Santoro: Ex-Pack players a big part of portal’s musical chairs

Sports Fodder …

A total of 242 players filed as early entry candidates for the NBA draft by the April 25 deadline. Three of them (Will Baker, Jordan Brown, Grant Sherfield) once played for the Nevada Wolf Pack, one (Baker) less than two months ago. Another ex-Pack player (Warren Washington) declared for the NBA Draft in early April but then did not file as an early entry candidate. Players have until May 31 to withdraw their name and retain their college eligibility, which will likely be the case for all the former Pack players. The bigger question right now, though, is who knew the Wolf Pack had so much NBA talent in recent years? It certainly wasn’t all that apparent on the court. Sherfield (Oklahoma), Baker (LSU) and Washington (now in the transfer portal after borrowing an Arizona State uniform last year), after all, were all Wolf Pack teammates who went 13-18 in 2021-22. Those 18 losses, apparently, must have been the fault of the rest of the roster. Brown, an Eric Musselman recruit at Nevada, was at Arizona (two years) and Louisiana (the last two) after leaving Nevada after 2018-19. Sherfield, Brown, Washington and Baker all could have been on the Nevada roster this past season. Sprinkle in a Jarod Lucas and Tre Coleman (both, as of this week, still at Nevada) and Darrion Williams (now at Texas Tech) and, well, last year could have been one of the greatest seasons in Pack history. Then again, you can’t count on anything now in college sports.

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Arizona State, the school that eliminated the Wolf Pack from March’s NCAA Tournament (98-73 in Dayton, Ohio), seems to be joined at the hip with the Pack as far as a few players are concerned. Washington had nine points, five rebounds and four assists against the Pack in March, while another former Pack player (Desmond Cambridge) had 17 points and six assists. Washington has NBA dreams and is now in the transfer portal, so the Sun Devils recently plucked ex-LSU 7-foot center Shawn Phillips out of the portal. LSU is where Will Baker moved from Nevada recently and now apparently believes he is NBA material. He’ll likely return to LSU. Arizona State also recently signed former Pack forward Zane Meeks. The 6-9 Meeks played two years at Nevada, averaging 7.3 points and 4.5 rebounds in 49 games (10 starts). He played the last two years at San Francisco, where he averaged 8.1 points and 3.7 rebounds in 56 games (15 starts). Does he really believe he will be a full-time starter at Arizona State after not achieving that goal at Nevada and San Francisco? Or did he just want to spend some time in the desert? Nothing makes much sense in college basketball anymore.

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Washington has already played at Oregon State, Nevada and Arizona State and now is hoping to play for a fourth team. Meeks, who is just a sixth man, has played at Nevada and San Francisco is now at Arizona State. Is this (players bouncing around to numerous schools in their career) what the NCAA had in mind when it came up with the idea of a transfer portal? Playing college basketball now is like joining the navy. Play college basketball, see the world. In college basketball you don’t even have to worry about somebody dropping a bomb on your boat. This new world must be fun for the players, who literally don’t have to listen to any authority figure (coaches, mom, dad, girlfriends) anymore because they can just move on when they get bored, frustrated or criticized. This musical chairs world of college basketball clearly does not make for great basketball or form great teams. It’s just AAU basketball in the fall and winter, a bunch of guys who don’t know each other playing selfish basketball. It’s a wonder why college teams even bother to put player names on the back of the uniforms. What’s the next great idea to come out of the NCAA? Paying players? Oh, wait.

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The Wolf Pack football team (surprise, surprise) signed another former Oregon Duck player recently. The Pack added wide receiver Isaah Crocker, who played 10 games in five seasons in Eugene and caught seven passes. Crocker, according to reports, also has just one year of eligibility remaining. We’re sure Crocker is a wonderful athlete and a great human being like all Wolf Pack recruits but is this really a wise way to spend a roster spot on a team in a never-ending rebuilding process? It seems the Pack already had a dozen or so great players and human beings to catch passes this year. Does this roster, which has yet to show it even has a quarterback who can throw accurate passes consistently, need another receiver? Crocker is only going to be here for a year anyway unless, of course, the NCAA grants everyone another year of eligibility for say, living through the recent atmospheric river. But head coach Ken Wilson and some of his assistant coaches (many former Duck assistants) are still obviously homesick for Oregon and are bringing much of the state down to Nevada. How long will it be before all of the “Californian Go Home” bumper stickers in Nevada are replaced by “Oregonians Go Back” stickers? Another 2-10 season might do it.

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Daiyan Henley will forever be known as a Washington State Cougar, but we know better. Henley is as Nevada battle born as any player ever drafted by the NFL. Henley, a third-round pick by the Los Angeles Chargers (his hometown) last weekend, spent five years at Nevada (2017-21) before playing one year at Washington State. The year’s exposure he got in the Pac-12 with the Cougars is, admittedly, the biggest reason he got drafted at all, let alone as high as the third round. But it was the Pack (Jay Norvell and his staff) that first saw something special in Henley and molded him into an NFL talent. Henley came to Nevada as a wide receiver and also played defensive back before the Pack put him at linebacker in 2020 (where he blossomed). As a youngster in southern California, he was a ball boy for Crenshaw High, the school where he later played quarterback and six other positions. And now he gets to play alongside Khalil Mack as a Charger linebacker. Henley will never be known as a Wolf Pack draft pick, but we know better.

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The San Francisco 49ers had a confusing draft. The Niners, who didn’t have a pick in the first or second round, took kicker Jake Moody in the third round. A kicker? In the third round? The 49ers also took another Michigan player, wide receiver Ronnie Bell, in the seventh round so, yes, the Jim Harbaugh influence seems to be still alive and well in Santa Clara. But any team that could find quarterback Brock Purdy with the final pick of the draft in 2022 deserves the benefit of doubt for now.

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The Las Vegas Raiders made a solid pick by grabbing Texas Tech defensive end Tyree Wilson with the No. 7 overall pick. The Raiders need all the help they can get on defense and Wilson was one of the more dynamic players available. Wilson, by the way, was coached last year at Texas Tech by former Wolf Pack defensive coordinator (2005-06) Tim DeRuyter. DeRuyter was in his first year at Texas Tech after coaching with Ken Wilson at Oregon in 2021 (he was also Fresno State’s head coach from 2012-16). The Raiders draft also became a bit confusing in the fourth round with the selection of Purdue quarterback Aidan O’Connell. Aidan O’Connell? A former walk-on who didn’t start at Purdue until the last two years? Couldn’t the Raiders have signed him as a free agent after the draft? They traded up to get him in the fourth round, afraid somebody would snatch him up. But O’Connell, since Josh McDaniels is his coach now in Las Vegas, has already been compared to Tom Brady because of his apparent quick release and football intelligence. How long will it take for the media to understand that McDaniels, the New England Patriots’ former offensive coordinator, had little to do with Brady’s success?

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The media, it seems, also continues to understand that Steve Kerr just might be the greatest head coach in NBA history. Kerr’s Golden State Warriors recovered from an 0-2 deficit to eliminate the Sacramento Kings in seven games this past week to advance to the Western Conference semifinals against the Los Angeles Lakers. Kerr is in his ninth season as Warriors head coach and has yet to lose even one playoff series against a Western Conference opponent, a remarkable record. He’s 19-0 in series against teams in the West. He’s won four NBA titles and lost two. The Warriors didn’t make the playoffs in his other two seasons because of a glut of injuries. No coach is perfect but Kerr, who is 473-238 (.665) in the regular season and 97-37 (.724) in the postseason, is pretty close.