Santoro: Portal making Pack a quick stop for recruits

Darrion Williams is the latest Nevada Wolf Pack basketball player to jump into the dreaded transfer portal. The Pack, which lost starters Grant Sherfield, Warren Washington and Desmond Cambridge a year ago, now clearly has the stability of a random rest stop on the highway. Players are treating Nevada as nothing more than a way to give their careers a bathroom break, a chance for a little energy boost or to check the map or GPS before taking off for more interesting destinations down the road.

Yes, of course, this is not just Nevada’s problem. The transfer portal has done this to every school in the nation. But the difference between a Nevada and, say, a traditional big-money power like LSU, Duke, Ohio State or North Carolina, is that the transfer portal can rip the heart out of a program like Nevada. The portal normally steals starters and those that played important roles from a Nevada while a LSU, Duke, Ohio State or North Carolina usually loses players that barely got off the bench. Players are using conferences like the Mountain West like they are merely winter AAU teams with TV exposure just so they can be seen by bigger schools with deeper pockets and more exposure.

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The transfer portal has completely taken over (some would say ruined) college football and men’s basketball. It wasn’t this way when Pack basketball coach Steve Alford decided to come to Nevada in the spring of 2019. Back in 2019 when you recruited a player to Nevada, you’d likely have him for the rest of his eligibility and only lose him early to the NBA.

The Pack now is losing players who simply want to be an Arizona State (Cambridge, Washington), Oklahoma (Sherfield) or UNLV (Williams?) draft pick. You have to wonder if an accomplished, veteran coach like a Steve Alford would ever come to Nevada in the future, given the aggravation of the transfer portal.

You also have to wonder if Alford now will even stay at Nevada for the final six years of his 10-year contract. It’s not easy trying to blend new players into a cohesive roster every summer and fall. College basketball coaches now are glorified AAU coaches. They have to be nicer to their players than they are to their wife now for fear of losing those players to another team. It’s easier and more fun, after all, to find a new wife if you are a millionaire coach than it is to find a new starting backcourt or frontcourt.

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Where will Williams end up? There is a slight chance he can return to his senses and come back to Nevada. But maybe he wants to play for his hometown UNLV Rebels. Maybe he wants to play in the Pac-12. Williams has the skills and the eligibility (three more years) to play anywhere.

He was (is?) the Pack’s most talented player with more skills than anybody on the roster. That’s the reason he was the Mountain West’s Freshman of the Year. He’s a 6-6 rebounding machine who plays solid defense and can hit threes. He can also, when he feels the urge, drive to the basket and mix it up inside. He’s also shown the willingness and ability to share the ball and make his teammates better. He’s a coach’s dream, you know, until he jumped into the transfer portal.

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The Wolf Pack, more than anything else, will need to find a rebounder to replace Williams. Replacing Williams’ offense (7.6 points a game) won’t be a huge problem. Jarod Lucas, Kenan Blackshear and Will Baker take most of the Pack shots. But Williams was the Pack’s best rebounder, pulling down 7.3 a game (third in the Mountain West). Everyone else was either not aggressive enough (Baker) or too small or frail to rebound consistently.

Nick Davidson, at 6-foot-8, could up his rebounding game with more minutes and might replace Williams in the starting lineup. Alford, to be sure, will find someone. You could create another 100 or so teams with players in the transfer portal every year. But if the transfer portal was filled with versatile Darrion Williams’ types, well, it’s likely the Pack’s Darrion Williams would have remained with the Pack.

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San Diego State is currently proving to players like Williams that you can stay in the Mountain West and get to the Final Four. The Aztecs might even prove this weekend that a Mountain West team can win the NCAA tournament. All the Aztecs have to do is beat Florida Atlantic on Saturday and then either Connecticut or Miami on Monday. This is, without question, the most watered down Final Four in the history of college basketball.

Florida Atlantic? What is that? A cruise line out of Miami? Miami? They have a basketball team? There are two teams from Florida in the Final Four? Is this football?

UConn, of course, has won the NCAA tournament four times (1999, 2004, 2011 and 2014), winning the title each time it has gotten to the Final Four. Most everyone is expecting the Huskies to go 5-for-5. But don’t count out any of the four teams this weekend. This is the future of the tournament thanks to the transfer portal. The transfer portal does not build great teams. So next year, when you get your NCAA tournament bracket, just get your cat or your pet turtle and let it pick the winners.

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San Diego State is making every team in the Mountain West a lot of money. The conference, thanks to the four teams (San Diego State, Nevada, Boise State, Utah State) that played in the NCAA tournament this year, will earn roughly $16 million divided among the 11 teams in the conference over the next six years. The more games you win, the more money you earn for your conference. The Aztecs are the first Mountain West team to ever get to the Elite Eight, let alone the Final Four. So this is, without a doubt, the greatest season in Mountain West basketball.

The NCAA tournament windfall is the reason why rich schools in rich conferences simply get richer every year. The Mountain West has been around since 1999 and this is the first time it will taste Elite Eight and Final Four money. It might take another two-plus decades for it to happen again. Some conferences taste it practically every year. And you thought college sports was an equal opportunity affair.

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What will the Wolf Pack do with its San Diego State lottery ticket money this year? Well, the coaches always want more money and so does the athletic director and the staff.

You can be fairly sure that you, the fan, won’t see any much evidence of the Pack’s tournament winnings. Lawlor Events Center (which the Pack does not own) will still look like an outdated dark, damp dungeon of an arena and Mackay Stadium will still feel like a high school stadium on steroids with all the comfort for the fan as a highway rest stop rest room. But the coaches and athletic staff will no doubt get richer and a building or two on campus will likely expand and eliminate even more parking spots.

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The Aztecs are the first Final Four team the Pack has ever beaten in the same season that team got to the final Four. The Pack beat the Aztecs 75-66 on Jan. 31 in Reno as Lucas scored 26 points, Baker had 19 and Blackshear had 18 and seven assists. The Pack now has a record of 1-12 against 11 Final Four teams. The first was Texas Western in 1966.

The Aztecs are also the first team from the Pack’s conference to ever get to a Final Four. The Pack played three UNLV teams (1977, 1987, 1991) that got to a Final Four but none of those teams were in the Pack’s conference at the time. The Aztecs also might not be in the Pack’s conference for long. The rumors are heating up again that the Aztecs are headed to the Pac-12, a rumor that is now red hot now that the Final Four is involved. If they win the title on Monday, they might cut down the net and put on Pac-12 T-shirts.