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College basketball rankings: Tennessee lands North Florida transfer Chaz Lanier, moves up in Top 25 And 1 – CBS Sports
I’m aware that players jumping from one school to the next every offseason drives some coaches and fans crazy. I get it. But there really are some wonderful stories coming out of the transfer portal, provided you’re not too jaded to recognize and appreciate them. The latest involves Chaz Lanier, a 6-foot-4 guard from Nashville who spent the past four years playing at North Florida.
Question: Do you think guys from Nashville grow up dreaming of playing at North Florida? Answer: Of course not.
In other words, Lanier never left his home state because he wanted to play in the ASUN instead of the SEC. Rather, he left his home state because nobody connected to an SEC school believed he was an SEC-caliber player coming out of high school.
So he chose North Florida.
As a fourth-year player, Lanier averaged 19.7 points and 4.8 rebounds for the Ospreys this past season while making 44.0% of the 7.5 3-pointers he attempted per game. Suddenly, SEC schools were interested — including Kentucky and Tennessee. On Friday, two days after visiting UT, Lanier announced his decision. He picked the Vols and explained it to ESPN’s Jonathan Givony.
“I was born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee,” Lanier said. “I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to come back to my home state and put on for my city and family. My whole family will be at every game next year, lord willing.”
How can you not smile about that?
A young man from Nashville who always dreamed of playing for his home-state university, but wasn’t given the chance out of high school, spent the past four years working hard at a lower level, and his reward for that is a final season of playing college basketball in front of friends and family for his home-state university that’s up to No. 14 in Version 25 of the 2024-24 CBS Sports Top 25 And 1 college basketball rankings.
Again, how can you not smile about that?
Like I’ve said and written many times over the years, big-picture, I’m not certain this much player-movement annually is actually good for the sport. So when folks make that argument, I understand the point they’re making. But I’ve always believed that what’s fair to student-athletes should be considered above anything and everything else. So until universities make student-athletes employees and sign them to binding contracts, I’ll forever believe they should be allowed to transfer from one school to the next and play the following season the same way coaches have been moving from one school to the next and coaching the following season for decades and decades and decades. And if the student-athletes get to transfer back to their home states and play immediately in front of friends and families for nationally ranked teams in ways that fulfill dreams, well, that’s even better.
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