• Hi Guest, want to participate in the discussions, keep track of read/unread posts, upgrade to remove ads and more? Create your free account and increase the benefits of your BigSkyFans.com experience today!

Players transferring

T

Tube Socks

Active member
According to the Standard Examiner, 4 current WSU players are planning to transfer: Melek Gomma, Trevor Hennig, Edwin Suarez and Jace Whiting. I was excited when they signed Whiting, but he didn't really pan out. Since his new school will be his 5th, someone joked he has a summer home in the transfer portal. Losing Hennig, Gomma and Suarez will suck. Gomma led the team in rebounds, Suarez in steals and blocks.

Two questions: Why would players want to announce they are leaving before we even find out who the new coach is? What if it's someone they really want to play for? Second question, would they have left any way if Duft stayed? Or would more players want to leave if Duft was retained?

I hope they get the new coach hired soon so his staff can hit the portal, hopefully with some new Lillard money.
 
Tube Socks said:
According to the Standard Examiner, 4 current WSU players are planning to transfer: Melek Gomma, Trevor Hennig, Edwin Suarez and Jace Whiting. I was excited when they signed Whiting, but he didn't really pan out. Since his new school will be his 5th, someone joked he has a summer home in the transfer portal. Losing Hennig, Gomma and Suarez will suck. Gomma led the team in rebounds, Suarez in steals and blocks.

Two questions: Why would players want to announce they are leaving before we even find out who the new coach is? What if it's someone they really want to play for? Second question, would they have left any way if Duft stayed? Or would more players want to leave if Duft was retained?

I hope they get the new coach hired soon so his staff can hit the portal, hopefully with some new Lillard money.
Click to expand...
From what I’ve heard, the Duft firing had more influence on whiting and saurez leaving than Hennig and Gomma. Gomma had a really good season and could get interest from better programs. Hennig wanted more money last year and didn’t get it so whether Duft was retained or not he was already planning to leave given a solid of enough season this year
 
Yup, the trend is in this current college sports environment the mid majors can expect their brighter stars to be leapfrogging away, trying to land on bigger pods. 'Tis the way...
 
WSU now has 9 players in the portal: Saine, Gomma, Suarez, Hansen, Whiting, Hennig, Vartiainen, Paschal, and Moore. The only ones not in the portal are Grayson, Cutler and Tshilbo. That is insane! Montana has just 4 returning players as well, even with no coaching change. BYU is losing three including Robert Wright III, Utah is losing 8, USU is losing 5 despite their success. Something has to be done about this transfer and NIL nightmare, it is wrecking college basketball, especially for mid-major teams.
 
First incoming transfer announced per the Standard, Aaron Powell from Rice, transferring with 3 years eligibility. Was rated a 4 star recruit by ESPN. Didn't play much at Rice. Read the SA article, even included social media comments from Chris Paul and Jamal Crawford. Sounds like a pretty good pickup.
 
SE is also reporting a second transfer, Sir Marius Jones from New Mexico, 6-4 guard, redshirt freshman with 4 years of eligibility.

Does not look like any of the outgoing WSU players have signed on anywhere yet.
 
It will be tough to know how good these players are, but given the state of sports in NIL days, it’s more important to have a coach that can mature and develop talent since you basically have a new team every year. I’m cautiously optimistic that we are going to see some energy, enthusiasm, and more wins next year.
 
All three of these players were guys we recruited out of HS. All three chose higher level mids to sign with. Mason is every bit the player Viliami is. After the Jones kid signed with UNLV, I thought it was strange that he also signed with them. So far, our new coach is hitting it out of the park on recruiting.
 
Tiger Cuff is not even back from his mission and is already transferring to Hawaii. Who knows what he may have done at Weber, but good luck to him at UH. He can play one year with his older brother, so that is a good thing for him. I wish only for them to have great success there.
 
Just looking at their X profiles, it appears that coach Russel and coach Vandiver are out and Jorge Ruiz has been retained. We may be hearing about two more assistants being hired soon.
 
I was hoping do a complete break from duft years annd keep Ruiz after the farce that he was apart of.
Recruiting a looks decent but they are young and we have another freshman coming in as well. Unless he backs out. point guard from Texas. Now we need experience and size. At least 2 good bigs. 3 forwards that can defend, board and shoot. Cutler and tshilobo are unproven.
 
oldrunner said:
Just looking at their X profiles, it appears that coach Russel and coach Vandiver are out and Jorge Ruiz has been retained. We may be hearing about two more assistants being hired soon.
Click to expand...
Yeah I can confirm that those two as well. Unclear whether Jorge Ruiz will be a bench coach still. He might just be in an administrative role as well. Video Coordinator and DOBO are being retained as well.

I have also heard that Duft is not fully happy with his promotion/demotion and is looking for head coaching jobs elsewhere. I think it’s unlikely he finds one so I expect him to remain in his administrative role
 
Last edited:
Duft's current job was a courtesy from the university to cover him while he looks for a coaching gig. The purpose was never to have him stay on in that role. I think it's something WSU is doing to take care of a long term employee and also show incoming coaches that we care about our people and try to take care of them even in these circumstances. I don't think this was ever supposed to be a Graybeal situation where he was retiring from coaching and moving to administration. I'm sure Duft will land as an assistant coach somewhere, he has lots of connections and experience.
 
wildog said:
I was hoping do a complete break from duft years annd keep Ruiz after the farce that he was apart of.
Recruiting a looks decent but they are young and we have another freshman coming in as well. Unless he backs out. point guard from Texas. Now we need experience and size. At least 2 good bigs. 3 forwards that can defend, board and shoot. Cutler and tshilobo are unproven.
Click to expand...
I agree with most of what you are saying. However, I disagree with your take on retaining Jorge. I feel that it is a big help for a new coach to have that sort of resource on his bench. Jorge is a good coach and has a good knowledge of the school, community and league. Those are all of the things that Kaleb lacks. Jorge will be a loyal and helpful resource. I was positive that at least one coach would be retained and Jorge was the best choice. Not that Dan and Vandiver were not good coaches, they are. They were likely among the top candidates for the HC job, and that could be a loyalty problem down the road. Just my opinion.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Back
Top