Nowadays in college athletics, every program is plagued with a merry-go-round of roster turnover. The transfer portal and NIL has never affected roster construction — from the gridiron to the hardwood — more, now that student-athletes wield more power than ever. No matter the sport, you may have a star player one year, but that player is likely to find greener grass on the other side of the fence.
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As many of us have belabored in the past, that’s especially true in the Mountain West — seen as more of a stepping stone than a stomping ground. Once again, the conference saw a mass exodus of players in the men’s basketball realm — excluding the departures of a few conference pillars (Boise State, Utah State, Colorado State, Fresno State).
However, one program stuck out not only with its additions — but roster retention — heading into the 2026-27 season.
Nevada was clear winners in transfer portal:
We’ll obviously delve deeper into where we predict each team finishing as the season approaches. However, each year that passes, given the abundance of personnel change, forecasting a program’s future is becoming more predictable. The task becomes more of a headache — apropos to (mid major) programs trying to accumulate enough funds to keep their teams in-tact each season.
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Well, Nevada did just that.
On the surface, Wolf Pack head coach Steve Alford brought in plenty of strong talent. Former Pepperdine point guard Styles Phipps averaged 13.4 points, 5.9 rebounds and 5.2 assists last season; Cal Poly transfer Peter Bendelj averaged 13.0 points on 34.7 percent shooting from 3-point range last season; TJ Coulter was the best scoring guard in junior college last season, averaging 27.8 points on 45.2/35.7/76.4 shooting splits.
But they also did an excellent job retaining their top talent — which no other program in the conference can say. Nevada did lose Corey Camper Jr. to graduation, but retained All-Mountain West big Elijah Price, guard Vaughn Weems — who averaged 15.8 points and 5.6 rebounds over his final 10 games — in addition to standout freshman Peyton White.
No other team in the conference can say that, except maybe New Mexico, who retained the possible preseason favorite for player of the year in Jake Hall. San Jose State lost Colby Garland to Georgia Tech; UNLV lost Dra Gibbs-Lawhorn to Texas Tech; UC Davis lost Nils Cooper and Marcus Wilson; UTEP cleaned house with essentially everyone hitting the portal.
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We’re still a ways away from forecasting how each team will fare in this new-look Mountain West. But I don’t think it’s a far cry to admit the Pack were clear winners — though now Alford’s biggest task will be connecting the chess pieces together, which hasn’t always been the case when key pieces were retained.
