Former UNM Lobo Donovan Dent announces 'homecoming' transfer to UCLA

Overlooked in his own backyard no more.

Donovan Dent, who was chosen as the best player in California in 2022, his senior year at Corona Centennial High School, is heading home to play his final year of college basketball for UCLA — which didn’t offer him a scholarship out of high school.

The 6-foot-2 point guard just completed one of the best individual seasons in UNM Lobos history, winning Mountain West Player of the Year and becoming the first player in the league’s history to average better than 20 points and six assists for the season.

Dent announced he was entering the NCAA’s transfer portal on Tuesday morning before now former Lobo coach Richard Pitino was offered and accepted the head coaching position at Xavier University. Dent was rated the No. 1 transfer in college basketball by ESPN this week.

Late Friday, Dent posted on Instagram the word “Homecoming” next to one blue heart and one gold heart, UCLA’s colors under a photoshopped image of him wearing a Bruins No. 2 uniform.

Dent finished his three-season UNM career having played in 104 games, starting 72 and scoring 1,400 points (17th all time at UNM), 493 assists (seventh all-time) and 131 steals (16th all-time).

In his junior season, he scored 715 points (fourth most in a season at UNM), averaged 20.4 points (13th), had 224 assists (second) and averaged 6.4 assists. Also this past season, he scored 17 points and dished out eight assists in a wire-to-wire win over UCLA on Nov. 8 in Henderson, Nevada.

Multiple reports, though none verified by Dent himself, have indicated he will receive around $3 million in NIL compensation. Such figures do not always indicate cash value. He was also considering a similar financial offer to transfer to Kentucky.

Other transfers: Thursday, Lobo guard Braden Appelhans entered the transfer portal but made clear he may stay in Albuquerque depending on the next coach.

Friday, junior wing Filip Borovicanin entered the transfer portal.

They join scholarship players Dent, Tru Washington and Quinton Webb, as well as walk-ons Dylan Chavez and Shane Douma-Sanchez in the portal.

As of Friday, the UNM scholarship players with eligibility remaining still on the roster are freshmen Jovan Milicevic, Kayde Dotson and Daniel Thomas, who redshirted this season and still has four years of playing eligibility remaining, and sophomore Ibrahima Sacko.

The transfer portal closes on April 22. Any player who wants to transfer and be eligible to play next season at a new school must be in the portal by that time. Schools do not have to sign players in the portal by that date and any Lobo in the portal by then can still return.

Xavier isn’t getting ‘em all: Earlier this week, the entire UNM coaching staff accepted positions at Xavier, intending to follow Pitino there. Friday, there was a change.

Dave Pilipovich, the former Air Force head coach who was on staff at UNM under both Paul Weir and Pitino with a year coaching the San Antonio Spurs G-League team in between, will not be going to Xavier after all, instead taking an assistant coaching position at Colorado State for newly named head coach Ali Farokhmanesh, the CSU assistant promoted to head coach on Wednesday after the departure of Niko Medved to Minnesota.

Former Musketeers player and assistant Dante Jackson will take Pilipovich’s place on Pitino’s staff.

Jackson’s first assistant coaching job was at Air Force, under Pilipovich.