Niko is listed in the portal now also.

Aggie Athletics sets a new record for donations on Give Day:

UC Davis Athletics delivered a record-setting Give Day in 2026, raising $652,122 from 1,817 donors in support of its student-athletes, programs and key department initiatives.

https://ucdavisaggies.com/news/2026/4/20/uc-davis-athletics-marks-record-setting-give-day-2026.aspx

That's a huge amount of recruiting activity by Hawai'i. I wish we had the same kind of coverage being reported for the Aggies but I'm not surprised that we haven't heard anything official. Aggie Athletics generally never releases any information about recruits until the ink dries on their commitment signing.

The portal closes on the 21st but I doubt that we'll hear much for quite a while. It's going to be interesting to see the roster we end up with considering how many players we've lost already. I'm hoping that we have come into some cash for NIL. If it's true that we are paying Incarnate Word $75,000 to come to Davis for a game, one would think we've got some money to spend on the program and we certainly wouldn't burn through it just bringing in teams for home games.

Article about the top returning players in the MWC for next season:

https://nevadasportsnet.com/news/reporters/mountain-west-basketballs-top-10-returning-players-as-transfer-portal-is-set-to-close

That's a whole lot of money which always seems to be in short supply here. Did we just inherit a sugar daddy recently?

Does this mean that we are paying Incarnate Word $75,000 to come to Davis?

Good to see Matteo Perez practicing. I think he is a reliably solid RB for us.

The Big West has now lost us, Hawai'i, SB and UCSD and they have added Utah Valley, Cal Baptist and Sac St. I think they've lost more than they have gained and leaves Irvine in a weakened conference.

This is what the WCC looks like with Gonzaga leaving for the PAC12:

Loyola Marymount
Pacific
Pepperdine
Portland
University of San Diego
Saint Mary's
San Francisco
Santa Clara
Seattle
Denver
UCSD
UCSB

Yes, Pepper had a chance to leave and make some money but he stayed. He thrived under the tutelage of Les in his time as an Aggie.

Michigan won the National Championship and 4 of their 5 starters with first year transfers. They had $10 million in NIL to offer and Arizona had $15 million in NIL. Here's the top total budgets for men's basketball for the 2023-24 season:

... yells at all the players and makes a buffoon out of himself on the court.... — Jdur

Les can be intense for sure but he doesn't come close to the intensity of many of the coaches who had their teams in the Final 16 and he isn't as intense as some of the Big West coaches like Pasternack at UCSB or Russ Turner at Irvine either.

Here's another portal tracker for the MWC that includes stats for the outgoing and incoming players including the new members of the conference also.

https://www.mwcconnection.com/transfer-portal/83991/mountain-west-transfer-portal-tracker-2026-cbk-pac-12-rankings-updated-utep-hawaii-uc-davis-gonzaga-washington-state

Damn...Wilson, Cooper, Stokes, Franklin, and Amzil all in the portal! This mass exodus makes me wonder who might be next?

We've never lost this many players in a single season. So, is this just a sign of the times in D1 basketball or is this an indicator that all is not well within our basketball program? I hate to raise that question but Les is obviously not retaining the talent he recruited last year with this many players looking for greener pastures.

I thought Bennett would be the team leader heading into the MWC. Looks like it will be a challenging rebuild year with Bennett, Epps, Baker and Norris gone.

Wow...huge loss! Unfortunately, money talks and players walk...

NIL is a disappointing reality especially for D1 mid-majors who simply don't have the funds to compete with the power conference schools. I saw that the least amount of NIL money for the men's teams in the Sweet 16 was $6 million. However, maybe lots of money isn't everything. Indiana spent $32 million on their basketball program and they didn't even make the tournament.

I think Stokes brought a needed toughness to the team and he has a huge upside since was only a freshman who earned his way into the starting lineup.

..."as the players leave the field they sing our fight song as they pass Coach Sochor's statue since they think he'd like to hear it"...this is Aggie Pride and culture at it's best....

Huge loss...losing Cooper and Stokes is not a good omen...