I'll tell yah, I really won't lose sleep over losing a freshman recruit anymore. There's inevitably going to be better transfers in the portal, when we now have 1,000+ to choose from. Just not really worth the risk in this era of college basketball. I'm not saying don't go after the freshman at all, but teams will be just fine if they stick to returning players and hitting the portal instead.
Like for instance, where would we rank Otega Oweh in terms of on-cour production last year, if we put him amongst ALL the freshman? Is he top10, top15? He's certainly going to be in that top 95th percentile of talent. Now Jaxson Robinson (disregard the injury).. is he top50? Amari Williams also probably top50. My point is, we can certainly create a team of transfers that would be just as good as if we got 3 top25 guys. The ONLY difference are some of those top10 guys truly are transcendent, like a Flagg, Harper, etc. But even then, some years there's almost none of the (like the season prior)