Dana Ford on recruiting and the transfer portal:
“We were always prepared with a list of players, whether we need to fill a scholarship, and we’re always prepared with list of coaches whether we need to fill a spot. Most of the work had already taken place. It was just a matter of making the decision on people. We knew we were gonna lose a Gaige (Prim) from a player standpoint, and we had a pretty good inkling that it was a possibility to lose Isiaih (Mosley), and when you lose two players of that caliber, you’re going to be a different team, no matter if everyone else came back or if they didn’t. When certain guys decided that they did not want to come back then you know, we were just ready to move on with some of the other names that we had already evaluated all year….We wanted to try to get our most talented pieces in the fold as early as we could. Now, it didn’t work out that way because we ended up losing players in the portal ourselves, so then it became a ‘how do we feel some of the things that we’re losing and continue to track the best talent available.'”
Dana Ford on having a new team:
“We like the potential of the versatility of our team. We liked the potential of the depth, we liked the potential of the skill set, the length, athleticism, and just overall diversity of our group in regards to how we can play and what we can do.”
Dana Ford on connecting Bears community to new team:
“Some of our players had built a rapport with our fan base, especially when you when you’re winning championships, you know those those things are our number one, they’re hard to come by but they just unite so many people and that’s one of the added bonuses of doing that. When you grow up in a program for two and three and four years people start to really be attached to you, so that’s going to be an issue for sure, especially at the mid major level.”
