and Leo.

I think these players who have used their eligibility but still enter the transfer portal are hoping that rule changes might give them an extra year (or at least they are preparing if that should happen).

I believe you are correct on this. Roberson and Rocak are both in the portal now likely for the same purposes.

Verbal Commits is showing only 6 guys currently on the roster
- PG Fagbemi
- PG Sevilla
- SG Esso-Essis
- SG Rawlins
- PF Chappell
- PF Suljanovic

Les has A LOT of work to do to get the roster ready for next season

similar to last year when you look at the roster. If my math is right, we had 5 returners this year

Daugherty
Sevilla
Rocek
Chappell
Cooper

And Rocek was a surprise. Did I miss anyone?

Niko is listed in the portal now also.

i think Preston Neumayr is in the portal!

i thought it closed yesterday?

i think Preston Neumayr is in the portal! — DrMike

:lol:

The portal closed on the 21st but I think verbalcommits.com is just getting caught up.

I’m not terribly worried YET that we haven’t announced any signees (Wilson and Fagbemi were announced mid-May last year) since it seems to be department policy to hold off until all t’s are crossed on acceptance. I am a bit surprised none of our transfers have a destination yet. I don’t follow social so no clue if they are announcing schools interested in them. Who knows, maybe one or two stick?

I've been trying to follow some of our transfers...haven't seen much. On the incoming side, we were listed as "interested" in a couple of big guys. I don't believe these tweets too much, though. I'm sure we are interested in a lot of guys.

Good news

Didn't want to start a new thread, and we've talked about the portal enough in here: Olivier Rioux (7'9" center) just transferred from Florida to Irvine. :eyes:

Looks like he scored 7 points in 16 games this year. Played about 1.5 minutes per game....May have a better go of it in the BWC.

Russ Turner has a reputation for recruiting very big post players. I think many of us here remember Mamadou N'Diaye who was 7'6" tall and played for the Eaters for 3 years 2013-2016. We had some memorable games against them when he played and I remember how often he would flop trying to draw fouls. He was quite a character with a big personality.

Our first add. Have researched him yet, but comes from a high level program

Freshman, SG, good size at 6'5", from Paris, France, played 45 minutes over the whole season. Before college averaged 11.7 PPG, 3.1 RPG, 1.5 assists and 1.4 steals in 24.7 minutes, while shooting 46.3 percent from the floor, and 34.1 percent beyond the arc.

Les excels at finding and developing under recruited and overlooked guards. We have seen that time and time again over the years. Massamba will have a chance to grow into an elite player here under the guidance of Les.

Tennessee averaged 19,251 fans for their 17 home games last season so, in terms of game environment, playing here will be like night and day for him though.

From the Tennessee athletics website:

[quote]2025-26 - FRESHMAN

-Played in 12 games in his first collegiate campaign, missing five due to injury.
-Totaled four points, four assists, three rebounds, one steal and one made 3-pointer across 42 minutes
of action.
-Tied for second on the team by throwing down the pregame “One Fly, We All Fly” dunk five times, three of which came in the postseason, including two in the NCAA Tournament.
-Notched one rebound and one assist in two minutes of action against third-ranked Michigan (3/29/26) in the NCAA Tournament Elite Eight.
-Made his NCAA Tournament debut in the Round of 64 win over Miami (OH) (3/20/26).
-Missed the games at Mississippi State (2/11/26), at No. 19/18 Vanderbilt (2/21/26), at Missouri (2/24/26), versus No. 17/18 Alabama (2/28/26) and at South Carolina (3/3/26) due to a right hip injury.
-Distributed a season-best two assists, the first two of his career, against North Florida (11/12/25).
-Connected on a corner 3-pointer versus Northern Kentucky (11/8/25) for the first points of his career.
-Earned his first collegiate action in the season opener against Mercer (11/3/25).[/quote]

https://utsports.com/sports/mens-basketball/roster/clarence-massamba/22163

-Full name is Clarence Nelson Fondeur-Massamba.
-Last name is pronounced muh-SAHM-buh.
-Born Dec. 14, 2005, in Paris.
-Parents are Florent Fondeur, an RATP safety agent, and Julia Massamba.
-Has two older brothers, Cameron and Sidney, as well as one younger brother, Mylson-Davis, and two younger sisters, Charlie and Orphée.
-Majoring in recreation & sport management.
-Enjoys playing various sports in addition to basketball, especially soccer.
-Favorite athlete is Kobe Bryant because he feels pushed to go harder by the mental component of Bryant’s game.
-Best sports memory is winning the state title as a junior at The Rock School.
-Wears No. 4 because he has kept it ever since he first got it during his sophomore year of high school.
-Committed to Tennessee over interest from schools such as Arkansas, Duke, Kansas, Ohio State, North Carolina, Southern Cal, Virginia Tech and Xavier.
-Chose Tennessee because of his good connection with the coaches and how they made him feel like it was the right place for him.
-Follows one prior Tennessee letter winner from France in Yves Pons, a Fuveau native who played from 2017-21 and was the 2020 SEC Defensive Player of the Year.
-Owner of an 8-5 standing reach, he put on 15.5 pounds and increased his standing vertical jump by 2.49 inches over his first two months—arrived Aug. 17, 2025—at Tennessee.
-Recipient of the Holland Family Athletic Scholarship.

https://utsports.com/sports/mens-basketball/roster/clarence-massamba/22163