Tylor-made for K-State

Tylor Perry has a new home in Manhattan, and Cal has cleaned up in the portal. Plus, a good read on the Boozer twins and more

Author

Mike Miller
May 03, 2023

Coming today at 2 pm ET: Grading the Coaching Carousel. It’s a special media crossover edition of The Field of 68 featuring Jeff Goodman, Rob Dauster, Jeff Borzello from ESPN and Matt Norlander and Gary Parrish of CBS Sports.

Should we have gotten Hunter Dickinson to promote it? Probably. Will it be five guys who routinely talk over each other and incessantly crack jokes about everyone’s appearance? Maybe. Is it a must-watch? Without a doubt.

Anyway, you can watch on YouTube or on Twitter. Now, let’s get to the news.

1. K-State’s got a new floor general

How do you replace an All-Big 12 and third-team All-American point guard?

With another all-league player who’s also no stranger to hitting game-winners.

As seen Tuesday night on The Field of 68’s live stream, Perry is headed to Kansas State, where he’ll fill Markquis Nowell’s role as the team’s starting point guard. Nowell, one of the Big 12’s best floor generals the past two seasons, was the driving force of the Wildcats’ 26-10 season that ended in the Elite Eight.

Perry could be the same in 2023-24.

The 2023 Conference USA POY averaged 17.3 points, 3.4 rebounds and 2.1 assists for North Texas last season, and he led the Mean Green to a 31-7 overall mark and the NIT Championship. He scored at least 20 points in four of his five NIT games, a sign that he doesn’t shy from big moments. That’ll be a key component of playing for coach Jerome Tang.

“I didn’t want to go to a situation where it was rebuilding,” he told Jeff Goodman. “I wanted to go play for somebody who already has culture, has the guys bought in, and for a winner. That was the biggest thing for me. I wanted to be around winners and the culture of winners.”

He’ll certainly need to lead that winning. K-State returns two starters, Nae’Qwan Tomlin and Cam Carter (seems unlikely that Keyontae Johnson is returning for a super senior season), but it has a couple of incoming 4-star freshmen in Dai Dai Ames and RJ Jones. Having Perry set the tone for those players will be essential to Tang’s winning culture.

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2. The portal’s Bearing fruit for Cal

After a 3-29 season, Cal has nowhere to go but up.

But there may be more to the 2023-24 campaign than just a handful of more wins. The Bears might actually be … decent?

New coach Mark Madsen — who took Utah Valley from 11 wins in his first season to 28 victories and an NIT semifinal spot just three years later — has wasted no time assembling better talent in Berkeley. The latest example? Former Memphis wing Keonte Kennedy.

Kennedy, who averaged 9.2 points and shot 38 percent from beyond the arc last season, gives the Bears a core group that should not only be able to win games but could finish in the top half of the Pac-12. Sure, some of the issues last season stemmed from injuries, but mostly? Cal just wasn’t good.

The other new additions are:

  • Fardaws Aimaq, a 6-11 center; averaged 13.4 ppg and 8.1 rpg for Texas Tech

  • Jalen Cone, a 5-11 guard; averaged 17.6 ppg, 2.5 assists at Northern Arizona

  • Mike Meadows, a 6-2 guard; averaged 11 ppg and 2.2 apg at Portland

Those four players, alongside Devin Askew, Cal’s leading scorer last year, still don’t give Cal better overall talent than most of the Pac-12. At this point, they’d be projected to finish 10th or so.

But things no longer look hopeless. And that’s an improvement Cal fans should relish.

Other notable portal moves:

3. NBA pedigree, gym rat mentality

Carlos Boozer played three years at Duke and spent 13 years in the NBA where he was a two-time All-Star and a productive player throughout his career.

So maybe it’s not a surprise that his 15-year-old twin sons, Cameron and Cayden, are thriving at basketball. Cameron, a 6-9 beast down low, might be the best high school player in the country, regardless of class. Cayden, a 6-3 point guard, is a Top 30 prospect.

But they’re not coasting on their name. In a recent feature from Brendan Marks at The Athletic, the Boozer twins are more akin to players with something to prove than guys with a famous dad.

“You don’t have to pull them to the gym; they’re pulling me and mom to the gym to work out,” Carlos said. “You see a lot of kids that just give up a possession, or they give up on defense but want the ball on offense. My kids play every f—-ing possession. They compete, man. That’s my favorite thing.”

That much is obvious even over the course of a single EYBL game. Be it Cameron diving on the floor for a loose ball (while up double-digit points) or Cayden taking a charge in the paint, the brothers routinely put their bodies on the line in exchange for any small advantage. Now, if the Boozer twins didn’t play with that borderline-reckless abandon? They’d still be coveted by every high-major program in the country. But the fact that they do — despite their age and recruiting hype — is a testament to their mindset, one clearly influenced by a certain 13-year NBA veteran better known as Dad.

To wit, while Carlos has clearly prepared his boys for what life is like in the spotlight, much of what they’re experiencing now is somewhat foreign to him. “They’re in a whole different landscape than I was in,” Carlos said. “We didn’t have the social media stuff. These guys get NBA-level coverage and they’re 15. We didn’t have that. Maybe LeBron, maybe Zion, but now it’s the norm. So I’m impressed with their level-headedness.”

It’s not uncommon for players with NBA dads to tirelessly work at their games. But those players can often be overlooked before college. The number of players with dads who thrived in the NBA and saw their sons sit atop the recruit rankings and still be lauded for their work ethic? That’s uncommon.

And more than a little refreshing.

Worried about the Wildcats?

Kentucky’s got the No. 1 recruiting class for 2023 with five 5-star prospects. The Wildcats will have plenty of talent. But will the same issues from the last two seasons — inconsistent perimeter scoring — plague them again in 2023-24? Rob Dauster and Jeff Goodman discuss.

Links as you wonder what the Writers Guild of America strike means for your favorite TV show.

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