No matter how established the program, every college basketball coach eventually takes a chance on a transfer. Jim Boeheim, for example, plucked Wesley Johnson from Iowa State and turned him into the Big East Player of the Year in 2009-10. Tom Izzo and Mike Krzyzewski’s current rosters both include transfers with Brandon Wood (Valparaiso) and Seth Curry (Liberty), and in 1979, a former Indiana Hoosier named Larry Bird nearly won a title with Indiana State just a few years after quitting basketball (and Bob Knight’s Indiana Hoosiers) altogether.
Hoiberg and Haith Are Recruiting Transfers Heavily to Their Programs
Normally, coaches take one or two transfers at a time to fill immediate holes, but that’s not everybody’s philosophy. Meet Missouri’s Frank Haith and Iowa State’s Fred Hoiberg, a pair of coaches who have abandoned traditional recruiting methods at their new schools in favor of Division I transfers. Haith, hired in April to replace Mike Anderson, is using three open scholarships in 2011-12 on players who will not appear in a single basketball game this season by signing Keion Bell (Pepperdine), Earnest Ross (Auburn) and Jabari Brown (Oregon). Hoiberg, on the other hand, has four transfers on his roster in his second year with the Cyclones: Chris Allen (Michigan State), Chris Babb (Penn State), Royce White (Minnesota), and Anthony Booker (Southern Illinois). The two coaches have energized their fan bases by signing big names from major schools, but Haith and Hoiberg’s recruiting tactics cannot be accurately judged at this point. Iowa State’s Fab Four will begin Big 12 play next month, and Missouri’s three transfers will not all be eligible until December 2012.
Instead of speculating as to whether the two teams will suffer from dreaded chemistry problems with so many transfers, why not crunch the numbers to see if The Transfer Effect really exists? Although finding aggregate data for Division I transfers is virtually impossible, recent anecdotal evidence shows that the recruiting strategy is an enormous risk for both coaches. Seven teams from both the 2008-09 and 2009-10 seasons welcomed three or more transfers to their programs at the same time, and only two teams (San Diego State and UNLV) finished above .500 in league play. Seton Hall, the only power conference team in the group, missed the NCAA Tournament.
With the completion of the NBA Draft and the annual coaching and transfer carousels nearing their ends, RTC is rolling out a new series, RTC Summer Updates, to give you a crash course on each Division I conference during the summer months. Our latest update comes courtesy of our Mountain West correspondent, Andrew Murawa.
Reader’s Take I
Summer Storylines
A New Look League: In the aftermath of last summer’s conference shake-ups, the Mountain West is a slimmer volume this year than last, and will look even different next year. Last year’s regular season champion, BYU, is off to pursue football independence, with membership in the West Coast Conference for basketball and some other sports a byproduct of that decision. Secondly, Utah jumped at the opportunity to become a member of the new Pac-12 conference. In the 12 years in which the two Utah schools were a part of the MWC (okay, since its unveiling of their new logo in July, the league office wants the conference to be abbreviated as MW, rather than MWC, and we’ll try to do that from here on), they won a combined five outright regular season titles between them (BYU three, Utah two) and twice shared the regular season titles. However, the MW did not sit idly by and let its conference dissolve when the Utah schools left. It snapped up Boise State to give the Mountain West eight teams in the 2011-12 campaign, with Fresno State and Nevada due to join in 2012-13 just as TCU departs for the Big East. In the long run, the three losses are bigger than the three additions, but the newcomers are strong enough to keep the MW chugging along.
Coaching Shuffle: We knew heading into the offseason that there would be at least one new coach in the conference, as Wyoming pulled the trigger on firing Heath Schroyer during the middle of the conference season. In late March they announced the hiring of Larry Shyatt, an associate head coach at Florida, back for his second stint as the head man in Laramie. But when Lon Kruger announced a day later that he had accepted the head coaching job at Oklahoma, arguably the most attractive job in the conference opened up at UNLV. Ten days later, UNLV announced the hiring of Dave Rice, most recently the associate head coach to Dave Rose at BYU, but previously a player and assistant coach under Jerry Tarkanian in Vegas. With Rice’s brother, Grant Rice, the head coach at Las Vegas Bishop Gorman High – not coincidentally the high school of 2012 top ten recruit Shabazz Muhammad – the hiring opens further inroads for the Rebels with local recruits. To tie everything up in a nice little bundle, Schroyer was hired by Rice as one of his new assistants, along with former Rebel star Stacey Augmon and former SDSU assistant Justin Hutson.
Transfer Hotbed: Every year, the Mountain West seems to be the landing spot for some big transfers, guys who have struggled in their first stop in a BCS conference and who are ready to start over a rung down the ladder. UCLA as a feeder school for the conference is a well-worn path, having sent Chace Stanback to UNLV and Drew Gordon to New Mexico in recent years. This year, another former Bruin will be active in the MW, with forward Mike Moser joining Stanback in Las Vegas for the Rebels. No less than five other former-Pac-10 players will show up on MW rosters this season, with Drew Wiley (formerly of Oregon) joining Boise State, Demetrius Walker (formerly of Arizona State) joining New Mexico, and Xavier Thames (formerly of Washington State) joining San Diego State, all of whom will be eligible this season. Arizona’s Daniel Bejarano and USC’s Bryce Jones also announced transfers to Colorado State and UNLV, respectively, but neither will be eligible until the 2012-13 season. UNLV also welcomes former Marquette point Reggie Smith to compete with incumbent point guard Oscar Bellfield this season, while CSU inked former Minnesota center Colton Iverson, eligible in 2012-13. Then there’s the Aztecs, who signed Utah transfer J.J. O’Brien and St. John’s transfer Dwayne Polee. While O’Brien will sit out a year, Polee, who attended Los Angeles’ Westchester High, has applied for a hardship waiver, given that his mom is suffering from an undisclosed medical condition. While these waivers aren’t often granted, if it happens in this case, Polee could be a big boost for the Aztecs’ 2011-12 hopes.
Steve Fisher maxed out an experienced team in 2011, but will need former role players to step up this season. (Kent Horner/Getty Images)
They are the #6 team in the country according to the latest Rush the Court poll, a number that the ESPN/USA Today Coaches and AP polls agree with. They’re #11 according to Ken Pomeroy. They’re sitting at 24-1 on the season, riding high at the top of the Mountain West Conference, and a shoo-in for a NCAA Tournament bid and likely a very high seed. They’re the San Diego State Aztecs, and they’re pretty darn good. But given that they’ve been succeeding out of the spotlight of major BCS conference play and largely outside of the airwaves of that big behemoth in Bristol, they are a bit of a mystery to most. I would guess most of your typical casual college basketball fans have seen them play once, maybe twice, and likely hold some reservations about their chances for a deep tournament run given the MWC’s recent lack of success in March. So, in the interest of shedding some light on a team that could be a big factor next month, we’ll give you the crash course on San Diego State basketball, taking you through their strengths, their weaknesses, some of their potential X-factors and a quick guess at their chances in the postseason.
Steve Fisher Has the Aztecs Nationally Relevant
Strengths
Frontcourt Athleticism – First and foremost, this team is built around their starting frontcourt: senior center Malcolm Thomas, senior forward Billy White, and sophomore forward Kawhi Leonard. Leonard is the star of the bunch, a versatile freak of nature and potential NBA lottery pick come June. Despite checking in at just 6’7, he’s got a 7-foot wingspan and a pair of the biggest and strongest hands you’ll ever get a look at. Throw in effortless athleticism and a tireless work ethic and you’ve got a major force on the basketball court – especially on the boards. Despite having to compete with not only the opposition, but his glass-eating frontcourt mates, for every ball that comes off the rim, Leonard still grabs almost 13% of all shots missed by an Aztec, and 26% of all shots missed by the other team. Far from just a ferocious rebounder, Leonard is capable of doing plenty of other amazing things on the basketball court. This is a guy who can grab a rebound above the rim on the defensive end, turn and head up court with a confident dribble, and once in the frontcourt, either penetrate the lane and find his own shot or draw the defense and find a teammate either underneath the hoop or at the three-point line. While his jumpshot is still a work in progress (he’s shooting 25% from three this year, up from 20% as a freshman), he’s just now beginning to polish the raw talent we got a glimpse of last year.
While White and Thomas may not have the jaw-dropping set of physical skills that Leonard has, neither one of those guys is a slouch. Thomas, at 6’9, though not the equal of Leonard on the glass, is still an excellent rebounder, posting a defensive rebounding percentage of 21 and an offensive rebounding percentage of just under 13. He’s also one of the best shotblockers in the country and a capable, if not exceptional, offensive threat. He is most effective right around the rim, either on offensive rebounds or lobs, but does have a decent face-up game. White is the perfect complement to Leonard and Thomas. Not as aggressive or flamboyantly athletic, he is more of a steadying influence along the frontline. He is not only the Aztecs’ best offensive post weapon, but he is their best defender in the post, yet still sports a strong face-up game, a good midrange jumper and just when he lulls you to sleep with his silky smooth game, he’ll throw down a merciless dunk on a defender’s head.
Veteran leadership – While White does have that freaky athleticism characteristic of the Aztec frontline, he also provides, along with senior point guard D.J. Gay, a calm veteran presence that can guide SDSU through rough waters when the going gets tough. Down the stretch, when baskets get tougher and tougher to come by, time and again it is White and Gay to whom the Aztecs turn. With the clock ticking down, the opposition inching closer on the scoreboard and the crowd starting to get loud, the Aztecs can safely throw the ball into White in the post and expect that he’ll get single coverage and execute an effective post move. And more times than not, it will be Gay who is feeding that post. Not only is Gay the team’s floor leader, he is also one of the Aztecs’ best three-point shooters, he is their best perimeter defender and he generally doesn’t back down from a challenge. While not the type of point that is going to create an awful lot off the bounce, he is capable of dribbling into a mid-range jumper. Last year when SDSU ran through the MWC Tournament on their way to the conference’s automatic bid, while Leonard earned the most plaudits with his astounding numbers, it was Gay and White to whom the Aztecs turned most often down the stretch in the tight semifinal victory over New Mexico. And in last Wednesday night’s tight road win over Colorado State, White had a big hoop in the clutch before Gay hit the game-winner with a second on the clock. When things get tough in February and March this year, expect White and Gay to continue to answer the call.
