SMU basketball's NIT appearance won't interfere with transfer recruiting

While teams said they would not accept a bid to this year’s National Invitation Tournament, many to recruit the transfer portal which officially opened on Monday, SMU was not one of them.

Instead, the Mustangs discussed the opportunity of playing at least one more game and the prestige of the NIT on Tuesday morning before heading to Terre Haute to take on top-seeded Indiana State in the first round.

“I think if the portal was in effect in ’96 when we weren’t using smartphones and iPads and laptops, this idea of not playing or not being able to focus on both might have some real legs to it,” second-year head coach Rob Lanier said. “But I don’t necessarily buy that. You guys are going to be able to put this on YouTube (right away) and I just think technology allows you to practice for two hours and spend the rest of the day focused on recruiting. You can play a game and once the game’s over you can get back on the phone and do what you need to do.”

There is one difference between recruiting on the road versus being at home and not playing.

“I think what does happen, though, is if you wanted to have an official visit Wednesday, you wouldn’t be able to do that,” Lanier added. “I think teams who are communicating with guys and want to do something quickly and get a guy on campus right away, in those instances it certainly creates some dilemmas and people are making a choice based on that, I think in many cases.”

While SMU will have some spots to fill, it will not be another massive roster overhaul like there have been the first two years of Lanier’s tenure. Before his first season, he brought in eight transfers and another five this past offseason.

That’s not the case this time around, affording SMU the opportunity to play in the NIT.

“We expect to have several opportunities to bring in impact, quality players. And we think we’re going to have several coming back,” Lanier said. “We think we’re going to have some depth coming back. But we need a couple of guys that bring immediate impact and we feel good about the traction we’ve already gotten on Day 1. We are looking at our schedule saying, ‘All right, we need to do an official visit’ and how the tournament plays out dictates those dates. So I can understand what some of the schools are thinking of, and especially for teams that have eight scholarships to fill, why be playing. But when you’ve got three or four scholarships to fill and a lot of guys coming back, they need this experience. The balance that we need to strike is specific to our makeup.”

And this time around, SMU has a better pitch to make. Before it was a completely new team with a new head coach, last year it was coming off a 10-win season. Now the Mustangs are coming off 20 wins, will play in the NIT and are headed to play in the ACC.

“Last year, we really didn’t have a lot to piggyback off of,” Zhuric Phelps said. “We only won 10 games, so it was kind of hard to persuade somebody to come SMU. But now, we doubled our wins, we had 20 wins, so we have more to offer and going into the ACC, things like that. That’s what we’re going to use during recruitment and to get these guys.”

Phelps is ready and willing to help recruit, just like he’s done in the past. He is one of the few players who was on the roster before Lanier was hired and has stuck through the good times and the bad.

“I’ll definitely be involved with people that Coach Lanier wants to bring in,” Phelps said. “Just being able to give them information, how things are done around here, how Coach Lanier likes to play, things like that. We haven’t talked about anybody coming yet, but when the time comes around, I’m going to definitely be around to be that person to find information from for the recruits. I’m excited to see who coach will bring in here.”

Last offseason, Phelps tested the NBA waters. He had meetings and one workout before deciding to return to SMU. Whether or not he will do the same this time around will have to wait, though.

“Right now me, my family, Coach Lanier — it’s an option — we haven’t really talked about it,” Phelps said. “But I’m just focused on the tournament right now and just being able to play with my teammates, really. That’s the only thing I’m looking forward to right now.”

One of the players SMU brought in last offseason was Chuck Harris who has made an instant impact. He was second on the team in scoring with 13.2 points per game and his absence was noticeable in the loss against UTSA and the second half of the AAC tournament loss to Temple.

Harris knows the immediacy that comes with the transfer portal in today’s game. His former team was eliminated from the Big East tournament on March 8, the tournament ended on March 11, he entered the portal on March 15 and he committed to SMU on April 12.

“It’s crazy to me how it opens literally like the second the conference tournament’s over too, still a lot of people are playing, but it is a business,” Harris said. “I think players and coaches both understand that now and the players are just ultimately making the best decision for themselves.”

Now the Mustangs have a selling point that has been missing from all of its recruiting in the past, a place in a premier, power basketball conference, the ACC.

“I think a lot of people want to play in the Power 5, things like that,” Phelps said. “I’m excited because we have Duke coming home, things like that. But other than that, just ready to make that transition and play with people in ACC.”

That brings a completely different animal to the recruitment process out of the portal this time around. While the Mustangs may not need as many players as previous years, they need players who can help raise the team’s level of basketball as it enters a new challenge.

“At this time last year there was a lot of crafting a vision and apologizing for only having won 10 games, ‘But trust me, we’re going to be better if you come.’ That happened,” Lanier said. “So now, having won 20 games and making the postseason and going to the ACC, needing impact resonates even deeper with people because there is some teeth to it. We played a schedule that people can see, all right you were competitive against some Power 5 teams.

“… So on its face, what we’ve done defensively and offensively in terms of our NET numbers and where we rank nationally from a foundational standpoint, we’ve got a lot of stuff to back up this vision that we have been expressing to people over the last year or so. Now it’s got more teeth to it and we still need impact players though. We’ve got some real good traction with some guys that, like I said, if we knew we weren’t playing we might have two visits Wednesday. But we’re in good enough shape with at least those couple, and we only need to bring in a handful of impact players. But they have to be ACC caliber impact players.”