Cal basketball commit Jeff Nwankwo reopens recruitment
Two spots are now open on the 2024-25 California Golden Bears roster.
A week after being officially announced he was joining the California Golden Bears, and being one of the first major commits for Mark Madsen during the transfer portal period, top JUCO prospect Jeff Nwankwo has put himself back on the college basketball market.
We don’t want to speculate on reasoning for why Nwankwo is leaving, but there are still plenty of major programs with openings on their roster, and plenty of NIL funds out there to spend. So always remind yourself that nothing is ever permanent in this new age of college athletics. Even if Nwankwo officially announced he was coming, until he steps foot on campus as a student he is still able to test his opportunities on the market.
Cal does have a bevy of wings on their roster now, headlined by Andrej Stojakovic and Rytis Petraitis, so they do have the necessary talent to offset the loss and hold course talent-wise.
But that means the recruiting never stops for Madsen and company.
Adios.
Was interested in seeing Nwankwo, but after adding Rytis, Ola-Joseph and lil Stoja, his minutes were probably gonna be a mixed bag.
The extra scholly could actually be more beneficial now…add another big, along with a PG.
Really tough to stockpile talent on the bench in the NIL era. The only real cheat code is being an elite destination for one-and-done talent that can win with a short bench. Very few programs can do that, and even they struggle to get these teams to gel year after year.
There are basically two simultaneous jobs: (1) develop young recruits, many of whom will transfer if you're successful; (2) be a transfer destination that can gel a roster. Time will tell how well Madsen does on (1). It is, however, impressive that he's doing SO well at (2) that he's able to saturate those transfer spots despite starting with a near-blank slate.
If I had to pick which approach I'd want us to be better at, it would be (2), though Jaylen Brown choosing Cal will be one of my all-time favorite recruitment stories.