LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- It was a wonderful week for college basketball.
Oscar Tshiebwe of Kentucky, Caleb Love and R.J. Davis of North Carolina, Hunter Dickinson of Michigan, Jaime Jacquez of UCLA and Jahvon Quinerly of Alabama all announced they will play at least one more season without pushing through the NBA Draft process.
It was a jarring week for college basketball.
Jay Wright of Villanova, a coach as admired as anybody in the game, announced his retirement, subtracting one of the game’s most respected leaders. Wright is 60, the winner of two national titles, participant in two other Final Fours, the boss of the Big East.
It was also a revealing week for college basketball, so revealing that I nominate this announcement as the signature news of the weekend:
Nijel Pack will transfer from Kansas State to Miami, picking the Hurricanes over Purdue and Ohio State. And, according to John H. Ruiz, Pack secured a Name/Image/Likeness deal with LifeWallet that will pay him $800,000 and an automobile over the next two seasons.
***BREAKING NEWS*** @LifeWallet is proud to announce @NijelPack24 has officially committed to UM as a basketball player. The biggest LifeWallet deal to date, two years $800,000.00 total at $400,000.00 per year plus a car. Congratulations!!! @johnnyruiz4 @alex7ruiz @ddiazon7 pic.twitter.com/SzKHag8qnG
— John H. Ruiz, Attorney at Law (@JohnHRuiz) April 23, 2022
At Miami.
Miami basketball, not Ray Lewis/Michael Irvin/Warren Sapp Miami Hurricanes football.
Miami basketball, which filled barely half of its less than 8,000 seats last season while ranking 104th in the nation in average attendance (4,292 per game).
Jim Larranaga has done nice work in Coral Gables, developing players like Bruce Brown and Lonnie Walker. But 2022 was the first season the Hurricanes won an NCAA Tournament game since 2016.
Remember former Louisville head football coach Charlie Strong?
He coaches linebackers at Miami. It’s a private school, so salary numbers are not filed in public databases. But I’ll predict Pack will earn more than Strong next season.
I asked a college basketball coach who attended the Nike EYBL AAU basketball event in suburban Indianapolis over the weekend if coaches were talking about the Pack deal.
“I have talked with some guys who feel like now everyone is going to want something,” he wrote.
“(Pack) is getting a deal almost as good as a two-way player in the NBA/G-League. Would he be able to be one of those guys? Maybe not.”
What we have is a baseline for the going rate for a very good (all Big-12) but not exceptional (Pack was not an all-American) guard who averaged 17.4 points per game while making nearly 44% of his three-point field goal attempts.
Based on a 37-game season, which is what the Hurricanes played while advancing to the NCAA Elite Eight, the going rate is $10,810.81 per game.
Good for Pack. The market is the market.
Two years ago, the evaluators ranked him the 123rd-best prospect in the Class of 2020, six spots behind his high school teammate Dre Davis, who signed with the University of Louisville.
Pack ranked behind Purdue recruit Jaden Ivey, as well as Evansville Reitz star Khristian Lander, who is leaving Indiana.
Today, Pack is listed at 6 feet tall. Then, he was 5 feet, 10 inches tall, which likely explains why Kansas State was the only Power Five program to offer a scholarship. His recruiting profile says his only other visit was to Belmont, in the Ohio Valley Conference.
Pack picked Kansas State, where he averaged 12.7 points as a freshman and an additional 4.7 points per game last season. Over two years, Pack made 42.3% (155 of 366) of his shots from distance.
It wasn’t enough to help Kansas State finish higher than ninth place in the Big 12 this season. Bruce Weber stepped away from the Kansas State job, taking shots at the NCAA for its handling of the pay for play scandal on his way out.
Pack became a free agent. He put his name in the transfer portal. Pick your favorite term.
The market would decide his worth. On Saturday, it did, stunning fan bases at Ohio State and Purdue.
ScarletandGame, a web site that focuses on Buckeyes’ basketball, posted a story under this headline:
HammerAndRails, a site dedicated to Purdue, was more measured in its response, wondering this:
On Saturday, it apparently cost the Boilermakers Nijel Pack.
He seemed like an ideal fit at Purdue, which lost four guards from last season’s team. Plenty of playing time is available in West Lafayette.
As I mentioned, Pack is an Indianapolis kid. He played for Weber, a former Purdue assistant and friend of Boilermakers’ coach Matt Painter.
All roads led to West Lafayette.
But, with an opportunity to make $800,000 and other perks, Pack committed to the Miami Hurricanes.
And that, more than Oscar Tshiebwe, Caleb Love or Jay Wright, was the signature news in college basketball last week.
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