Cincinnati guard Mike Saunders reacts after being called for a foul during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game against Houston, Sunday, Feb. 21, 2021, in Houston.Craig Smith received a commitment out of the NCAA Transfer Portal late Saturday afternoon from University of Cincinnati point guard Mike Saunders Jr.
Taken aback by that request, Saunders Jr. agreed to it, so Smith hopped a flight from Salt Lake City later that day. By 9:30 p.m., Smith was at the Saunders home, meeting with Saunders Jr., his father, Michael, and his mother, Nicole. As Saunders Jr. remembers it, that meeting went about two hours, which means Smith was out of there before midnight.
Instead, Smith on Saturday crossed off a major to-do item from his offseason checklist, upgrading his point guard spot. Morris and Saunders Jr. go back to at least 2016, when the former was an assistant at Northern Kentucky and the latter was an eighth-grader, still a season away from debuting at Indiana high school power Lawrence North. When John Brannen got the Cincinnati job in April 2019, he hired Morris as an assistant. Saunders Jr. committed to the Bearcats in June of that year.
“He recruited me when he was at Utah State and he liked my game then, but he said he always kept an eye on me since that time,” Saunders Jr. said. “I already know both of them . They genuinely care, they pay attention, they know my game. I trust them.”