Overview:
UCSB coach Joe Pasternack hopes to sign as many as six new players out of the 25 he’s currently recruiting
Not all is fair in love and the transfer-portal war.
UC Santa Barbara basketball star Cole Anderson may adore his parents, Nick and Jill, but a campaign by Fresno State to lure him back to his hometown has raised the hackles of Gaucho Nation.
A post last week on Fresno’s ESPN 1430 Radio’s X account and containing the logo of the Bulldog Bread Collective — an official fund-raising organization for Fresno State athletics — came with this all-caps plea:
“HEY COLE, IT’S TIME TO COME HOME AND BE A BULLDOG!”
The post was headlined by Anderson’s full name and included a picture of the former Clovis West High star dribbling the basketball during one of UCSB’s games.
It’s a clear case of putting the cart before the Bulldog since, as of Sunday, Anderson hadn’t even entered the NCAA transfer portal.
“Cole’s not going anywhere, but it’s stupid,” UCSB coach Joe Pasternack told Noozhawk. “It’s just a crazy world that we’re in right now.”
Making the situation even more intriguing is that Vance Walberg, Anderson’s former coach at Clovis West High, was hired as Fresno State’s new head basketball coach earlier this month.
Walberg once called Anderson “probably the best shooter I’ve ever coached.”
That was a quite a statement coming from a guy who was once the head coach at Pepperdine University as well as an NBA assistant for the Denver Nuggets, Philadelphia 76ers and Sacramento Kings.
“Coach Walberg made a huge difference for me,” Anderson told me during an interview last year. “We won a lot, and most important the practices prepared me for college practices.
“His approach was to be hard on me, which I think prepared me for college, as well.”
Anderson, a 6-foot-4 junior guard, made 464 career three-pointers at Clovis West to rank third in the CIF State record books.
He set a state record when he made 10 consecutive threes during a game in which he scored a school-record 51 points.
He’s been UCSB’s best three-point shooter the last three seasons with 153 career makes in 372 attempts.
His career three-point percentage of .411 is tied with Orlando Johnson for fifth-best in Gaucho history. He averaged 10.3 points per game last season.
Ajay Mitchell and Josh Pierre-Louis have both declared for the NBA draft, leaving Anderson as the lone returning starter in UCSB’s backcourt.
That is, unless he gets buttered up enough by the Bulldog Bread Collective.
Any Portal in the Storm
The NCAA launched the transfer portal on Oct. 15, 2018, as an online database to manage and facilitate the transfer process for student athletes.
It turned into a free-for-all last April, however, when the NCAA passed a rule allowing athletes to play right away the first time they transfer instead of being forced to sit out a year.
Yohan Traore, a 6-11 forward, took advantage of the change and played for UCSB last season after having transferred from Auburn.
He entered the transfer portal again a few weeks ago after averaging 14.5 points and 5.1 rebounds per game for the Gauchos.
He reportedly has been contacted by 16 schools that include the likes of Arizona State, BYU, Clemson, Creighton, Florida, Mississippi, TCU, Texas Tech and Utah.
“I’ve stayed in touch with Yohan all the time, supporting him,” Pasternack said. “Obviously you give him the pros and cons of staying in Santa Barbara.
“Everybody wants to see their options and their NIL (name, image and likeness) value when they go into the portal. That’s what’s become of all of this.”
He has little chance of out-bidding the power-conference schools, but Pasternack is giving it the old college try.
“Schools like Kentucky and Arkansas have NIL budgets of $5 million, and these kids are going to go where the money is,” he said.
“We’re constantly fundraising — always fundraising — and doing the best we can because we want our players to be able to benefit off their value as much as possible.”
Some players enter the transfer portal in a simple quest for more playing time.
Matija Belic, a 6-7 junior, recently signed with Wyoming after having averaged 3.9 points and 2.4 rebounds last season in mostly a reserve role for the Gauchos.
Wyoming has plenty of openings now that six of its players have entered the portal.
Big West Exodus
The transfer portal had ballooned to 1,761 players as of Sunday. That includes 44 from the Big West Conference — and Yohan isn’t the only Traore in the bunch.
Although none are related, both Aboubacar Traore and Lassina Traore of Long Beach State have joined Yohan in the portal.
Other All-Big West stars to take that path include UC Davis’ Ty Johnson, UC San Diego’s Bryce Pope, Cal Poly’s Kobe Sanders and Cal State Northridge’s Dionte Bostick.
Pope committed to USC on Saturday, Sanders signed with Nevada and Bostick is headed for New Mexico State.
Four players from league champion UC Irvine have entered the portal, as well, including emerging star Derin Saran, a freshman guard.
“You’re strictly on a one-year-at-a-time basis now,” Pasternack said. “You cannot look past one season.”
The four UCSB players who signed NBA contracts the last seven years were all long-time Gauchos.
Gabe Vincent and Max Heidegger remained at UCSB all four years. Even JaQuori McLaughlin and Miles Norris stayed three seasons after transferring in from other schools.
Mitchell, a junior who is projected to be at least a second-round pick in the upcoming NBA draft, ran the point for the Gauchos for three years.
“It’s completely different now,” Pasternack said. “You have to adapt and think quickly on the fly when you put your roster together.
“And you’ve got to fundraise NIL money. That’s the way the business is conducted now and it’s totally, totally different than when we got here.”
The Right Steph
Pasternack made a point of recruiting a point guard first.
He signed Stephan Swenson, a 6-foot-2 senior from Stetson University of DeLand, Florida, out of the portal last weekend. Swenson, like Mitchell, is a native of Belgium.
“Steph is a natural-born leader and he has a lot of toughness to him,” Pasternack said. “He also has an incredible basketball IQ.
“He really makes the right reads … makes the right pass.”
Swenson ranked 18th in NCAA Division I basketball last season with 203 assists and 25th in assist average with 5.8 per game. He was 106th in assist-to-turnover ratio.
“He led his team to the NCAA tournament this year,” Pasternack pointed out. “He’s won at a high level … played against really good players.
“He’s such a great young man and he’s excited about Santa Barbara.”
Swenson also averaged 13.9 points, 4.7 rebounds, and 1.54 steals per game while leading Stetson to a 23-13 record and the Atlantic Sun Conference Tournament championship.
“My experience in the portal was the feeling of the unknown,” said Swenson, who will pursue a graduate degree at UCSB. “You don’t know what you’re looking for, especially being underrecruited out of high school.
“But when I really got into the transfer portal process, I enjoyed every second of it.
“Santa Barbara was one of the first schools to reach out, and we’ve been building a relationship ever since.”
No Time to Party
Pasternack turned 47 on April 15 — but he had to burn his birthday candles at both ends.
“I had a recruit on campus that day,” he said. “A big-time recruit.
“We are really just scouring the earth right now for the best of the best, and it’s absolutely nuts. We’re going 24/7.”
Pasternack said they’ve been watching film on 25 players and are four deep at every position in recruits that “we’re serious about.”
“We have a lot visits starting tomorrow night and for the next four days,” he said on Friday. “We had a couple of kids up here today, working out with our guys — a few high school guys and two transfers.
“I really liked what I saw. I think we should soon get some good news about them.”
Pasternack said he could sign as many as six new players this spring.
“It’s pretty fluid,” he said. “The next few days are going to be big, we’re in so many battles right now.
“We’re going up against Oklahoma and some other big schools. We go for the best, and then go from there.”
They have won those kind of battles in the past.
“What we have to beat these big schools with is the opportunity,” Pasternack said. “Miles Norris and JaQuori McLaughlin showed that you can transfer from these big schools and do well here.
“Hopefully, that’s what these big guys will see, not just the NIL dollars.”
But too often when the money talks, the player will walk.