Losing the twins and Morgan will leave some big shoes to fill but Gross and her staff have shown that they now have the program at a point where they reload rather than rebuild each year. I'm sorry to see that McKeown has left the team but I'm not completely surprised. She was a high school and JC scoring machine but, for whatever reason, she didn't outwardly appear to ever really to be as "emotionally connected" to the team as a whole. It didn't look like she was ever really comfortable on the floor despite her obvious talent. Chemistry and interpersonal relationships with teammates is huge. I wish her well as she purses her nursing career.

Of course, the big difference here though is that JC athletes must transfer to a 4 year school if they're going to continue their playing careers and their college education.

I think you may be right about that and I'm not sure Indiana and Arkansas have completely finalized their schedules yet. This following is from an article about last year's Hardwood Showcase:

While the Hoosiers will play Arkansas in 2019-20, they will still have home nonconference games against three of the four remaining teams in the event between Montana State, Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi, UC-Davis and UT-Arlington.

https://www.insidethehall.com/future-indiana-basketball-schedules/

It sure would be nice to have a decent OOC home schedule this year. We are typically road heavy in the OOC games with only 5 or 6 home games and William Jessop and Holy Names are often two of them.

I thought the Hardwood Showcase that we played in last year that included games at Indiana and Arkansas was a 2 year deal but it doesn't appear that that we play either of those teams this year. Neither of those teams have us on their 2019-20 schedule.

Scottsdale Chaparral senior cornerback Kamdan Hightower gave the University of California Davis a commitment on Tuesday.

The 6-foot-2, 175-pound Hightower saw his recruiting pick up in the spring with four offers: UC-Davis, Abilene Christian, Army, and Northern Arizona

"UC Davis has a great program with great coaches and academics, as well," Hightower said. "My family has always stressed to me how important keeping good grades is and now it is definitely paying off.

"UC Davis offers me the opportunity to play a high level of football and also have a high level of education, which was a perfect fit. After my unofficial and camp, I was very impressed with how the coaches and players carried themselves and I wanted to be a part of that great group of guys."

Hightower had a breakout junior season with 53 tackles, three interceptions, a caused fumble and seven pass deflections.

https://www.azcentral.com/story/sports/high-school/2019/07/09/chaparral-db-hightower-commits-uc-davis-football/1688300001/?cid=twitter_azcsports

"...throw a rock on the gas pedal..."

New offer: Kamdan Hightower DB 6'2 175 Chaparral High School, Scottsdale, Arizona. He currently has offers from Army, Abilene Christian, NAU, South Dakota State and UC Davis.

I certainly hope we never see that kind of heat in Aggie Stadium ever again. Not only did we lose the game but people were dropping like flies and being carted away in ambulances. That's a memory I'd rather forget!

Ugh...at least the heat should affect the Griz more than us! No fun for the fans sitting in the blazing sun though.

New offer: Nic Sani *** TE 6'6 245 Central Catholic HS, Modesto, CA. He currently has offers from Nevada, Yale, Dartmouth, San Diego William & Mary and UC Davis.

From the Davis Enterprise:

Yanez took advantage of a new transfer rule for Division I student-athletes. As of this past October, student-athletes were no longer required to seek permission from their current institutions to initiate talks with other programs.

In 2018 Melyssa Lombardi took over as head coach for the Ducks and watched as the transfer portal drained her bench. Yanez will join Oregon hurler Jordan Nail, who finished this season 18-18 with a 4.12 ERA.

The new transfer database allows student-athletes to merely add their name to the list to be eligible to talk with other schools.

According to Softball America, as of May 1, 250 DI student-athletes had put their names in the transfer portal. Yanez is the lone Aggie. There are two Sacramento State players, Alexxiss Dias and Suzy Brookshire. According to the list, Brookshire will transfer to San Jose State.

https://www.davisenterprise.com/sports/yanez-transfers-to-oregon/

Interesting post. Thanks for looking into this messy rule. I'm not sure how the NCAA thought this rule would discourage poaching now that an athlete in certain sports can can transfer without sitting out. It seems to me that this is just another move by the NCAA that will allow the biggest and wealthiest college athletic programs to enter into a "grabfest" as they ramp up their poaching efforts for the best players they can convince to transfer.

There's a lot here we do not know so I'm not going to judge her just because I wished she had stayed here and pitched for the Aggies for the next two years. Who knows, she may have been unhappy here but it doesn't sound like it from her twitter post. My guess is that she feels like she can be successful at another level and Oregon is about as gung-ho as it gets college athletics. She obviously believes that she can compete on a bigger stage and, if successful, it could lead to opportunities for her as a pro.

If Oregon initiated contact with her in an attempt to lure her away, well that would be really crappy but I doubt that that happened. Maybe I'm naive but I'm not sure any program wants to get a reputation as a poacher. My guess is that she put her name out there as being interested in transferring and Oregon jumped on it. Hopefully, it will work out for her.

So how do things like this happen? Do players contact power conference schools and say, "Hey, I'd consider transferring if you would give me a full scholarship? Or, do big, win-at-any-cost programs scout out players they think could move up and then contact them and try to woo them away?