Tramel's ScissorTales: Top QB recruit Dylan Raiola mimics OU commit Kevin Sperry with move

News broke over the weekend that the family of OU quarterback commit Kevin Sperry Junior is moving to Oklahoma from Prosper, Texas, and that Sperry already is working out with the Carl Albert football team. News broke Wednesday that the family of Georgia quarterback commit Dylan Raiola is moving to Georgia from Greater Phoenix, and that Raiola is transferring to Buford High School. Welcome to the latest trend in the ever-evolving world of young athletes and their transient lives. We’ve had the jumping from local high school to local high school. Leaving high school a half year early to enter college and get an extra spring practice. Now moving out of state to establish family roots that will serve as a support system when the campus experience begins. Depending on the family dynamic, it makes some sense. And even when combined with another trend – frequent use of the transfer portal – crossing state lines to switch high schools is not a deal-breaker. The Williams family showed us that. When the 2020 pandemic wiped out Caleb Williams’ upcoming senior season at Gonzaga College High School in Washington, D.C., he and his family moved to Norman to be better prepared for his transition to OU. Williams finished high school online, enrolled at OU and went through spring practice, became a 2021 Sooner sensation and in February 2022 transferred to Southern Cal. Pinnacle quarterback Dylan Raiola competes with the Pinnacle Pioneers at the Gotta Believe Athletic Club's 7 on 7 football tournament at the Scottsdale Sports Complex on May 27, 2023, in Scottsdale. Pinnacle quarterback Dylan Raiola competes with the Pinnacle Pioneers at the Gotta Believe Athletic Club's 7 on 7 football tournament at the Scottsdale Sports Complex … Show more MEGAN MENDOZA/THE REPUBLIC I assume you don’t need me to tell you that the Williams family did not stay in Norman. If these moves can be quickly made from Prosper, Texas, to Midwest City; from Phoenix to Buford, Georgia; from the District of Columbia, to Norman; they can be made quickly out of those locales. The Sperry move is interesting because it has some elements of the Tua Tagovailoa family move from Hawaii to Alabama, before Tagovailoa’s freshman year with the Crimson Tide. Tagovailoa finished his high school career at Saint Louis in Honolulu, but his little brother, Taulia, two years younger, made the jump from Hawaii and finished high school in Alabaster, Alabama. Taulia Tagovailoa attended Alabama as a 2019 freshman but transferred to Maryland the next year and has quarterbacked the Terrapins the past two seasons. Sperry, who will be a junior at Carl Albert, has a younger brother quarterback, Rozzi, who is two years behind Kevin Sperry. Raiola, who is ranked the No. 1 recruit in the nation by some analysts, has made a couple of recent switches. He transferred from Chandler High School to Pinnacle High School after last football season and was given a five-game suspension by the Arizona Interscholastic Association. Raiola also decommitted from Ohio State, then picked Georgia. Moving across the country is at least a sign that his Georgia commitment is thick. OU softball pitcher Jordy Bahl made big news last week by transferring back to her home-state school, Nebraska, citing severe homesickness. The families of quarterbacks like Sperry, Raiola and Tagovailoa minimize that possibility. Home now sometimes goes with the quarterback when he goes away to college. A look back at Bob Huggins' time as the head basketball coach at the University of Cincinnati. Mountaineers had no choice with Bob Huggins Bob Huggins is a West Virginia icon. Born in Morgantown. A basketball player at WVU. A Hall of Fame coach, including the last 16 years with the Mountaineers. But there will be no Year 17. Huggins resigned over the weekend after a drunk-driving arrest in Pittsburgh, about six weeks after a strange, homophobic-laced interview on Cincinnati radio which would have cost most coaches their job then. Huggins’ daughter, Jacque, took to Facebook, ripping WVU and president Gordon Gee for the way her father was treated. “Throwing stones at glass houses is also not how to represent such a great university,” Huggins’ daughter wrote. “Treating someone like they don’t matter after they have given their whole heart and soul to your University? You could have helped, but chose to turn your backs. Not only on him, on the guys, the staff, the boosters. Everyone. “You’re the classless ones, the cowards, the backstabbers and most of all hypocrites...” Unknown is what color the sky is in Jacque Huggins’ world. Gee, athletic director Wren Baker and anyone with influence at WVU showed remarkable restraint in allowing Huggins to keep his job six weeks ago. They did so for pragmatic reasons, of course. Huggins is a beloved figure in West Virginia. Homegrown and loyal. Any removal of Huggins would cause a fissure in the Mountaineer family. And Huggins is a big-time coach who produces and, by the way, just brought in a transfer portal class that is the envy of the nation. West Virginia figured to be a major player in Big 12 basketball for 2023-24. With WVU football not going so well, basketball brought much-needed success to Morgantown. But two major public-relations disasters is too much for even Huggins, whose blood alcohol level reportedly was about three times the legal limit when he was detained by Pittsburgh police. West Virginia officials had a tough decision six weeks ago. They did not have a tough decision over the weekend. Huggins repaid their grace by creating another firestorm. So now the Mountaineers search for a new coach. They might go the interim route and elevate 61-year-old assistant coach Ron Everhart, who has been on staff since 2012 and who was head coach at Duquesne, Northeastern and McNeese State. Or WVU could try to pilfer away a sitting head coach and make someone else go interim. Alabama-Birmingham's Andy Kennedy was a Huggins assistant at Cincinnati – and the interim after Huggins was fired in summer 2005. Youngstown State’s Jerrod Calhoun is a 41-year-old up-and-comer. He was a student assistant at Cincinnati for Huggins, then spent five years on Huggins’ WVU staff. Calhoun also coached Fairmont State, just down the road from Morgantown, to a 124-38 record in NCAA Division II and had a promising 2022-23 season at Youngstown, taking the Penguins to a Horizon League title (and a close National Invitation Tournament loss to OSU). Ties with Huggins would seem to be important, to help heal the fractures in the Huggins/WVU relationship and potentially keeping the portal class together. West Virginia needs basketball to ride high. It needed Huggins to keep riding for awhile. But that’s no longer possible. Marcus Smart trade: Memphis Grizzlies add guard before NBA Draft 2023 A look at Marcus Smart, Memphis Grizzlies guard acquired in trade from Boston Celtics before NBA Draft 2023. He played at Oklahoma State Celtics will miss Marcus Smart The Boston Celtics made a good trade Wednesday night. All it cost them was their heart and maybe their soul. Marcus Smart is headed to Memphis. The Celtics have a superstar in Jayson Tatum and a star in Jaylen Brown, but Smart was the rhythm of the team, with his fire and hustle. Tatum and Brown are not robots, but Smart’s emotion was a calling card of this Celtic era. The Celtics, Memphis Grizzlies and Washington Wizards engineered a three-team trade that brings 7-foot-3 unicorn Kristaps Porzingis and two first-round draft picks to Boston, Smart to Memphis and rock bottom to Washington. It appears that’s what each team wanted. But now the Celtics face life without Smart, the OSU star who made his rough-and-tumble, damn-the-torpedoes style a Boston staple. Celtic fans are in shock and dismay today at the idea of losing Smart. But Smart will be beloved in Memphis, home of the grit-and-grind Grizzlies from a decade ago. That Memphis team was defined by another Cowboy, Tony Allen, who also was traded from the Celtics. The second act of that Memphis mentality is Tony Allen 4.0. Just like Allen, Smart is a wonderful defender of players from point guard to power forward, only a much better offensive player. Smart is a versatile offensive player who can play point guard or off the ball, and a team leader who regularly rallies the troops. Heck, with both Smart and Stone Cold Steven Adams on the Memphis roster, maybe the Grizzlies have found the ticket to get Ja Morant walking the straight and narrow toward NBA superstardom. The trade worked mainly because Washington is undergoing a much-needed teardown. The Wizards waited far too late to embark on such rebuilding, so their rewards for the likes of Bradley Beal and Porzingis are minimal. Washington somehow came out of the deals with no first-round picks, which shows the ineptitude of the Wizards’ previous administrations. Washington had no leverage to keep Beal and/or Porzingis, and no motivation to keep either one. The Wizards end up with one solid asset – Memphis backup point guard Tyus Jones, who figures to be good trade bait sometime over the next eight months. Washington also received from Boston a couple of old Thunders – Mike Muscala, who still has value as a stretch-the-floor big man, and Danilo Gallinari, who looks to be near the end of his career. It’s a trade that could end up helping all three franchises. Washington finally has ripped off the band-aid. Boston gets two first-round picks – Memphis' No. 25 overall pick Thursday in the NBA Draft, and the Warriors’ top-four-protected 2024 pick – plus the intriguing Porzingis. Memphis gets Smart, who will be invaluable the first 25 games of the season as Morant sits with a suspension for being a knucklehead, and then invaluable after Morant returns. Smart takes the defensive role of Dillon Brooks, who was allowed to walk away for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was chemistry issues. That won’t be the deal with Smart. The addition of Smart makes Memphis more of a Western Conference contender than before. Can the same be said of Porzingis with the Celtics in the East? He’s a career 19.6 points a game scorer, with a good outside shot (36 percent from 3-point range) and a versatile offensive game. He’s a defensive liability on the pick-and-roll but is a supreme rim protector. Any team can use that kind of skill set. Can Porzingis avoid injury? He played 65 games last season and was relatively healthy. But in the four years before that, Porzingis played 199 of a possible 393 games. Boston has enough guard depth to keep plugging along. The Celtics were going to send Malcolm Brogden to the Clippers in a three-way trade that included Porzingis. Instead, Smart goes to Memphis and Brogden ostensibly stays in Boston. Porzingis gives the Celtics all kinds of frontcourt flexibility, with the athletic Robert Williams and the aging Al Horford. It’s a quality trade for the Celtics. Except they lost their emotional leader. We’ll see how it goes. NBA free agents 2023: Top 15 names to watch These are the NBA players to watch in free agency for 2023, where Detroit Pistons could be a major player. Mailbag: NBA Draft I enjoy the NBA Draft but don’t delve into projections much. If the Thunder has the No. 2 pick, I’m all about speculating. If the Thunder has the No. 12 pick, I have no idea. Others can wade those waters. But a reader wanted to put in a plug for Duke’s 7-foot-1 Dereck Lively II, who last season averaged 20.6 minutes, 5.2 points and 5.4 rebounds a game. Lively took only 13 3-point shots all season (making two). Jordan: “Some info on Livley. His numbers at Duke are not representative at all of who he is as a player. He got hurt early in the year and then got stuck behind Kyle Filipowski and never really got a chance to get some decent, consistent playing time. I heard (Fox radio’s Doug) Gottlieb talk about Lively, and he is really high on him. He (Lively) is 7-1 and a great rim protector. He is a gazelle and can run up and down the floor with ease. His shot has really come around. In one of his workouts he hit 20 straight 3's from the corner. He seems like a great fit. Someone that can come in and play either eight or 16 or three minutes a night and help Chet and Arkansas Williams in the middle. He can help now, but can also continue to grow.” Tramel: Good information. I have no idea what the Thunder will do or even should do. At 12, I’d generally take the best player available. I do wonder if Lively might be too much like Holmgren. Tall, talented, thin. Would the Thunder be better off with a bulky big man? I don’t know. Just asking. But good scouting report on Lively. I’ll keep a lookout during the draft. The top basketball prospect in the country hit the red carpet as they arrived at Barclays Center for the 2023 NBA Draft Thursday evening. The List: No. 12 picks in NBA Draft The Thunder selects 12th in the NBA Draft on Thursday night, and OKC hopes to hit on this 12 the way it hit on No. 12 a year ago – Santa Clara’s Jalen Williams appears to be a budding star. But not all No. 12 picks are a hit. Here are the 24 picks at 12th overall from the 2000s, ranked in order of NBA career: 1. Tyrese Haliburton, Kings, 2020, Iowa State: Through three seasons, Haliburton seems a likely all-star and franchise cornerstone for the Pacers. 2. Thaddeus Young, 76ers, 2007, Georgia Tech: Still playing, after 32,573 minutes, now with Toronto. 3. Steve Adams, Thunder, 2013, Pittsburgh: Cracked the starting lineup as a rookie and has been a rock defender ever since, now in Memphis. 4. P.J. Washington, Hornets, 2019, Kentucky: Four years in, has made 219 NBA starts and had his best season, 15.7 points a game, in 2022-23. 5. Jalen Williams, Thunder, 2022, Santa Clara: Runnerup for Rookie of the Year, Williams will rise if he keeps playing like this. 6. Nick Collison, Sonics, 2003, Kansas: Mister Thunder; retired 15 years after the draft still a part of the Sonic/Thunder franchise. 7. Vladimir Radmanovic, Sonics, 2001, Serbia & Montenegro: Never a star, but power forward played 16,164 NBA minutes. 8. Miles Bridges, Hornets, 2018, Michigan State: Had a breakout season in 2021-22, averaging 20.2 points a game, but missed all of last season after a domestic-assault allegation. So who knows? 9. Taurean Prince, Jazz, 2016, Baylor: Underrated wing remains a valuable rotational player. 10. Jason Thompson, Kings, 2008, Rider: Power forward had some good seasons with Sacramento, which then could be witness protection. 11. Gerald Henderson, Bobcats, 2009, Duke: Guard had a rather short run, eight seasons, but was effective for a few years and averaged 11.2 points a game for his career. 12. Alec Burks, Jazz, 2011, Colorado: Mostly a role player through 12 NBA seasons but still has averaged 10.8 points a game. 13. Dario Saric, Magic, 2014, Croatia: Oft-injured but effective, Saric has averaged 11.0 points a game and remains in the league, late with the Thunder. 14. Luke Kennard, Pistons, 2017, Duke: 43.7-percent career 3-point shooter remains in the league and could rise up this list. 15. Trey Lyles, Jazz, 2015, Kentucky: Most famous as being traded for Donovan Mitchell, Lyles nevertheless is a solid power forward who still has some game. 16. Jeremy Lamb, Rockets, 2012, Connecticut: Most famous as being in the Rockets’ trade to the Thunder for James Harden, Lamb averaged 10.1 points over 10 NBA seasons. 17. Etan Thomas, Mavericks, 2000, Syracuse: Tulsa Washington grad played 7,084 NBA minutes. 18. Melvin Ely, Clippers, 2002, Fresno State: Big man never found an niche over 375 NBA games. 19. Hilton Armstrong, Hornets/Pelicans, 2006, Connecticut: Oklahoma City’s first draft pick – the New Orleans franchise spent the 2005-06 season in OKC – played just 3,378 NBA minutes. 20. Xavier Henry, Grizzlies, 2010, Kansas: Putnam City graduate averaged 5.7 points a game over five seasons. 21. Robert Swift, Sonics, 2004, Bakersfield (California) High School: Talented but enigmatic. Played a little on inaugural Thunder team of 2008-09. 22. Yaroslav Korolev, Clippers, 2005, CSKA Moscow: Played 168 NBA minutes. 23. Josh Primo, Spurs, 2021, Alabama: Played 1,058 NBA minutes and was cut loose after an indecent exposure allegation.