Finding their way home
Eight transfers thrive, help lead Aggies to first regular-season SEC title
COLLEGE STATION — Texas A&M’s players embraced the SEC championship trophy on Sunday, a few years after coach Gary Blair’s wholehearted embrace of an apparatus with a bad reputation among some fans and coaches: the transfer portal.
“If that’s the way the game is going to be played and the NCAA is waiving all of these transfer rules, so be it,” Blair said with a shrug. “I can adjust.”
He has adjusted exceptionally well, considering the No. 2 Aggies won their first SEC regular-season title since joining the powerful women’s basketball conference in the summer of 2012. A&M (22-1) faces LSU (9-12) at 10 a.m. Friday in the quarterfinals of the SEC tournament in Greenville, S.C., as the Aggies try and make it two conference trophies before the NCAA Tournament.
More than half of the players on the A&M roster — eight of 15 — began their college careers elsewhere. Take sophomore guard and native New Yorker Jordan Nixon, who had every intention of spending her collegiate springs in South Bend, Ind., competing for national titles at Notre Dame.
“Whenever you make your decision, you hope it’s a four-year decision,” Nixon said of choosing a university out of high school, “and that you’re going to spend your college career in that uniform, with that program and those coaches. When that doesn’t happen, it kind of shakes up your whole world.”
When things didn’t work out at Notre Dame, Nixon sought a landing spot where she also could compete for titles. She and seven others in the past few years opted for Texas A&M.
“I can speak for all of us in saying this: We found a home in Aggieland,” Nixon said. “That’s why we’re able to excel as much as we do. It’s a lot easier to be who you are and to play how you know you can play when you know the people around you believe in you and love you.
“That’s really what it boils down to — having a home here.”
Blair, 75, grew up on college and professional players spending a majority of their respective careers in one place, whether or not they liked it.
“In today’s world … people are changing jobs, people are changing teams at the highest level, and none of us ‘like’ it,” Blair said. “I want to get up in the morning and read the box scores and know that Willie Mays went 3-for-4 against Brooklyn — that’s what I grew up on. You didn’t need a fantasy league. You knew who was going to play on each team.
“That’s not the way it’s happening in today’s world and particularly in the sporting world.”
Akin to Alabama football coach Nick Saban’s approach with up-tempo offenses about seven years ago, Blair has tried to be among the best at something he didn’t always agree with earlier in his career.
“If I can find somebody who can fit within my system, attitude-wise, educational-wise and the ability to share (the ball), I’m never going to have a depleted roster,” Blair said. “No matter if I’ve got six seniors. Because there are too many students, too many faculty members and too many student-athletes who want to come to Texas A&M. Our phone will be ringing.”
Three of the Aggies’ five starters in their 65-57 win Sunday over No. 7 South Carolina for the regularseason title are transfers: Nixon, center Ciera Johnson (Louisville) and guard Aaliyah Wilson (Arkansas). Wilson was named secondteam All-SEC this season, and Johnson became the first Aggies player to win the conference’s scholarathlete of the year award.
Meanwhile, Destiny Pitts, a transfer from Minnesota, was named the conference’s sixth woman of the year. She’s an ideal example, Blair said, of a player setting aside personal gain for the good of the team — in this case, her second team.
“To be able to come in and accept that (sixth woman) role after being an allconference performer at Minnesota, that takes a lot of ‘we’ and ‘us,’ ” Blair said. “She did a tremendous job of coming in and being the biggest cheerleader out there.”
By comparison, the Gamecocks, who would have won the SEC title if they had defeated the Aggies on Sunday, have a lone transfer on their roster. Different years call for different measures on that front, of course, as South Carolina has had contributing transfers in the past.
Blair is careful, too, not to end recruiting with a high school player on a sour note — even if that player ultimately chooses a rival. He realizes he might get another visit from her in a year or two.
“A lot of coaches in the game, when they get that ‘Dear John’ call from a recruit, will say, ‘Oh, you made a mistake,’ ” Blair said. “But I wish them well and tell them I hope they have a great four-year career.”