Aidan Mahaney (and other transfers)

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I was curious to see how transfers from the WCC were doing, so I went down the rabbit hole. Mahaney’s story is particularly intriguing. He transferred to UConn and is only averaging 13.5 minutes and 5 pts/game. At SMC he was playing 33 minutes/game, and averaged nearly 14 pts/game. And SMC has a NET rating of 21, 12 pts above UConn. I’d argue his transfer was a huge mistake.

Others of note:

  1. McKinney’s transfer from USD to SDSU has seen a notable difference in his minutes played and scoring avg/game (nearly 50% reduction in both)
  2. McKinney’s former Toreros teammate Deuce Turner transferred to UC Santa Barbara and has seen a 20% reduction in minutes and a 33% reduction in scoring in a lesser conference.
  3. The other notable transfer out of USD, Kevin Patton Jr, has seen the biggest drop at USC. His minutes and pts/game are down about 70%. Unlike the other two, he’s only a sophomore, so his PT might rebound (pun intended) as an upperclassman.

Lavin could’ve had a really good team this year had he not seen the exodus of 5 players from the program. He didn’t even bring anyone into the program and has been playing an enormous number of walk-ons. Despite having a really good arena (for a small school conference) in the Jenny Craig Pavilion (known here in the San Diego area as the “Slim Gym”), they have a tough time drawing a crowd (and drawing hoops talent). Not sure if they will fire Lavin or not, I think he’s getting paid well so that contract buyout would be big $$ and they’d still have to shell out big $$ for a decent replacement.

I’m sure there are plenty of other transfer stories, but I have to get out of the rabbit hole and finish preparing for my SB party. I’ll let others chime in about other transfers.

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Good research, @buckets !

Another example would be Houston Mallette, the hot shooting, long guard from Pepperdine now at Alabama. He’s currently injured, but even pre-injury was only the 8th or so man in the rotation (albeit, on a Final Four contender).

The big exceptions are probably Hunter Sallis who is a star at Wake Forest, scoring over 18 PPG, and Josh Jefferson from SMC who is averaging almost 13 pts and 8 boards on a very good Iowa State team.

I really think SMC is better without Mahaney this year–that’s probably not even controversial at this point. They probably don’t get Marauskas to transfer if Jefferson stays, so maybe that’s a wash to some degree, but SMC with Jefferson would have been very fierce.

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So much for the grass being greener!! I am curious if Mahaney would ponder a transfer back to Moraga, in the way Carlos returned to SCU. However, would Bennett welcome him back? I have to imagine that Herb discussed Carlos’ return with a few of the players, most notably Cam and BK that were part of that recruiting class if memory serves correctly. Femme probably has some insight into that.

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Great example

Certainly defensively I think this is true.

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Shout out to Jacob Holt who is having a nice senior year at Sac State. He is averaging 16 points and 7 rebounds and had a 35 point game earlier in the season. Nice to see him do well.

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Agree SMC is fine w/o Mahaney. The improvement/emergence of sophomore Jordan Ross plus the scoring/shooting of true frosh Mikey Lewis off the bench has more than made up for the lost Mahaney offensive production. And Ross and Lewis are both better athletes and better defenders than Mahaney.

Some other WCC transfers of note:

  • Dom Harris from LMU (and GU prior) to UCLA. Hit/miss minutes have dropped significantly.
  • SMC’s Joshua Jefferson is starting for Top 10 Iowa St., is averaging double digit points and is first or 2nd in rebounding. That transfer is working out quite well for him.

And going back two years, GU’s Hunter Sallis and Efton Reid have had tremendous success at Wake Forest and Sallis is on some draft boards as a potential 2nd round pick. Few thought more of Hickman, played him ahead of Sallis and wouldn’t commit to larger role for Hunter; that clearly was the wrong decision. Sallis is longer, more athletic and a better defender and has improved his shooting and is averaging 15+ I believe. Meanwhile Hickman is more or less the same player he has been for 3 or 4 years, solid but unspectacular and seems to have reached his ceiling.

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Concerning Mahaney, I heard he had 1.3M reasons to go to UCONN. Honestly he’s not an NBA player, so this will likely be his highest earning year in his basketball career.
UCONN thought that they were going to be without a real point guard and that Mahaney was possibly the missing piece to another title run.
There’s a decent chance he finds another team for his final season

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A Gael friend of mine says he is definitely returning to moraga next year. He made a bad move for himself.

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Indeed. It was a big discussion and the players had to be in agreement. BK. Cam. Tilly. Those were the three consulted as they all played with Carlos.

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