Santoro: Baker had best 5 minutes in Pack history, but portal gets the win

Will Baker, who recently put his name in the NCAA’s transfer portal, won’t soon be forgotten by Nevada Wolf Pack basketball fans. Baker, after all, gave Pack followers the most prolific and magical five minutes of basketball in school history back on Feb. 18 at Utah State. In those first five minutes of the game Baker made all six of his 3-pointers and scored the Pack’s first 22 points for a 22-4 lead. It is arguably the best opening five minutes any player in college basketball history has ever produced. There isn’t, of course, much time to do much more as Baker scored more than four points and made more than one 3-pointer per minute. He was on  pace for 176 points and 48 3-pointers if he never left the game. And why would the Pack take him out of the game, for goodness’ sake? At one point during that magical stretch (during a timeout) Pack coach Steve Alford smiled at Baker like a proud papa and tousled the 7-foot center’s hair. It was the most heartwarming pseudo father-son moment since Ray Kinsella asked his father in the movie, Field of Dreams, “Dad, you wanna have a catch?” Those first five minutes in Logan, Utah, of course, were the apex of the Pack’s recently completed 22-11 season. Unfortunately, midnight struck and reality came crashing down on the Pack that very same evening. Baker would score just three more points the rest of the night as the Pack lost 75-66, the first of five losses in the final seven games. Nobody in silver and blue was tousling anybody’s hair those last seven games except, maybe, Alford pulling out his own hair on the bench. And now Baker wants to leave Nevada.

•••

Baker transferred to Nevada before the 2021-22 season likely only because of Alford. Alford recruited Baker heavily when he was the UCLA head coach, but the big center chose Texas instead because he grew up down the street from the campus in Austin. Baker chose Texas in November 2018 and Alford was fired at UCLA a month later. Maybe Alford, despite the smile and pat on the head at Utah State, simply didn’t play Baker enough at Nevada (about 24 minutes a game over two seasons) to keep him happy. Or maybe Alford yelled at Baker too much for not playing defense. Or maybe Baker simply envisions himself as another Drew Timme of Gonzaga. The 6-foot-11 Timme, who averaged over 21 points and seven rebounds for Gonzaga this year, played his high school basketball about 200 miles north of Baker in Richardson, Texas. They both were among the best big men in Texas high school basketball at the same time and entered the college the same year (2019-20). How about a Baker-Timme Twin Towers combo in Gonzaga next year? Baker’s favorite player is former San Antonio Spurs center David Robinson, who did play half of a Twin Towers set-up in San Antonio with Tim Duncan.

•••

The Wolf Pack stretched its lead to 30-9 midway through the first half at Utah State back in February before melting down the final 30 minutes. Baker completely vanished (maybe he was off checking the transfer portal) and so did the Pack’s season. But at that precise moment the Pack was in Nevada Nirvana, up 30-9 on the road, sporting a 20-6 overall record with wins already over New Mexico, Boise State and, yes, even San Diego State on its resume. Since that moment, however, the Pack went 2-5 and now has three players (Darrion Williams, Trey Pettigrew and Baker) in the transfer portal. All of that destruction has taken place in less than two full months. It feels like two decades and we’re still not sure it is over. Who is next to dip his toe in the portal? Kenan Blackshear has already said he will stay with the Pack. But what else is he going to say? What about Jared Lucas? Nick Davidson? Alphie, Wolfie Jr. and Luna? What about Alford?

•••

Davidson, if he stays, would seem to be the one who would benefit the most by the absence of Williams and Baker. Yes, of course, that all depends on which players Alford brings in via the transfer portal. Players, at least quality players, usually don’t transfer to another school without some sort of promise of extensive playing time. But the 6-8 Davidson was certainly in line for more minutes next season, even with Williams and Baker on the roster. Davidson had a solid freshman year coming off the bench, averaging 6.9 points and 4.1 rebounds in just under 18 minutes a game. His energy, hustle and ability to shoot threes and rebound was one of the main reasons why the Pack won 22 games and went to the NCAA Tournament. Davidson went to high school in Southern California, but his father Kirk is a former Reed High and Wolf Pack player (backup center for coach Len Stevens in the early 1990s) and his mother Kelly (Martin) was a standout volleyball player at Nevada. If Davidson transferred out of Nevada now, he might have to find another home to enjoy Thanksgiving dinner. But Kirk did choose BYU over Nevada coming out of Reed, so anything is possible in this grass-is-greener-somewhere-else transfer portal era. The Name-Image-Likeness money might also be greener somewhere else.

•••

Losing Pettigrew, a 6-foot-2 sophomore-to-be point guard, was not a huge surprise. Pettigrew is talented, confident, can score and play defense and probably should have played more minutes last year than the 305 he got over 27 appearances. But he was likely going to play the same role next year with point guards Blackshear and Hunter McIntosh ahead of him on the depth chart. Pettigrew, by the way, had just two fewer blocks (seven) last year as starters Blackshear and Baker (nine each). Lucas, who played nearly four times as many minutes as Pettigrew, didn’t block a single shot all year.

•••

One of Alford’s biggest decisions this off-season, other than finding at least three players in the portal, will be sorting out the point guard minutes for next season. Blackshear started at the point this past season for the first time in his career because McIntosh suffered a knee injury before the season. Blackshear played well for the most part, though his numbers noticeably dipped when McIntosh returned for the final six games. The team’s performance also dipped with four losses in those last six games after going 20-7 without McIntosh. Blackshear averaged 32.8 minutes, 1.6 steals, 4.8 assists and 14.8 points a game the first 27 games without McIntosh around. The last six games, with McIntosh, he averaged 30.8 minutes, 1.3 steals, 4.0 assists and 11.0 points a game. Whether or not Blackshear’s decline was due to the presence of McIntosh in uniform or not is debatable. But the team also declined. It is something Alford needs to figure out this spring and summer.

•••

We witnessed the greatest moment in Mountain West history Monday night when the San Diego State Aztecs took on the Connecticut Huskies in the NCAA Tournament title game. Connecticut won, 76-59, but the Aztecs trailed just 60-55 with 5:19 to play and had the momentum. Does this mean the Mountain West is now one of the best conferences in the nation? Of course not. If that was true, the Pack wouldn’t be losing three or more players in the transfer portal every year. The NCAA Tournament is just that, now more than ever — it’s just a tournament. It doesn’t necessarily produce the best team in the country as champion. The Aztecs only had to beat one truly great team (Alabama) to get to the title game. And they still needed a couple miracles (57-56 over Creighton and 72-71 over Florida Atlantic) to do it. With five-plus minutes to go on Monday it looked like another miracle was going to happen. Don’t get too excited about the Mountain West’s basketball future because of what San Diego State did.

•••

San Diego State might not be a member of the Mountain West for too much longer, anyway. The Pac-12 and Big-12 are supposedly winking their eyes at the Aztecs and sending secret text messages their way. It’s likely the Aztecs, mainly because of their valuable southern California address, will be in the Pac-12 or Big-12 before too long. The Pac-12 is losing USC and UCLA to the Big 10 and needs a SoCal presence. The Big 12 also wants a footprint in the region. The big-money conferences all want to become national conferences now, not simply regional enterprises. San Diego State has a solid football, men’s basketball and baseball program and owns a nice chunk of real estate in southern California. The Aztecs have outgrown the Mountain West.