Elijah Hardy enters NCAA transfer portal; Nate Pryor commits to Huskies
Washington sophomore guard Elijah Hardy has entered the NCAA transfer portal.
While entering the transfer portal doesn’t guarantee Hardy will transfer, it does mean other teams can make contact. Travis Branham first reported the news at 247Sports.
Hardy (6-2, 170) played in 29 games this season, averaging 1.9 points, 1.1 rebounds and 1.1 assists in 9.2 minutes per game. He shot just 29.2% (19-of-65) from the field and 15.2% (5-of-33) from the 3-point line. Hardy played sparingly as a freshman in 2018-19, appearing in just 11 games.
He made his only start of his career against Stanford on Jan. 9 after point guard Quade Green was declared academically ineligible. Hardy played 31 minutes in the loss to the Cardinal, finishing with three assists, three steals and two points on 1-of-7 shooting from the field.
Hardy then came off the bench for the remainder of the season. Sophomore Jamal Bey briefly took over as the starting point guard before freshman Marcus Tsohonis started nine of the final 10 games.
Hardy played his best games down the final stretch of the season as head coach Mike Hopkins started using Tsohonis and Hardy on the floor at the same time. In UW’s final three games, Hardy averaged 7.3 points, 2.3 assists and 3.0 rebounds in 28.3 minutes on 8-of-24 shooting from the field.
“He’s always just had a great, positive attitude,” Hopkins said after Hardy helped UW sweep its final regular season games at Arizona State and Arizona. “I think that attitude has also helped our team, too. He’s always positive. He’s always energetic. That positive energy and those types of things just elevate everybody on the floor, like an electric bolt.”
Hardy scored in a career-high 11 points on 4-of-10 shooting in the Huskies’ season-ending loss to Arizona in the Pac-12 tournament.
A three-star recruit in the Class of 2018, Hardy played at Bishop O’Dowd High School in Oakand, Calif. He chose UW over offers from USC and Nevada, among others.
Nate Pryor commits to Huskies
A long road is finally leading Nate Pryor to UW.
The former West Seattle High School star originally committed to Seattle University when Cameron Dollar was the head coach, but switched to the Huskies after Hopkins was hired in 2017 and Dollar joined his staff. Pryor was unable to get academically ineligible and spent a year at prep school before heading to North Idaho College.
Pryor continued to list himself as UW commit on Twitter before announcing he was decomitting two weeks ago. But on Tuesday, Pryor reversed course again and reaffirmed his commitment to Hopkins and the Huskies.
“After speaking with Coach Hopkins I’m pleased to announce my commitment to the University of Washington Men’s Basketball Program,” Pryor wrote on Twitter. “My heart is with my city and I’m staying home. Officially a dawg!”
In two seasons at North Idaho, Pryor averaged 18.0 points in 31.8 minutes per game. He averaged averaged 18.6 points, 4.2 rebounds, and 4.7 assists in his senior season at West Seattle.
Pryor is the second local player who committed to the Huskies this offseason. Guard Erik Stevenson, a former standout at Timberline High School, announced he was transferring to UW from Wichita State on March 25.
This story was originally published April 1, 2020 at 3:12 PM.
