GNAC portal

[tsull]

Verbal commits wiped out some previous news and hasn't archived it, maddening. Anyway, Lachlan Viney and Evan Hoosier have transferred out of UAA. Point guard Antonio Salinas is leaving WOU. Salinas was hurt all year.

[tsull]

Mass exodus at SPU. I knew when they signed 10 guys last year that wouldn't work. That was odd, SPU usually doesn't load up like that.

[CWU Wildcat Nation]

Wow Paulsen transferred. Major loss. I remember seeing him on a flight back to Seattle from San Diego back when he was in high school likely coming back from a recruiting visit to Point Loma. Maybe he is going there next. Also lost starters Samore and Blackmon. Brutal. I wonder why all these guys are leaving.

[tsull]

Idaho just offered UAF forward Tyler Mrus, Nanooks 2nd-leading scorer and a pretty good freshman. Idaho just hired Seattle U.asst./former St. Martin's head coach Alex Pribble, good hire, IMO. Didn't know Mrus was in the portal. Also, Idaho offers Mrus' major in Wildlife Conservation. Sad for UAF and I want all good players to stay in the GNAC; if Idaho gets him, good pickup for them. I'm also a Vandal fan as Moscow is my hometown.

[CWU Wildcat Nation]

The Yakima Herald-Republic wrote a piece on the transfer portal and impacts on local hoops: https://www.yakimaherald.com/sports/..._medium=social

[Anchorage]

Wow Paulsen transferred. Major loss. I remember seeing him on a flight back to Seattle from San Diego back when he was in high school likely coming back from a recruiting visit to Point Loma. Maybe he is going there next. Also lost starters Samore and Blackmon. Brutal. I wonder why all these guys are leaving.

You nailed it. Signed with Loma

[Anchorage]

The Yakima Herald-Republic wrote a piece on the transfer portal and impacts on local hoops: https://www.yakimaherald.com/sports/..._medium=social

75% of the scholarship budget for transfers seems about right. You have to be a pretty incredible high school player to get an offer these days. It really appears that 4 year schools want to force players in to the JC ranks to develop and prove themselves before they will consider them,

You know who is really benefiting from all this? Top NAIA schools. There are some loaded NAIA teams these day. College of Idaho beat Northwest Naz twice. One of the LA area NAIAs beat Asuza last year. They really are cleaning up in recruiting and the conferences have closed the gap on a lot of D2 conferences. That Southern California and Arizona NAIA conference? You should watch some of those games they are good. Probably 6 or 7 of those teams would do just fine in the GNAC. They have been hitting the high school ranks hard. Picking up guys that would rather get a 4 year offer over going JC. A lot more HS talent is available and it’s showing at that level.

[tsull]

75% of the scholarship budget for transfers seems about right. You have to be a pretty incredible high school player to get an offer these days. It really appears that 4 year schools want to force players in to the JC ranks to develop and prove themselves before they will consider them,

You know who is really benefiting from all this? Top NAIA schools. There are some loaded NAIA teams these day. College of Idaho beat Northwest Naz twice. One of the LA area NAIAs beat Asuza last year. They really are cleaning up in recruiting and the conferences have closed the gap on a lot of D2 conferences. That Southern California and Arizona NAIA conference? You should watch some of those games they are good. Probably 6 or 7 of those teams would do just fine in the GNAC. They have been hitting the high school ranks hard. Picking up guys that would rather get a 4 year offer over going JC. A lot more HS talent is available and it’s showing at that level.

Really great post, thanks Anchorage. Very good point on NAIA's reaping the benefits. The national champ, College of Idaho, has one portal guy, a former walk-on at Boise State, who is a local kid. On their roster, the C of I has 9 in-state kids, and Idaho is hardly known for its great prep basketball. But they've found guys, they play together and win.

I was looking at some rosters and this transfer/portal obsession really has hurt Oregon high school kids. I cherry-picked some schools (more on my alma mater later), Corban of Salem has four in-state kids, Willamette has ZERO and went 5-19 (nice work). Southern Oregon has a solid 8 with one in-state JC and went 20-11. EOU went 21-11 with two in-state kids.

The further WOU goes away from in-state -- and our coach, Wes Pifer does this religiously -- the more we lose. In the last four years he's had four, three, three, and three in-state kids, an average of 3 per year. In four seasons he's had two losing years, two winning ones, after the school had one losing season in the previous decade. His formula isn't working ... period.

The previous coach (Jim Shaw) went 31-4 with 11 in-state kids, 15-13 with 9, 31-2 with 7, and 22-11 with 5, an average of 8 per year. In every sport -- football, women's hoops, track and field -- WOU won with a healthy dose of in-state kids, usually the best ones from small Oregon towns. Our only two NFL football players in school history were from Turner and Philomath, hardly Oregon metro cities. Our indoor track and field teams just won the indoor team titles for men and women with a bunch of in-state kids. When we think we're smart and clever by being the University of Northern California or South Seattle, we lose and lose big. Our admin isn't paying attention and the three Salem kids who came with their St. Martin's team to Monmouth this year brought at least 100 fans with them ... then they proceeded to kick WOU's butt. An embarrassing situation ... again, doubt our admin or coaches were paying attention to this dynamic.

The state of Washington, EWU had 3 kids from Washington on their roster, including the Big Sky Conference MVP Steele Venters from Ellensburg. CWU oddly only had 5 in-state kids on their roster, historically they've done well with more in-state kids. WWU has a strong 11 in-staters on their roster and D3 Whitworth has 9. St. Martin's won the regular season GNAC title with a strong 7 in-state kids.

While I don't know Alaska prep talent at all, here are the numbers: UAA with 4 in-state kids; UAF also with 4, two via Northwest JC's.

When you leave your backyard too much in D2 (IMO), you lose.

[Anchorage]

Really great post, thanks Anchorage. Very good point on NAIA's reaping the benefits. The national champ, College of Idaho, has one portal guy, a former walk-on at Boise State, who is a local kid. On their roster, the C of I has 9 in-state kids, and Idaho is hardly known for its great prep basketball. But they've found guys, they play together and win.

I was looking at some rosters and this transfer/portal obsession really has hurt Oregon high school kids. I cherry-picked some schools (more on my alma mater later), Corban of Salem has four in-state kids, Willamette has ZERO and went 5-19 (nice work). Southern Oregon has a solid 8 with one in-state JC and went 20-11. EOU went 21-11 with two in-state kids.

The further WOU goes away from in-state -- and our coach, Wes Pifer does this religiously -- the more we lose. In the last four years he's had four, three, three, and three in-state kids, an average of 3 per year. In four seasons he's had two losing years, two winning ones, after the school had one losing season in the previous decade. His formula isn't working ... period.

The previous coach (Jim Shaw) went 31-4 with 11 in-state kids, 15-13 with 9, 31-2 with 7, and 22-11 with 5, an average of 8 per year. In every sport -- football, women's hoops, track and field -- WOU won with a healthy dose of in-state kids, usually the best ones from small Oregon towns. Our only two NFL football players in school history were from Turner and Philomath, hardly Oregon metro cities. Our indoor track and field teams just won the indoor team titles for men and women with a bunch of in-state kids. When we think we're smart and clever by being the University of Northern California or South Seattle, we lose and lose big. Our admin isn't paying attention and the three Salem kids who came with their St. Martin's team to Monmouth this year brought at least 100 fans with them ... then they proceeded to kick WOU's butt. An embarrassing situation ... again, doubt our admin or coaches were paying attention to this dynamic.

The state of Washington, EWU had 3 kids from Washington on their roster, including the Big Sky Conference MVP Steele Venters from Ellensburg. CWU oddly only had 5 in-state kids on their roster, historically they've done well with more in-state kids. WWU has a strong 11 in-staters on their roster and D3 Whitworth has 9. St. Martin's won the regular season GNAC title with a strong 7 in-state kids.

While I don't know Alaska prep talent at all, here are the numbers: UAA with 4 in-state kids; UAF also with 4, two via Northwest JC's.

When you leave your backyard too much in D2 (IMO), you lose.

Exactly, a lot of those NAIA schools in California seem to have 4, 5, 6 players they recruited out of high school and almost all the players are in state. Now that of course is a lot easier to do with the talent pool of California but as you pointed out it can happen in Idaho and win big doing it. The AZ NAIA’s seem to have quite a few Arizona kids also and at least two of those schools are national powers at that level.

Alaska has a low population base but it seems like 4 to 8 kids every year are good enough to play D2. Now some are just hell bent on getting out of here but I think some are willing to sign. UAA lives in the portal but they will sign local high school kids if they are willing to take a lot less at first and play into a bigger scholarship. That’s generally the deal most of these high school kids sign up but I’m sure Rusty would much rather they all go JuCo and prove themselves and develop. He, like all these coaches, would rather have the ready to go player.

[CWU Wildcat Nation]

The state of Washington, EWU had 3 kids from Washington on their roster, including the Big Sky Conference MVP Steele Venters from Ellensburg.

Venters just entered the portal

[CWU Wildcat Nation]

CWU adds another D1 transfer from the portal in Coastal Carolina's Seth Dawson. He played 2 years of Juco at College of Sequoias before that. CWU has had good success with adding D1 bouncebacks (Xavier Smith, Camron McNeil, Samaad Hector) so hopefully Dawson can produce too