Mark Cuban personally funded Mendoza’s NIL deal at Indiana last year. With basketball, one player on a five man team has a huge impact.  Unless LeBron helps out his buddy with someone it’s going to be a long year.

On the bright side, there are still 60-70 PFs & Cs left in the portal that are not stars but are likely good pieces in areas of need. There are even a fair number of them with multiple years of eligibility. Yes, the prices for such players are believed to be coming down because it is getting as late for them as it is for the teams.

I don't think that the plan is for Chaim to play a central role on this year's team. However, if the Dukes don't bring in a starter level 4 & Jellum is no better than an average first-year player, this could change.

The truly bad news, as I see it, is threefold. First, there is no one on the current roster with experience as a full-time starting lead guard at the D-1 level.  Second, there are fewer than 5 experienced PGs available who would be likely A-10 starters & at least 2 of them come with some PR baggage. Finally, there are 80ish schools that are viable destinations for & have interest in the available bigs mentioned above, & dozens of them have more cash than we have been led to believe that Duquesne is willing to spend.   

Don't know why but my gut tells me that the roster, as it currently stands, would be hard pressed to win 12 games. In other words, I believe Dru absolutely has to bring in at least a couple of splash recruits, maybe a power forward and a PG. Otherwise, I see a potential catastrophe on the horizon. I know that there is time enough to do this but I'm getting just a bit antsy. 

In my opinion last year’s team was talented enough to perform better than the results.  I base this on the team’s performance in the A-10 Tournament.  They gave eventual A-10 Champion VCU all it could handle.  Once Alex Williams was established as a prime scoring threat the team was very dangerous.  The problem as I saw it was that it took far too long in the season to properly utilize Alex.  He was a real weapon that was only occasionally utilized. 
This brings me to the topic of next season’s roster as it stands.  As I stated in earlier posts, it does not appear to be close to the potential of last year’s roster which was a 9-9 team in the A-10.  Barring some significant additions, I doubt this roster can finish anywhere close to last seasons record.