Nigel Williams-Goss hardly seemed like a candidate to join the transfer epidemic that is sweeping through college basketball these days.
The University of Washington’s 6-3 sophomore point guard was named second team All Pac-12 after he led the Huskies in scoring and assists with 15.6 points and 5.9 assists. The former McDonald’s All American from Findlay, Nev. Prep played for Team USA’s 2013 U19 gold medal team and chose UW over Harvard. He had a 3.74 GPA and was a first team Pac 12 All Academic choice and captain of the team.
He liked head coach Lorenzo Romar, but he couldn’t stand the losing, the ever changing dynamic of the roster or the fact assistant coach T.J. Otzelberger left to go back to a similar position at Iowa State.
Williams-Goss’ Findlay teams were 124-8 . But his experience at Washington was disappointing. The Huskies finished 16-15 and 5-13 in Pac-12 play, losing to Stanford in the first round of the conference tournament in Vegas.
Williams-Goss passed on the chance to become the next Nate Robinson or Isiah Thomas for a fresh start . He along with sophomore guard Darin Johnson and junior center Gilles Dierickz — a pair of backups– has opted to transfer. Williams-Goss is down to UNLV and Providence. He has made the conscious decision to sit out the 2015-16 season and play as a fourth-year junior in 2016-17.
Since the 2013-14 season, the Huskies have seen seven players leave the program– Hikeem Stewart (transfer), Desmond Simmons (transfer), Tristan Etienne (quit basketball), Jahmel Taylor (transfer), Williams-Goss, Johnson and Dierickx — and another, star center Robert Upshaw, was dismissed for a violation of team rules.
It is a sign of the times.
Last year, over 600 Division I players, seeking immediate gratification, switched schools. This year, the number should be the same. Some left because they were unhappy with their role or playing time. Some left because of coaching changes or differences with the coaching staff. Some left because they were home sick or family emergencies.
Most expect to be eligible immediately because of lax standards in the NCAA clearing house, which has bent over backwards in the past for players with sick relatives. Right now, schools have a better chance of having a good team than a good program. The NCAA is giving kids an easy escape route when they should stay and face adversity. Sometimes, things in life aren’t going to be easy.
The whole thing is indirectly tied to hardship. Players want to put their name in the draft get to pros as quickly as possible. They start out with unrealistic expectation and when they find out they aren’t as good as they thought, they place the blame on the coach or style of play. They should have thought about that when they made their decision but they didn’t so they go somewhere else..
In any given year, there are likely between 15 and 20 who can make an impact playing at the highest level.
ESPN put out a complete transfer list again and this year, they include Williams-Goss, forward Jonathan Williams of Missouri, who led the SEC Tigers in scoring and rebounding and is considering Gonzaga, Michigan State, Oregon, Georgetown and SMU; junior guard Rasheed Sulaimon, who is trying to complete his high school degree work so he can play immediately at a high profile program; this summer under sized junior power forward Nick King of Memphis, who transferred to Alabama; senior forward Anton Grady of Cleveland State, who is looking at Kansas, Kansas State, Iowa State Xavier, Pittsburgh, Wichita State, Dayton, NC State and Nebraska; sophomore guard Shannon Evans from Buffalo, who followed his college coach Bobby Hurley to Arizona State; sophomore forward Kyle Washington of NC State, who is looking at 20 different schools; guard Ike Nwamu of Mercer, who is down to UNLV, Pitt, Nevada and Oregon; senior wing guard Damion Lee of Drexel and point guard Tyler Lewis, who both signed with Louisville; junior guard Andrew Rowsey of UNC-Ashville, who is considering Tennessee Marquette, NC State, Cincinnati, Vanderbilt South Carolina and Virginia Tech; freshman guard Eric Paschall of Fordham, who signed with Villanova; senior guard Dylan Ennis of Villanova, who is looking at Illinois, Baylor and Oregon; senior guard Sterling Gibbs of Seton Hall, who is looking at Pitt; freshman forward Josh Cunningham of Bradley, who is looking at DePaul, Michigan State, Notre Dame, St. John’s Minnesota, Purdue, South Carolina, UIC, Dayton and Colorado State; and senior forward Mark Tollefson of San Francisco, who is leaving for Arizona.
Some, like Williams-Goss, Sulaimon and Gibbs, who originally signed at Texas, were recruited at a high level out of high school. Others grew and developed at mid-major schools and decided they could finish up their careers at a higher level.
But everyone doesn’t make it.
Many come to college with inflated opinions of their game and wind up dropping down to a lower level as young transfers once they receive a reality check and find out they are not as good as they think they are and will not be in the normal eight man rotation. They get misevaluated by a flawed recruiting system that failed them when they were signed early at schools by stressed out coaches who will need to fill rosters and had a rush to judgment after watching them play briefly against summer travel team competition. The rush to grab a scholarship has produced mistakes by players, who sign at a program that is a level above their head and coaches, who push kids to sign based on snapshots of their game or often inaccurate subjective scouting service reports.
The NCAA needs to provide more time in the summer, not less, for college coaches to get a more accurate feel for a player’s ability and character. And the players need more time to evaluate the programs they are entering and where they fit in.
These are highly susceptible 17- and 18-year old prospects, many who have already led a nomadic athletic existence, transferring from high school to high school and between various travel teams searching for instant gratification. They take their cues from the NBA where loyalty is not high on their list of priorities. Neither is placing a value on winning or team building. Some coaches, who are in the final year of their contract, don’t help the situation either, disillusioning freshmen who think they are going to play by bringing in multiple transfers for a quick fix in an attempt to save their jobs.
If coaches groom players to play the next year, then they turn their back to them and take fifth year, hired mercenaries who are going to be there three months and don’t really get a chance to know where their real allegiance is– the school they went to or the school they attend for one season– kids are going to leave. It makes a farce out of the athletic and academic pursuit.
The NCAA has already taken some steps to slow the carousel.
It finally approved legislation in 2014 that will be enacted next year and will strip an undergraduate player of his ability to apply for immediate eligibility as a transfer and discuss options to the post graduate role. The policy requires students competing in baseball, basketball, bowl subdivision football and men’s ice hockey to sit out of competition for a year after transferring the hardship waiver. There should also be rules put into place to prevent transferring within a conference.
There is also talk from Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany about having a national discussion about a “Year of Readiness” where freshman sit out a year before entering varsity competition in the revenue producing sports.
The system is flawed. There should have been emergency legislation passed long ago.
