PJ Hagerty is the Pop Isaacs or Duke Miles of next years roster. Do y'all like him better than them?

JJxvi said:

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PJ Hagerty is the Pop Isaacs or Duke Miles of next years roster. Do y'all like him better than them?

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Hell yes better scorer and bigger than both

JJxvi said:

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PJ Hagerty is the Pop Isaacs or Duke Miles of next years roster. Do y'all like him better than them?

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Not even close.

JJxvi said:

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PJ Hagerty is the Pop Isaacs or Duke Miles of next years roster. Do y'all like him better than them?

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Uh, yeah. And I like both Pop and Duke as players.

PJ Haggerty’s College Basketball Journey:

2023 — TCU, 2.8 PPG
2024 — Tulsa, 21.2 PPG
2025 — Memphis, 21.7 PPG
2026 — Kansas State, 23.4 PPG
2027 — Texas A&M, TBD

The poster boy for the transfer portal, and he always gets his. 💰 pic.twitter.com/ToYNAEPye0

— College Basketball Report (@CBKReport) April 10, 2026

Very good get

EliteZags said:

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Topher17 said:

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HotardRat said:

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Not trying to zag just for the sake of it, but not a huge fan of this move. He's very expensive, and he doesn't exactly play winning basketball.

Bucky is a better coach than his previous coaches, but….

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Yeah, I'm fully in the mode of trusting Bucky, but I'm also in wait and see mode with a guy like Haggerty. He scores, but he's not very efficient and we're his fifth school in five years, none of which have been particularly good teams. And as you note, definitely very expensive.

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in what world is a career 49% guard not efficient?

also higher 3pt% than Wade

when was the last time we've had a player with this level of scoring pedigree

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He's partly at 49% FGs because his 4 attempts at 3's per game at 35% completion. Between 70%-80% at the line. 3 turnovers a game the last 2 years is really his worst stat. Although he must have the ball a ton as much as he scores.

Tamuco99 said:

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Lots of peoples' opinions on mercenary players have been changed suddenly

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I'll never back down on my opinion on mercenaries. 5 schools in 5 years is asinine and a guy like that can't be good for team chemistry. I'm sure he's a great scorer, but that also means a high usage rate that takes away from the balance we all loved last year as well. K-State paid big to grab Haggerty last year and then their team disintegrated and their coach ended up fired. We can rejoice at the scoring numbers and beating out LSU, but this comes with some red flags as well that are fair to discuss.

If we've got 4.2 million dollars, I'd rather use that to reward the guys that are already here and build for the future with high school recruiting.

I understand that Michigan just won with 5 transfers, but some things are more important than winning, and at least pretending like these kids are college students that might one day get a degree is one of those important things.

I dont care about having a mercenary, generally, but IMO any player that gets announced at Reed without qualifying what state he's from doesnt even count as one to me.

Mercenaries are the new normal so if you have to pretend, just pretend they love A&M as much as you do.

Tamuco99 said:

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Was Agee a mercenary? He was terrible for team chemistry, no?

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You seem new here, but I'm on record as being uncomfortable with Agee and Dominguez last year as well. I think their situations were as concerning for the future of NCAA basketball as the Bediako one was that got much more publicity.

Agee though shot the ball 8 times per game last year, Haggerty shot it 18 times per game. Guys want shots and a chance to showcase themselves, and I doubt our selling point to Haggerty was to come here and shoot 8 times per game. I'm just saying that this move is:

1 - Risky because now in year 2 you do have some continuity, and you are bringing in someone new to be your highest paid player and probably take the most shots and play the most minutes. Last year everyone was a mercenary of sorts, but this year should be different with returners and new guys mixing together. If you don't think that might upset the team chemistry built last year... not sure what to tell you. Now, Bucky proved himself as a good coach last year, so hopefully he can handle this challenge, but we know that he's never had to navigate this specific challenge before, no one was making 4.2 million at Samford.

2 - K-State added him to the equation and they got worse. I didn't watch any of their games, so I can't offer any analysis of why this was, but it is a data point that covers the whole season and has to be concerning. The counter point is that Memphis was good with him two years ago. Maybe Penny was able to manage personalities better than Tang? Or was last year an anomaly and K-State was so bad nothing could have prevented a disastrous season.

3 - Burning 4.2 million (reportedly) on one player might make bringing in more impact guys less likely unless we have our own Cody Campbell out there now writing blank checks. Even if I was comfortable with mercenaries, I wonder what the rest of the roster construction is going to look like. Last year we couldn't rebound and we couldn't defend the post because Agee was 6'5''. If we look at the Michigan model (ugh) that was based on bringing in size and absolutely dominating the post on both ends. If this move means that we now are limited to bringing in guys like Vinson and Federiko to be out posts... then it's hard to see how this improves us unless Bucky really is committed to playing the freshman big he recruited.

Bunk Moreland said:

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Tamuco99 said:

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Lots of people's opinions on mercenary players have been changed suddenly

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This is the world we live in. Don't hate the player, hate the game.

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I don't think the poster you are replying to understands NIL and how it has changed the game.

carl spacklers hat said:

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This is a bucolic take on the state of college sports in 2026. The purpose of varsity sports is to win championships. The job of coaches and staffs is to win championships. The notion that players are students is long dead. They are paid employees with a job to do - win championships. If your team isn't engaged in free agency like every other program is, you're going to get left in the dust and those coaches are going to get fired.

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I'm well aware of what is going on, but you are essentially using the childish argument of "well everyone else is doing it so we should do it also."

Do you think we should just accept the way things are without even considering that the system needs some fundamental changes to restore the focus back on the "college" part of college basketball?

It's great to hold idealistic beliefs and that's a laudable quality to have in terms of one's character, but they really don't work in the real world. Of course college athletes should leave with a meaningful degree. But college athletics, with rare exceptions, doesn't work that way and I would argue that it never really has.

Symbolic of this whole discussion, is that in Haggerty's tweet, he photoshopped himself in a number 4 jersey. He either has no idea that 4 is retired (controversial though that may be) or doesn't care.

(touche, I forgot Vinson wore 4, disregard stupid comment above)

AggieEP said:

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Tamuco99 said:

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Lots of peoples' opinions on mercenary players have been changed suddenly

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I'll never back down on my opinion on mercenaries. 5 schools in 5 years is asinine and a guy like that can't be good for team chemistry. I'm sure he's a great scorer, but that also means a high usage rate that takes away from the balance we all loved last year as well. K-State paid big to grab Haggerty last year and then their team disintegrated and their coach ended up fired. We can rejoice at the scoring numbers and beating out LSU, but this comes with some red flags as well that are fair to discuss.

If we've got 4.2 million dollars, I'd rather use that to reward the guys that are already here and build for the future with high school recruiting.

I understand that Michigan just won with 5 transfers, but some things are more important than winning, and at least pretending like these kids are college students that might one day get a degree is one of those important things.

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Who says we aren't taking care of the guys that stay? Don't this think a better reward form those that stay is to bring better players to put around them?

AggieEP said:

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Symbolic of this whole discussion, is that in Haggerty's tweet, he photoshopped himself in a number 4 jersey. He either has no idea that 4 is retired (controversial though that may be) or doesn't care.

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It is unrealistic to expect him to know that Wade Taylor's jersey is hanging at Reed. If you stopped any random casual A&M fan and asked them to tell you what jersey numbers are significant in A&M baskeball history, I wouldn't expect 90% of them to really have an answer.

I personally don't care if the players are students or not, but a major part of being a fan of sports teams is the emotional attachment that develops over time with continuity. It's fine to pepper in new faces into the existing group that you "know" (or to have a complete reset from time to time), but you would ideally have a good team with the same core group over a period of years. I would guess that Celtics fans in 1988 wouldn't have liked to have just traded the entire team for the Lakers entire team, because the Celtics' players were "their" guys regardless of which team was better.

Of course continuity in our case would just mean another year of being an "okay" team. And you can either adapt to the current system or not be good.

Quote:

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I don't have to change your minds.

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Agree. Likewise.

AggieEP said:

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carl spacklers hat said:

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This is a bucolic take on the state of college sports in 2026. The purpose of varsity sports is to win championships. The job of coaches and staffs is to win championships. The notion that players are students is long dead. They are paid employees with a job to do - win championships. If your team isn't engaged in free agency like every other program is, you're going to get left in the dust and those coaches are going to get fired.

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I'm well aware of what is going on, but you are essentially using the childish argument of "well everyone else is doing it so we should do it also."

Do you think we should just accept the way things are without even considering that the system needs some fundamental changes to restore the focus back on the "college" part of college basketball?

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Nowhere in my post did I say it was right, or that I agreed with it. I'm pointing out the current environment of college sports. If you aren't going to participate at the same level everyone else is, you should drop the sport. its sad but that's the way it is. College sports is big business so if you aren't willing to engage at the same level your competitors are, you should exit the enterprise. Or drop to D-3.

AggieEP said:

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Tobias Funke said:

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White knighting for the college degree of someone you've never met is a weird hill to die on.

Me? I want a championship. Let's go

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College is for getting degrees, playing basketball is a side hustle. Whatever weird assortment of credits that Haggerty has at this point are likely worthless at this point, the system has enriched him personally but at the cost of making a farce of the primary mission of the institutions he's played at.

I'm a college professor, and I truly believe in the life changing power of education. Previously, I think we really could look at the athletes and say, "at least they walked away with a degree." Some of them changed their lives and the lives of their children by being able to leverage their degree and the aggie network. Now these kids walk away with a bag of cash that was likely spent by the time they run out of eligibility.

Imagine the insanity of being called out by a poster for thinking college athletes should get college degrees...

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This kid is reportedly going to make about $10mill in his college basketball career. I think that is a little more life changing for both him and his children than a degree. Also, unless his season is a complete disaster, I'm sure he'll find a way to benefit from the Aggie network just fine