Everything everywhere all at once
With Jay Wright's retirement, loads of transfer portal news, NBA Draft entrants and withdrawls, and other news, it sure doesn't seem like college hoops' offseason
Thanks for reading Beyond the Arc, a college basketball newsletter. Even though the season ended three weeks ago, there’s no shortage of news happening, so let’s break it down.
The portal is closing!
Yeah, that sounds like a sci-fi movie, an episode of Teen Titans Go! or even some version of the college basketball multiverse.1 But it simply means it’s the last week before college basketball players can enter the transfer portal and still be eligible for next season.2
May 1. Mark it down.
After that, the key remaining date for college hoops is June 1 — the last day prospects can withdraw and retain college eligibility. Then we settle into the quiet summer months. But until then, we’ll have news like this:
That’s All-Big 12 guard Nigel Pack committing to Miami (Florida) for a cool $400K/season. Previously moves like this might’ve raised eyebrows and caused whispers among onlookers. How did the guy go from Manhattan, Kansas to South Beach? What’s behind it?3 But now, it’s easy enough to understand (also, his coach did get fired. That’s a common reason to transfer.) Pack’s 3-point shooting and ability as a lead-ball handler made him a prize in this year’s portal (literally, for him), though this announcement was an exception to standard portal news.
More common was SMU guard Kendric Davis heading to Memphis, South Dakota State’s Baylor Scheierman entering the portal4, or Providence reloading its roster with players from across four conferences.
We’ll see more names enter the portal in the next few days, then, as the NBA Draft process unfolds, we’ll see those names end up on various rosters. Welcome to the new normal.
Back to School
The deadline for underclassmen to enter the NBA Draft was Sunday. Not a lot of surprises for who’s in (mostly lottery picks and sure-first first-round selections), which means the bigger takeaways are who’s staying in school.
And there are some big names.
Start with Michigan sophomore Hunter Dickinson, all 7-foot-1 of him.
The Wolverines didn’t meet expectations this year, but the two-time All-Big Ten center was arguably just as good as Kofi Cockburn (who got most of the attention in 2021-22), and will likely be a preseason All-America for a team most will have in the Top 10. If they end up adding Texas Tech transfer Terrence Shannon to the core of Dickinson, Caleb Houstan and Moussa Diabate, Michigan will be the favorite in the Big Ten.
There’s an even bigger player returning to the Big Ten in Purdue center Zach Edey. His junior season won’t feature the same supporting cast (Jaden Ivey and Trevion Williams are both gone), but it’ll be fascinating to see if that significantly increases Edey’s production (few players score more efficiently) and total minutes played (he split time with Williams).
Big men don’t get all the attention, though. North Carolina cemented itself as the trendy No. 1 pick for 2022-23 when guard Caleb Love announced his return.
That gives UNC four returning starters from a team that reached the national title game. Replicating that won’t be easy — replacing stretch forward Brady Manek is no small thing — but when you can return 75 percent of your scoring from a Final Four team, that’s always a good thing.
Players have until June 1 to withdraw from the NBA Draft and retain their college eligibility, so keep an eye on these players, all of whom probably return. Their returns would significantly impact their team’s fortunes next season:
Matthew Mayer, Adam Flagler — Baylor
Christian Braun, Jalen Wilson — Kansas
Drew Timme, Julian Strawther — Gonzaga
Malaki Brandham — Ohio State
Max Christie — Michigan State
Jaylin Williams — Arkansas
Kevin McCullar — Texas Tech5
Prior seasons probably would’ve seen the likes of Dickinson, Edey and Love all leave school. Yet the NIL opportunities undoubtedly boosted their returns to campus, not only creating income for the players, but boosting the overall health of the sport as well. It’s almost like this could’ve been done years ago …
End of an era
It’s hard to overstate how significant this is:
Jay Wright is no longer Villanova’s coach. Ex-Wildcats assistant and Fordham coach Kyle Neptune takes over, which isn’t quite as intimidating as what Jon Scheyer faces at Duke, but it’s close. Villanova’s success in the last decade — two national titles, a bevy of Big East crowns, impactful NBA players developed — is as good as it gets in the sport.
It also leaves the Big East at a crossroads.
Jay Wright ruled the re-formatted Big East. The last nine seasons — after the league remade itself as a basketball league starting with the 2013-14 season — he was 263-57 overall (120-31 in BE play), with 7 regular-season conference titles, 5, conference tournament titles and 22 NCAA tourney wins.
Without him, here’s how the league stands today.
Greg McDermott and Ed Cooley are the elder statesmen, while Dan Hurley and Shaka Smart have programs ready to make the leap. There are high expectations for all the incoming coaches as well, which makes this as wide-open as the league has been since 2013.
Just for fun, have a look at the Big 12. Kansas and Bill Self were equally dominant in the regular season, but have been pushed by other programs and the league overall features coaches with more tenure and March success.
ANYWAY, Jay Wright. His retirement6 prompted a flood of Twitter reaction and columns about how the NIL and transfer window changes are signaling a sea change in the coaching profession. There’s no time off anymore. Coaches are either recruiting all the time or worrying about who’s leaving.
All that’s true. But I’d also like to think that at age 60, with nothing left to prove, we can take Wright at his word that he’d simply had enough. Going out at the top of your profession is hard. It’s easy to stay a couple extra years — or several — and not see the same results, whether it’s at the same school or one after your prime.
So it makes sense that Wright, always the figure of cool, no matter the circumstances, did this his way. I’ll let Dana O’Neill explain. She knows this better than anyone:
…what I’ve come to realize is that while everything around Wright has changed, he has not. He is guided by a compass — not just a moral one, but an inner arrow that he does not deviate from. He knows who he is, and what he stands for, and therefore he was able to craft a program that knew what it was, and what it stood for.
James Nais-MYTH?
This Washington Post story is a doozy.
The TL;DR version: Herkimer, N.Y., is the birthplace of basketball and James Naismith probably didn’t invent the game.
But if you only take the summary, you’re doing the entire story a disservice because there are quite a few nuances and nuggets to digest. Much of the focus is an ongoing disagreement between Herkimer and Springfield, Mass., where Naismith worked at a YMCA and is the home to the Basketball Hall of Fame. But there are details about Lambert Will, a 16-year-old Swedish immigrant who may have devised many of the game’s rules, the original “Globe Trotters,” and if the rules currently hanging at the Bruce Center (adjacent to Allen Fieldhouse) are the actual rules.
But more than anything, it’s a story about who writes history and what it could mean for a the fortunes of a town in upstate N.Y. There’s money to be made if one markets the origin of basketball correctly.
The Fast Break
Links to read as you wonder what Elon Musk will do with Twitter
An early Christmas 2022 gift: North Carolina will play Michigan, while Oklahoma will face Florida in the first Jumpman Invitational on Dec. 20 and 21.
Why didn’t Shaedon Sharpe play at Kentucky this season? Mike DeCourcy has some thoughts.
Naasir Cunningham, ESPN’s top prospect of 2024, will sign with Overtime Elite (meaning he’ll make NIL money), but still retain his college eligibility. That’s earning power.
Baylor snagged an impact transfer from the JUCO ranks.
This Marist player could be a gem out of the transfer window.
Not every conference is cool with the transfer portal madness. In fact, the Big South and the Southern Conference still force players to sit a season.
Ochai Agbaji capped his last year at Kansas with a title, pretty much every award one can win, and a heartfelt letter explaining why he’s going pro.
Huh. I always thought Marcus Santos-Silva was built like a tight end.
Dude. Christian Braun. WHAT ARE THOSE!?
Thanks for reading! Be sure to follow me on Twitter.
I really need to see Everything Everywhere All at Once.
At least without the extra rigmarole the NCAA will require for anyone applying after May 1.
As if attending The U and playing for Jim Larrañaga isn’t reason enough. As Terry Bowden once said, “You ever been to South Beach?”
The Summit League Player of the Year should be an incredible addition to any Major Conference team, a big guard (6-6) who can shoot and pass.
If McCullar returns, getting him back with Kevin Obanor will make Texas Tech sneaky good in 2022-23.
Odds are he does some studio analyst work in the future, but is unlikely to coach in the NBA or return to college.