Geno Crandall is a case study on how to transfer to a top college basketball program

Gonzaga solidified its status as a potential preseason top five team and a definite national championship contender in 2018-19 by adding North Dakota graduate transfer Geno Crandall to its roster last week.

A 6’4 guard who can do all three things coaches want to see from guys who play the position, Crandall earned All-Big Sky honors a season ago by averaging 16.6 points and 3.6 assists per game. He scored 25 points or more on six separate occasions, but it was one of those performances in particular that paved the way for his path to Spokane.

On Dec. 16, North Dakota walked into McCarthey Athletic Center to face No. 12 Gonzaga as a 30-point underdog. The Fighting Hawks led by as many as 12 in the second half before the Zags rallied to save face with an 89-83 overtime victory. The biggest reason for the near-upset was Crandall, who poured in a game-high 28 points and hit a step-back three-pointer in the closing seconds of regulation that sent the game into OT.

As a basketball junkie, Crandall knew all about Gonzaga well before that game. After it, Mark Few and his staff knew more than they wanted to about the versatile guard from Minneapolis.

“I think I definitely got on their radar after that game,” Crandall said. “Coach Few mentioned at the time that he kind of watched out ever since then, knowing that I was a player who had redshirted my first year and had the possibility to graduate and transfer for my last year. When he got the news that (me transferring) was going to be a reality, he kind of turned the pressure up from there.”

And so goes the story of how a no-star recruit whose only Division-I offers coming out of high school were from North Dakota and Drake will wrap up his college career chasing a national championship with one of college basketball’s most powerful programs.

While players like Stanford’s Reid Travis — who will play for Kentucky in 2018-19 — don’t have any trouble getting on the radar of the top coaches in the sport, guys like Crandall are forced to use their “buy games” against high-profile teams in November and December as sort of an open audition for their final year of college. Play well enough on the elevated stage, and maybe in 12 months you’ll be suiting up for the team who paid good money to procure this easy (or, in Gonzaga’s case, not so easy) victory.

Crandall isn’t the only mid/low major grad transfer in recent years to face a power program one season and then play for them the next.

Aaron Menzies, a 7’3 center from Manchester, England who played for Seattle the last three seasons has transferred to Saint Mary’s, a program known for its ability to mold big men who spent their formative years in a different country. A season ago, Menzies and the Redhawks played at Saint Mary’s and were dealt a decisive 97-73 defeat.

On Nov. 26, 2014, Trey Lewis was the lone bright spot in an otherwise disgusting 45-33 loss for Cleveland State at sixth-ranked Louisville. Lewis poured in 24 points, while no other player on his team could manage more than four. Then-Cardinal head coach Rick Pitino took notice.

“We weren’t surprised by how well (Lewis) played tonight,” Pitino said after the game. “Our guys knew how good he was because we had been telling them about him all week. That’s one of the best point guards in the country right there, and he showed you why tonight.”

From the other side, Lewis came away equally impressed.

“It was unbelievable playing in (the KFC Yum! Center),” he said. “I had never played in front of such an electric crowd with loyal fans. I feed off that energy, whether the crowd is for me or against me.”

Four months later, Lewis signed on to play his final college season at Louisville. He would average 11.3 ppg for a Cardinal team that appeared headed towards an enviable seed in the NCAA tournament before the school self-imposed a postseason ban.

This is the route Crandall hopes to mimic as he joins up with a Gonzaga squad that was going to be ranked among the nation’s elite without him. The Bulldogs already boast the talented veteran backcourt of Josh Perkins and Zach Norvell, meaning Crandall may have to take on the unfamiliar role of coming off the bench. Sometimes that works, other times it doesn’t. The latter was the case with James Daniel III, who once led the nation in scoring at Howard, but struggled to find his niche last season on a crowded Tennessee roster and wound up averaging just 5.6 ppg.

Regardless of how Crandall’s college story ends, his fairy tale as it stands is enough to give hope to any low major bucket getter who couldn’t stiff a power conference scholarship offer coming out of high school.

Dope article from sbnation.com