Check the final four (or sweet sixteen) - it’s full of mid major transfers. If he wants to go to the tournament, this is his only hope. — DrMike

I know, I know, Davis degree….but those days are long gone with the portal and NIL. — DrMike

This sucks big time but, honestly, I expected it. It's simply a sign of the times in college basketball and football especially for mid-major basketball programs and FCS football programs. It's rare that a mid-major player as talented as Eli Pepper, for example, will stay with the mid-major program once they realize that they can play on a bigger state and those big programs come calling. Most players nowadays head out for the brighter lights and the opportunity to earn some money.

I expect that Les will continue to find "diamonds in the rough" and develop them into elite players only to see them hit the portal and leave at some point. Mid-major basketball programs and FCS football programs have now become the "minor league, development programs" for the bigger schools.

Chris Acker, who spent the last 5 seasons as an assistant coach at San Diego State, has been named the the new Head Coach at Long Beach State.

https://longbeachstate.com/news/2024/4/2/mens-basketball-chris-acker-selected-as-the-new-head-mens-basketball-coach-at-long-beach-state

There are now 1323 players in the portal as of today.

The exodus from Long Beach State continues as their second leading scorer, Jadon Jones, enters the portal. Their leading scorer, Marcos Tsohonis, was a senior and now Jones is leaving along with both Traorés and George. The whole starting lineup is leaving.

Yes it is. That's essentially the heart of the team.

Aboubacar Traoré, Lassina Traoré and A.J. George from Long Beach State have entered the portal.

Verbalcommits.com is currently reporting that there are 1007 players in the D1 basketball portal.

UCSD's outstanding guard, Bryce Pope, has entered the portal. He was named to the All Big West First Team this year. San Diego finished second in the conference this year but was ineligible for the BW Tournament due to being in the final year of their 4 year transition. They look like they were set to be a major contender again for next year but losing Pope is a big blow to them.

I think it is surprising that he's transferring since he's a local kid who played his high school ball at Torrey Pines HS. I think he'd be a great replacement for Pepper if Les could land him.

Andrej Stojaković would be a sensational addition to the Aggies and I'd love to see him here. He'd thrive under a great coach like Jim Les and, like you said, he'd be able to play close to home. It appears that academics may be important to him as well since he chose Stanford over many of the top college teams in the nation.

However, I think it's highly unlikely that he'd choose the Aggies over a lot of the bigger, elite programs that will be chasing after him with promises of playing at the at the highest level of college basketball along with some big NIL money to boot. He turned down offers from most of the major D1 programs in the nation to play at Stanford including Duke, UCLA, Oregon, Kentucky, Connecticut and Kansas to name a few and you know many of them will be drooling now that he is in the portal.

Even though he played his high school ball at Jesuit, we didn't offer him probably because Les knew he had very little chance to sign him considering he was the #18 ranked 5 star recruit in the nation. He was offered by USF, Saint Mary's, Santa Barbara and Cal Poly though.

I'll keep my fingers crossed that Jim Les may have special relationship ties with the Stojaković family!

Thanks for the portal survey. I remember Dan Hawkins saying something about not being able to use the portal that much because of the difficulty of getting many of the players into Davis when transferring from another school. I would expect that the same thing applies to Jim Les and the basketball program too but, then again, Les has brought in a few transfers recently: Rocak, Johnson, Milling, Tamba, Roberson...

Sadly, with all the NIL money and all the major, power conferences jumping from one conference to another for fear of getting behind in the rat race for more TV money, we're destined to see fewer and fewer smaller programs who have any chance at all in the tournament.

#4 Gonzaga 75 #13 Irvine 56 - Final in the Women's NCAA Tournament.

All 7 of the Big West men's and women's basketball teams lost their first games in the post-season tournaments. 0-7...I thought we would at least win one or two games...

Chicago State 77 San Diego 75 - Final

San Diego pays some big bucks to travel to Florida as the #2 seed in the CBI and goes one and done. The Tritons won nearly all of the team stats but lost the game at the FT line by going only 9-18 and they finish the season with a 21-12 record while Chicago State improves to 13-18.

So far, the Big West is 0-6 in the post-season tournaments for both men and women. Only Irvine's women have a chance to keep the Big West from going 0-7 when they play #4 Gonzaga in the women's NCAA Tournament today at 4:30 pm.

San Diego 38 Chicago State 38 at the half in the CBI.

South Dakota 72 Riverside 57 in the WNIT

Pacific 63 Cal Poly 43 in the WNIT
Cal 65 Hawai'i in the WBIT

Arizona 85 Long Beach 65 - Final

Long Beach has a lot talent but they simply don't play good, disciplined defense. I can only imagine what a defensive minded coach like Les could do with a team with their level of talent.

They've fallen way behind now. 70-53 with 7:16 to go.

Yes, I think Irvine got shafted at being the #15 seed in the NIT.