Courtney Ramey's transfer decision a win-win for Wildcats, former Texas standout

After starting 106 games over four seasons at Texas, and twice going through the NBA Draft process, Courtney Ramey could spare the recruiting excess.

The Texas grad transfer guard didn’t need an official visit before he committed to the Arizona Wildcats last week. No need to see the campus or facilities. No need for customized promotional hype left in his resort hotel room. No real need to sit down with coaches or work out with the few players who were on campus.

Ramey did his own intelligence work remotely.

The 6-foot-3-inch guard from St. Louis spent most of the spring in Las Vegas while testing the NBA Draft for the second straight spring, communicating with current Wildcats and the NBA-bound Dalen Terry.

“I was talking with some of the players through the process and I talked to Dalen a lot,” Ramey said in an interview with the Star after his commitment. “I just asked him about coach (Tommy Lloyd), as somebody who played for him. And he was telling me about the atmosphere.”

Critically, Ramey said he also texted frequently with Kerr Kriisa, with whom he will likely be sharing the Wildcats’ backcourt often next season. Kriisa is a rising junior point guard, while Ramey will be a graduate “super senior,” expected to start off the ball and slide over when needed to help Kriisa at the point.

“He was telling me about the opportunity. He wanted to play with me,” Ramey said of Kriisa.

In the end, all parties involved got what they wanted. The Wildcats picked up a scorer and defender who can help offset the losses of Terry and Bennedict Mathurin on the wing and an experienced ballhandler to replace combo guard Justin Kier.

Ramey, essentially, completed Arizona’s 2022-23 roster and gave the Wildcats a better chance at defending their Pac-12 title.

The Wildcats, meanwhile, are offering Ramey a chance to keep working on that pro resume for the defending league champs who, as Terry may have mentioned, also happen to play before the Pac-12’s biggest crowds.

“I want to win as many championships as I can,” Ramey said. “That’s my ultimate goal going into the season and, especially when I get on campus, it’s making sure I put up what they did last year. I don’t want them to feel like I’m taking away from what they did last year. I just want to help them build back towards it, just help them accomplish the same goals that I’m trying to accomplish.”

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Ramey helped the Longhorns reach the NCAA Tournament in each of the past two seasons, being named a second-team all-Big 12 pick as a junior in 2020-21 while earning honorable mention honors in 2019-20 and last season.

While Ramey did not make the Big 12’s all-defensive team last season, he was known for defensive toughness, holding all-American Ochai Agbaji of Kansas to just 19 points in two games against the Longhorns.

As a junior under then-coach Shaka Smart in 2020-21, Ramey averaged 12.2 points and 3.2 assists per game while shooting 41.4% from 3-point range. Under new coach Chris Beard last season, Ramey had a rougher experience. He averaged 9.4 points, 3.5 rebounds and 1.6 assists per game, and nearly quit the team in December, according to a report in the Austin American-Statesman.

Asked about last season now, Ramey said only that it was a “tough year” for everyone in the program and declined to speak about it.

“Last year was one of those years I just want to flush and not think about,” he said.

Ramey entered the NBA Draft pool again this spring — and joined the transfer portal at the same time. Even as he was in Las Vegas, working out with other pro prospects, he still took calls from Arizona and other schools, receiving interest from West Virginia, Houston, Purdue, Duke and Louisville.

And even though he never sat down in the UA video room to watch replays of the Wildcats’ successes last season, he did plenty of times on his own, finding their style matched his.

“Arizona was around for pretty much the whole ride,” Ramey said. “I think they did a good job recruiting me and, watching as much film as I did, I did feel like it was a good fit. Every team I was looking at was a winning team, but I just felt like opportunity was there.

“It was just for me to figure out what the right fit was. A lot of schools took other players and kind of just eliminated themselves, but I just felt like I found the right place in Arizona.”