A Grip on Sports: Transfer portal news, or TPN for short, is the newest overwhelming malady to infect the sporting realm

A GRIP ON SPORTS • April in these parts will end the same way it began. Highs in the 50s, a chance of inclement weather and huge storms brewing. That last one? We’re referring to the transfer portal, the F4 tornado of college sports.

•••••••

• No matter what school any of us follow, no matter what sport, portal news has hit hard at times. And given us a reason to smile at others. It’s free agency. With no guardrails.

We could sit here and debate the whys and wherefores. Place blame. Offer solutions that will never happen. Or we could just look at what’s going on and marvel at it. We choose the last one. Not necessarily with individual cases, though one that occurred yesterday stood out and we will have more on that in a minute. Instead of wondering why Oregon State’s football program is getting banged at a greater rate than Washington State’s, or if Deion Sanders will ever be satisfied with his roster, we decided to do a case study today.

On the Pac-12’s last women’s all-conference basketball team.

No reason. Just because. OK, we have a reason. Just about every player on the team, announced less than two months ago, is somewhere new today.

The conference-that-shall-not-exist-in-a-few-weeks named a 15-team all-conference group on March 5. Of those 15 members, six of them had either exhausted their eligibility or were headed to the WNBA draft. Nine were able to return to their current school.

You know how many did? Three. One-third. All in Los Angeles. Kiki Rice and Lauren Betts, who started her career at Stanford, are back at UCLA. And, most importantly, freshman star JuJu Watkins stayed with USC.

Watkins has a certain gravity about her, after she helped transform the Trojans from also-rans to Elite Eight participants. That gravity drew in two other Pac-12 stars, Kiki Iriafen from Stanford, the best returning big, and Pasco’s Talia von Oelhoffen, the first Oregon State player to bail after the Beavers’ Elite Eight run and the first to find a home. She announced yesterday she will be a Trojan.

A big three in LaLa Land. Super. But not a singular occurrence. That’s because Betts and Rice will be joined by quite possibly the best player Washington State has ever had, Charlisse Leger-Walker. The four-time Pac-12 honoree will finish her college career, and rehab her injured knee, in a Bruin uniform.

That leaves us three all-Pac-12 performers. So far, two are accounted for. OSU center Raegan Beers announced yesterday afternoon she is headed to Oklahoma, a place she called home, though she grew up in Colorado. And, ironically, Aaronette Vonleh, Colorado’s leading scorer, is headed to Baylor.

That leaves the Beavers’ Timea Gardiner, the conference sixth-player of the year. She is in the portal but hasn’t decided where to play next.

A 15-person team. Three players who stayed at their school. Go figure.

• The WCC men’s all-conference team featured a Saint Mary’s sophomore who seemed a lock in March to stay put in Moraga.

Aidan Mahaney was a legacy of sorts, having grown up in coach Randy Bennett’s backyard – figuratively and somewhat literally – and thriving in the Gaels’ scheme. But the portal era holds no guarantees for anyone.

Mahaney, who averaged 13.9 points a game and shot 37.5% from 3 in his Saint Mary’s career, was in great demand, visiting Creighton, Virginia, Kentucky and his ultimate destination, defending champion Connecticut.

We don’t get it. The recruitment, we mean. We’ve watched Mahaney play the past couple years as much as any player in the country not from the Spokane area. We’ve seen his strengths. And we’ve also watched teams exploit his weaknesses – of which there are more than you might see on film. Mainly because the Gaels only played a couple teams each year with outstanding athleticism – and we don’t include Gonzaga in that category – an element Mahaney struggles to deal with.

The most glaring recent example came in this year’s NCAA first round, when 12th-seeded Grand Canyon upset the fifth-seeded Gaels 75-66. For Mahaney, his awful performance was not that much of an outlier. In some ways, yes, as he took 21 shots. Forced by GCU to create his own attempts, he only made five, including 3-of-13 from long range. But worse, and this is his main issue, was his inability to guard anyone in a purple uniform. The quicker, stronger Lopes attacked him relentlessly.

We’ve seen such him in that spotlight before. Mahaney will see more of it when UConn makes its inevitable NCAA run in 2025. It’s what he wanted. Wished for. And there is an old saying about that.

•••

WSU: The transfer portal will be a bit of a theme today. We start with a former Coug player, Kymany Houinsou, reportedly headed to Loyola-Chicago, a mid-major in a big city. Greg Woods has more. … Greg also sat down yesterday and delved into five key elements of the Cougars’ spring football practices. We read every word of it. You should too. … Elsewhere in the Pac-12 and the nation, Jon Wilner fast-forwards in the Mercury News this morning. He takes a look at the West Coast’s presence in the 2025 NFL draft. Yep. A year from now. … John Canzano’s weekly mailbag covers more pressing issues. … Good news if you are a Washington football fan. Steve Ballmer attended practice yesterday. Ya, the billionaire. With a love of sports. As Lightning McQueen might say, ka-ching. Maybe the Huskies’ portal fortunes will be better funded soon. … There is also TPN (transfer portal news) with a UW connection. As well as a lot of it from Oregon football. And more from Oregon State football. … What would a day be without some from Colorado? … Or Arizona? … From basketball, there is also TPN with Oregon’s men. And from Colorado. And Arizona State. Oh, Arizona too. … Oregon’s women may have more than anyone today as Kelly Graves tries to rebuild his roster. … Oregon State has added a player as well. … Stanford is dealing with Title IX issues.

Gonzaga: TPN continues from the Zags, with the women picking up a Connecticut transfer. Ines Bettencourt, from Portugal, announced yesterday she’s headed to Spokane. Greg Lee has this coverage of the junior-to-be’s decision. … Kaylynne Truong is mentioned in this Washington Mystics story.

Idaho: A little different TPN, with women’s coach Carrie Eighmey leaving Moscow after one year. She’s headed to the University of South Dakota. … The Lewiston Tribune reported last night Eighmey’s contract, which would have resulted in a $500,000 buyout, was never finalized despite her being at UI for a year. Seems like an oversight to us. … We also have a story to pass along about Vandals who have signed free agent NFL deals, including star receiver Hayden Hatton with the Seahawks. … Elsewhere in the Big Sky, players with Montana and Montana State connections have also signed free agent contracts.

Mariners: Yes, we know we should have led today with last night’s stunning, walk-off home run by Mitch Garver that lifted the M’s to a 2-1 victory over the Braves. It was one of those moments you remember a while. But part of why we didn’t was we did not see it live. Yep, we missed it. And, no, we didn’t give up and go to sleep. Good guess, thought. We had just stepped away. We did catch up via video clips, and that’s another reason we didn’t write about it. We would have been so critical of Rick Rizz and, to a lesser degree, Dave Sims (we listened to both descriptions). One thing Dave Niehaus knew was how to let a moment live on its own. To say your piece, quickly, and then let the crowd speak. No one did this better, ever, than Vin Scully, but Niehaus got it. Rizz just kept talking. And talking. And talking. Why the crowd’s celebration drowned in the tidal wave of words. Good on Garver, though. He’s struggled. Now he has a game-winner to draw from. … Jarred Kelenic is back in town. Hitting well. Just as he did early last season. Wonder if he will hit a wall – literally.

Kraken: OK, we also could have written about the coaching change. Dave Hakstol was fired yesterday. But we wondered how many folks actually knew Dave Hakstol was the Kraken coach. It’s not like he was on Papa Murphy ads in Spokane or whatnot. … it was probably time to make the change.

Storm: New co-owner Sue Bird wants to be involved in the WNBA’s union negotiations.

Sounders: A rainout? Yep, Seattle had one in March. Actually, a suspension, which will continue.

Seahawks: Could Jamal Adams be back? Possibly. Should he? You decide. … The Hawks’ defense will look different next season. Mike McDonald has different ideas of how to be successful than Pete Carroll did. The draft reflected McDonald’s vision. … That’s something we learned from Seattle’s draft.

Horse racing: The Kentucky Derby is Saturday. No. 150. (No, we do not remember the first one – but we can recall No. 100.) This story has every race record you might want to know. Except who has worn the biggest hat. That record is held by Lexington-born Elma May Gillette in 1908, sporting a chapeau with a circumference of 112 inches. Just kidding.

•••       

• Took a lot of time writing today. Not that the time improved anything. Could be it made it worse. But that’s for you to decide. Every day. Until later …