Steve Alford has signed 42 scholarship players for the Nevada men’s basketball team since he was hired in April 2019, including a record nine in this year’s class (six transfers, three high school players). Like with any era, some of those players have been huge hits while others haven’t panned out. Here is our list of the top recruits Nevada has signed under Alford. Players in this year’s class were not considered for inclusion since they haven’t played for the Wolf Pack.

11. Tyler Rolison: Despite being a three-star top-160 national recruit and a two-time Del Rey League Player of the Year in Southern California, Rolison slipped through the recruiting cracks. He had a solid scholarship offer list before picking Nevada over San Jose State. The speedy 6-foot guard has logged two seasons for the Wolf Pack and is the team’s top returning player. At minimum, he’s a solid rotation player (5.6 ppg in his career). This year will show if he can be an All-MW kind of player.

10. Desmond Cambridge Jr.: Cambridge was a Brown transfer who redshirted (back when you had to) for one season in Reno before logging two years with the Wolf Pack. He was a nice blend of athleticism and shooting ability (156 made threes in two seasons at Nevada at a 36 percent clip). Cambridge was a two-time All-MW player before spending his senior season at Arizona State, leading the Sun Devils past the Wolf Pack in a First Four game at the 2023 NCAA Tournament.

9. Will Baker: If nothing else, the former four-star top-40 recruit gave Nevada the best five-minute stretch we’ve ever seen. In a 2023 game at Utah State, Baker scored Nevada’s first 22 points in a 4-minute, 57-second flurry, making five 3-pointers on Nevada’s first five possessions (we won’t mention how that game ended). The Texas transfer, who Alford recruited while at UCLA, played two seasons for Nevada, averaging 12.6 points and 8.0 rebounds, before playing his senior season at LSU.

8. Grant Sherfield: A controversial player, Sherfield was really talented, transferring to Nevada from Wichita State after Alford recruited him as UCLA’s head coach. His first year at Nevada went well enough with Sherfield hitting a number of game-winning shots. But his second season as Nevada’s point guard was a disaster with the team having culture issues with Sherfield at the center of those. Still, he was a two-time All-MW player who averaged 18.8 points and 4.6 assists for the Wolf Pack.

7. Kobe Sanders: Sanders is in the same bucket as Sherfield as a talented lead guard whose team didn’t have much success. Sanders didn’t have any locker room issues, but Nevada went 17-16 with him in the starring role, which was less than expected. Still, Sanders became the first player Alford recruited to Nevada to be drafted as he was a second-round pick this year after making the All-MW third team when he averaged 15.8 points and 4.5 assists in silver and blue following four years at Cal Poly.

6. Warren Washington: Washington’s first scholarship offer came from Nevada when Eric Musselman was the team’s head coach. He began his career at Oregon State before Alford nabbed him as a transfer. During two seasons with the Wolf Pack, the athletic center, a former three-star prospect, averaged 10.2 points and 6.2 rebounds, shooting 59.3 percent from the field. But he transferred to Arizona State and then Texas Tech to complete his college career, playing for four teams overall.

5. Tré Coleman: Coleman is a rarity these days as he spent his entire career with one school. He was a five-year starter who set the program record for games played (148) after being an Indiana All-Star in high school. He was a three-star recruit with a decent offer list. While Coleman didn’t make the All-MW team like others on this list, he was a two-time all-defensive team selection who was a key piece to back-to-back NCAA Tournament teams, averaging 6.6 points, 3.2 rebounds and 2.4 assists.

4. Nick Davidson: A three-star recruit and the No. 43 center in the 2021 recruiting class (278th overall), Davidson held scholarship offers from Cincinnati, George Washington, Georgia Tech, Hawaii, Oklahoma State, Pepperdine, San Diego and Riverside, so he was a mid-level prospect. After a redshirt season, Davidson was a key reserve the following year and high-level starter each of the last two (14 ppg, 6.9 rpg), earning a pair of All-MW honors. He transferred to Clemson this offseason.

3. Kenan Blackshear: Blackshear was a solid player at Florida Atlantic where he averaged 9.4 points per game as a sophomore before moving across the country to Nevada. His first season at Nevada didn’t show much growth. But he was moved from the wing to point guard for his last two seasons and blossomed as an All-MW performer, leading Nevada to a pair of NCAA tournaments while averaging 14.6 points, 4.8 assists and 4.4 rebounds and playing elite defense.

2. Jarod Lucas: A transfer from Oregon State, Lucas picked Nevada over Alabama and SDSU with the Crimson Tide the favorite before he suited up in silver and blue. Lucas helped Nevada to a pair of NCAA tournaments, averaging 17.4 points while making 159 threes at a 38.6 percent clip. He was the 2023 MW newcomer of the year and a two-time second-team All-MW pick by the league’s coaches. He’s the most likely player on this list to one day make the Wolf Pack Hall of Fame.

1. Darrion Williams: Williams tops this list despite spending just one season at Nevada because of the great job the Wolf Pack did finding him. The Sacramento native transferred to Las Vegas’ Bishop Gorman as a junior but that season was canceled due to COVID-19. That led him to go underrecruited as an unrated prospect when he committed to the Wolf Pack. By the time his senior season ended, he was the state player of the year and a four-star recruit. Williams was the MW freshman of the year on Nevada’s 2023 NCAA Tournament team before transferring to Texas Tech where he emerged into a national star. He’ll play this season for NC State and is a likely NBA player. In previous college basketball eras, he would have been an all-time Nevada great having spent four seasons in silver and blue.

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Of the top 10 on this list, only three were high school players (Coleman, Davidson, Williams), who I bumped up because it’s a lot harder to get those prospects right than transfers. Recruiting prep players isn’t quite a bygone era, but it’s getting there. Now, it’s about having the biggest NIL budget to pay players to join your school, which dampens the fun and skill of recruiting under-the-radar guys you can project and develop. That’s still a part of the game, but it’s much smaller than it used to be, sadly.

Columnist Chris Murray provides insight on Northern Nevada sports. Contact him at crmurray@sbgtv.com or follow him on Twitter @ByChrisMurray.