To the point

It’s Day 3 of Peach Jam. Coaches can’t start attending until Thursday, but you can start paying attention today. And have John Fanta provide the details. Added bonus? Terrence Oglesby will be with him for the 1:30 pm ET game that features Team CP3 (UNC commit Drake Powell) vs. Team Final (Duke commit Isaiah Evans).

Let's get to news from the last couple days.

1. Joe Toussaint switches Big 12 programs

West Virginia knew Joe Toussaint wasn’t coming back to Morgantown next season.

Check that. There’s a chance he may be there for one game after announcing he’ll attend Texas Tech for the 2023-24 season.

The Big 12 hasn’t yet released its pairings for the 2023-24 season, so we don’t know if the Red Raiders and Mountaineers will have home-and-home matchups.

Toussaint, a 6-foot guard who averaged 9.4 points and 2.6 assists for West Virginia last season, entered the transfer portal after Bob Huggins’ resignation last month. The graduate transfer also had been considering Kansas State and Pittsburgh. (He played at Iowa his first three seasons.)

The move gives new Texas Tech coach Grant McCasland much-needed experience at point guard. Sophomore Pop Issacs started 24 games for the Red Raiders last season, but was most effective playing off the ball alongside De’Vion Harmon.

The only real concern might be size. Isaacs is 6-2, and Arizona State transfer Devan Cambridge is an athletic 6-6 guard/wing, while Nevada transfer Darrion Williams is just 6-6. Does that leave 7-foot Arizona State transfer Warren Washington to clean up things down low?

McCasland should be able to solve this problem. He had a Top 50 defense the last three seasons at North Texas.

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2. Huskies add some defensive bite

Washington coach Mike Hopkins has always been a defense-first coach. Tuesday brought him a little extra fireworks than a typical 4th.

Paul Mulcahy spent the last four years at Rutgers, serving as one of the conference’s best defenders. The 6-7, 210-pound grad transfer averaged 8.3 points, 3.6 rebounds and 4.9 assists last season, but his impact goes beyond stats. He’s an experienced player who thrives on defense thanks to his smarts and size. His assist rate (28.4%) was among the best in the Big Ten, and while he doesn’t take a ton of shots, he can hit from beyond the arc (35% during his career).

He’s perfect for a guy like Hopkins, whose teams often struggle to score, but are often in games thanks to the defense.

“I believe that the Covid year has been a blessing for me to have another chance to chase my dream,” he told On3. “I think Washington has some elite pieces over there and are hungry to win at a high level. I believe this decision will make me push myself harder than ever before.”

How he’ll mesh with Kentucky transfer Sahvir Wheeler … well, let’s just focus on defense, shall well?

Mulcahy is is the sixth transfer for Washington this offseason, joining Wheeler, Moses Wood (Portland), Anthony Holland (Fresno State), Nate Calmesse (Lamar) and Wilhelm Breidenbach (Nebraska).

In other transfer news:

• Wildens Leveque (UMass) is going to Texas A&M.

• Doctor Bradley is backing off Northern Illinois and headed back into the portal.

3. The Mountain West messiness

San Diego State wants to stay in the Mountain West for at least another school year. Now we’ll see if the league lets it.

The Aztecs have long been a viewed as a likely candidate to join the Pac-12. With USC and UCLA leaving for the Big Ten and a media deal that’s still in limbo, establishing a footprint in San Diego was an obvious move for the conference, and probably for SDSU as well.

Yet, the last few weeks have illustrated just how challenging a move like this can be.

This article by Mark Zeigler of the San Diego Union Tribune details the correspondence between SDSU and MWC officials and how a seemingly simple notice of departure is anything but.

Among the highlights:

• SDSU President Adela de la Torre says the Aztecs will leave, and wants to know if they really have to pay the full $17 million exit fee.

• MWC officials say cool, freeze the school’s 2022-23 distribution share (more than $6 million) as the first part of the exit fee, and boot de la Torre from the MWC board.

• SDSU says just kidding, we never left. Twice.

• MWC officials send another letter, thank them for their membership, and say July 1, 2024 will be SDSU’s last day as a conference member.

It’s a fascinating article that lays out some of the reasoning behind the letters (SDSU reminds the league how much NCAA tourney $$$ it made everyone) and is worth a read ahead of a July 17 MWC Board of Directors meeting where they’ll discuss the school’s future with the conference.

Advanced move

Jahvon Quinerly is a graduate transfer who told Alabama in late June that he wouldn’t be back at school. Is that a rude move by the guard? Or is it just part of the whole transfer process in this brave new NIL world? John Fanta, Terrence Oglesby and Rob Dauster discuss the permutations of how this scenario plays out and it’s larger impact.

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Links as you wonder what to do with those sparkles your kids didn’t use.

• Penn State added 2024 guard prospect Jahvin Carter.

• Djordje Curcic, a guard from Serbia, is headed to Saint Louis.

• Alabama hired Preston Murphy as an assistant. He spent the last two years serving an NCAA show cause penalty.

• California’s bill that would allow athletes to be paid by schools is on hold until 2024.

• What’s the NCAA going to do if a federal bill for NIL regulation doesn’t pass?

Thanks for reading The Field of 68 Daily! If you have a news tip or feedback, email us at [email protected].