Beyond Wildcats: College hoopers with Southern Arizona ties already making March impact

LAS VEGAS — Standing outside a locker room in the Thomas and Mack Center as a championship celebration raged while he clutched a gleaming Most Outstanding Player trophy, New Mexico guard Jaelen House found himself in a scene comparable to those his father and uncle experienced before him.

House is son and nephew to two of the greatest guards in Pac-12 basketball history.

Father Eddie House was a scoring machine at ASU from 1996-97 through 1999-2000 before embarking on a lengthy pro career that included winning the NBA Finals with the Boston Celtics in 2008. Jaelen House’s uncle, Mike Bibby, famously helped Arizona to the 1997 national championship. The UA legend doubled as House’s coach at Shadow Mountain High School in Phoenix.

The Lobo guard’s connection to Southern Arizona, via Bibby, may be tangential, but he headlined a group with Tucson-area ties who have already made marks on the March basketball scene in 2024. Among them: former Arizona Wildcat Jemarl Baker Jr., also at New Mexico; Washington State’s Oscar Cluff, who played previously at Cochise College; Tarleton State’s Traivar Jackson, a former NJCAA All-American at Pima Community College; and Grand Canyon’s Duke Brennan, the cousin of new UA football coach Brent Brennan and former Wildcat wide receiver Brad Brennan.

In House’s case, while he grew up around such prominent playmakers, the UNM guard said “it didn’t” ready him to stand tall in high-pressure moments on the basketball court.

“They’re my family. I don’t look at them any other way,” House said. “Playing basketball prepared me for this moment; not them.”

Watching House guide UNM to the Mountain West championship, sealing the Lobos’ first NCAA Tournament bid since 2014, his deep offensive repertoire invites memories of his dad’s exploits as a Sun Devil.

The elder House averaged 23 points per game as a senior, including 61 points in a game vs. Cal in 2000, tying Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (then known as Lew Alcindor) for the Pac-12’s all-time single-game high. In Las Vegas, the junior House knocked down seven 3-pointers, attacked the rim with reckless abandon, hit jumpers off the dribble on the way to 92 combined points in four games.

He capped the weekend at his best, scoring 28 points on 7-of-15 shooting from the floor and a perfect 5 of 5 at the foul line in the Lobos’ 68-61, MWC game win over 2023 national runner-up San Diego State.

House’s final points came with 1:23 remaining and UNM holding a three-point lead. He powered up a shot under duress from SDSU’s Darrion Trammell, drawing a foul as the shot fell in.

The converted and-one play sent the Lobos faithful at the Thomas and Mack Center into a frenzy, effectively putting the game away. House led UNM to three wins over NCAA Tournament-caliber teams in three days — Boise State on Thursday, Colorado State on Friday and culminating with San Diego State — and did so wearing the same No. 10 Bibby donned in his UA career.

It’s the same No. 10 that hangs on the McKale Center wall, commemorating Bibby’s tenure as a Wildcat that included beating three No. 1 seeds in the 1997 NCAA Tournament.

House’s performance certainly evoked parallels to his family, but this was a moment all his own.

Additionally, UNM may not have reached Saturday’s MW title round without the quarterfinal contributions of Baker, the former Arizona Wildcat and a super-senior who capitalized on his first real opportunity to leave a March impression.

Baker transferred to Arizona from Kentucky ahead of the 2019-20 season, coming off the bench for a UA team that presumably would have made the NCAA Tournament if not for COVID-19.

Baker emerged as a streaky scoring threat the following season, but again missed out on the Madness for factors out of his control after UA self-imposed a tournament ban in 2020-21.

After a stint at Fresno State, Baker landed at UNM this season and provided scoring pop to complement the Lobos’ dynamic backcourt trio of House, Jamal Mashburn Jr. and Donovan Dent.

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That pop came up big for UNM in a 76-66 MW quarterfinals win over Boise State. With Mashburn out of sync in a four-point night, Baker came off the bench and knocked down three first-half 3-pointers.

In the final minute, Baker made a deflection off of a BSU player and out of bounds to give the Lobos a critical possession. He also snared a defensive rebound with 19 seconds remaining that led to a House leakout and Roddie Anderson III flagrant foul, slamming the door on the Broncos.

“I’m just trying to do anything to impact winning,” Baker said. “It’s definitely exciting to make plays…when that’s my goal going into the games.”

Elsewhere, Washington State did not win the Pac-12 Conference Tournament a few miles to the West at T-Mobile Arena, dropping out with a 58-52 semifinal loss to Colorado on Friday.

The Cougars were solidly an NCAA Tournament team already, however, thanks in part to its own addition from southern Arizona.

Washington State emerged as a surprise in 2022-23 but underwent dramatic roster turnover in the offseason. Coach Kyle Smith and his staff got to work in rebuilding a lineup that could compete for the program’s first March Madness appearance since 2008 and just seventh all-time.

Among the newcomers on the Palouse in 2023-24 was Cluff, a product of Australia’s Sunshine Coast by way of the Southern Arizona border town of Douglas.

Cluff spent the previous two seasons at Cochise College, where he averaged 12 points per game in 2021-22 and 18.2 in 2022-23.

Starting in the Cougars frontcourt alongside breakout star Isaac Jones much of this season, Cluff heads into the NCAA Tournament, posting 7.3 points, 4.5 rebounds and almost one blocked shot per game.

“We’re blessed. He’s a unique one,” Smith said earlier in the season of Cluff’s recruitment. “Dishon [Jackson] we knew was going through health issues, and we really weren’t recruiting center then.

“We were lucky because coach (Jim) Shaw and I have a relationship with that junior-college coach, Jerry Carrillo,” Smith added of the longtime Cochise coaching legend. “That 30-year relationship really helped us.”

In the case of Jackson, the former Pima standout, while, while Tarleton is ineligible for NCAA Tournament play due to rules on programs transitioning to Div. I from Div. II, the Texans out of Stephenville, Texas, put the finishing touches on an outstanding 23-9 campaign at the Western Athletic Conference Tournament.

In the semifinals against UT-Arlington, Jackson scored 12 points on 6-of-7 shooting for Tarleton. It was the best individual performance of the season for Jackson, the only two-time All-American in Pima history.

If Tarleton would have defeated UTA, the Texans would have faced Grand Canyon, which counts Brennan as one of its starters. The Phoenix-area native with the last name deeply connected to Arizona Wildcat football transferred to GCU from ASU before this season. Starting all 33 games for the WAC champion and NCAA-bound ’Lopes, Brennan is averaging 7.1 points and 6.8 rebounds.