{"id":68884,"date":"2025-08-09T01:06:07","date_gmt":"2025-08-09T01:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/68884\/"},"modified":"2025-08-09T01:06:07","modified_gmt":"2025-08-09T01:06:07","slug":"why-jt-rock-is-new-mexicos-most-important-team-transfer-for-2025-26","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/68884\/","title":{"rendered":"Why JT Rock is New Mexico\u2019s most important team transfer for 2025-26"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6m\">The current climate with NIL and the transfer portal can really decimate the good feelings in a program. Last season, New Mexico was phenomenal, winning the MWC regular season title during a 27-8 season that included an upset win in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. Richard Pitino\u2019s work really came to fruition, but he and the rest of the program are now gone. Pitino took the Xavier head coaching job in the offseason, led a mass exodus from the roster, and left the program in the hands of Eric Olen.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6p\">New Mexico\u2019s new head coach won 30 games at UC San Diego in his own historic season last year but faces a brand new challenge with these Lobos in the MWC. He won\u2019t have Donovan Dent, Nelly Junior Joseph and the other stars that made last season truly special in Albuquerque, leaving Olen and his new staff into a complete rebuild quickly this offseason.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6s\">New Mexico has grabbed talent from all sorts of places, getting a slew of freshmen alongside numerous transfers. Antonio Chol joins the frontcourt after limited run at Rutgers while <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sports-reference.com\/cbb\/players\/kevin-patton-jr-1.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Kevin Patton<\/a> Jr. could become the team\u2019s best player after his recent work with San Diego and USC. Former Utah State guard Deyton Albury might be the one running the point while Olen took Chris Howell with him from UC San Diego.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-3\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6v\">Identifying the most important transfer is difficult for a program undergoing such a reload, but we\u2019re honing in on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sports-reference.com\/cbb\/players\/jt-rock-1.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">JT Rock<\/a> for a number of reasons here. A 7-1 center originally out of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Rock was a 4-star prospect who landed at Iowa State back in 2023. Frankly, we don\u2019t know what to expect from him since he simply hasn\u2019t been on the court. He redshirted his first season with the Cyclones and played just 21 minutes last year, with 6 points and 6 rebounds.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-4\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6y\">Rock was far down the depth chart for a very talented Iowa State program but slides into an important role for the Lobos. His size and ability was on display before his collegiate career and New Mexico finally gets him an opportunity to showcase that potential. He\u2019ll likely take up a major role in this frontcourt and projects as a great rebounder and shotblocker, something Olen\u2019s team will certainly need.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-5\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-secondary my-f-1\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"71\">The initial expectation is not that Rock will become New Mexico\u2019s best player this season, but there\u2019s plenty of new talent in the backcourt. There aren\u2019t other 7-footers they can just plug in under the basket and will need productivity from him in these coming months. Again, it\u2019s been two full years since Rock was a full-time player after riding the bench in Ames; can he develop into a major asset in the Mountain West?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The current climate with NIL and the transfer portal can really decimate the good feelings in a program.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68885,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[402,398,400,401,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-68884","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ncaa-basketball","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-ncaa","10":"tag-ncaa-basketball","11":"tag-ncaabasketball","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68884\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}