College basketball recruiting is in a wild era.
The transfer portal activity is a big part of it. Name, image and likeness factors play a role in who enters the portal and who does not.
The NBA Draft process combined with that has made things especially wacky, where the trickle-down effect from a single player’s decision can run deep.
In Arizona, one decision by an individual reached three intrastate universities. Arizona Wildcats guard Caleb Love took in the full NBA Draft water-testing process, playing at the G League Elite Camp and hitting some team-run workouts.
And before the NCAA’s withdrawal deadline at the end of May, Love decided to give it one more go in Tucson with the Wildcats.
The fallout from his choice looked like this:
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Love’s return announced on May 29 directly impacted five-star wing Joson Sanon, who has since admitted the decision caused him to flip to rival Arizona State because he hopes to take a lead scoring role and leave college after a single season.
That was assumed when Sanon had his ASU decision ready about an hour after Love’s return, just as the withdrawal deadline hit.
News of Jamari Phillips de-committing from Arizona popped less than an hour prior to Love announcing his return. We’ll assume that decision was directly tied to Love, too.
Arizona’s top-10 class of four players, per 247 Sports’ rankings, tumbled to 28th after it was cut in half with the loss of Sanon and Phillips.
Sanon’s move to join the Sun Devils initially gave them the No. 4-ranked class with four recruits.
But it then had its own domino effect. Hours after Love’s decision, Yeanay reopened his recruitment.
Bo Aldridge followed suit and reopened his commitment on June 5. He remains undecided, while Yeanay signed with Grand Canyon on Thursday.