Scott Rich

I do not begrudge any player leaving college.

in transferring to maximize their income streams.

Just like if you sitting at home got offered a job for twice as much money, you get to go live in Miami, they're gonna cover your contract, they're gonna cover your moving expenses, blah, blah, blah.

Very few of us would say, I'm not gonna consider that.

I think that's the perspective that you have to have in general.

That said,

Also in the adult world, the working world, it's never a good idea to burn your bridges, right?

If you are leaving your position for a new opportunity, at some point in your life, I don't know, you might need a reference letter from someone who you worked for, you know, five, 10 years ago.

You might need to collaborate with your old company on a project, something like this.

That's where I get a little bit frustrated by the Daring Mensah situation in particular, because he chose to do this in such a way to not just burn his bridges, but arguably, and we'll talk a bit about the fallout, sort of burn the entire program on his way out with some of the fallout and the secondary players and whatnot who are leaving.

That's the problem here.

If Darian Mensah said, if Darian Mensah never made his I'm coming back to Duke announcement and decided to enter the portal, that sucks.

He gave us a great year.

It hurts our team.

But that's the cost of doing business in the modern NCAA.

But to say you're coming back to make such a big deal about that, to give the Duke program weeks to build their roster around you.

And then to pull the rug out from under them at the last minute and then do so in such a way where again, you know, and again, some of this is rumor less confirmed, but other players might be coming out the door with you.

That's burning that bridge.

And at a certain point, you have to ask yourself, what's the cost benefit of making a few extra million dollars versus completely destroying the relationships you had previously?

That's something that, again, in my line of work is, you know, in research and your line of work in law, you know, that wouldn't be something that we would necessarily do because relationships matter.