Inside The Huskies

Former Husky Point Guard Nate Pryor Finds Another New School

The Seattle playmaker will play for his fourth college basketball program.

Dan Raley

In this story:

For Nate Pryor, it's have basketball, will travel.

The former University of Washington point guard from West Seattle has joined yet another college basketball program — his fourth — after recently agreeing to play for NAIA Eastern Oregon. 

It probably wasn't quite what he envisioned when he emerged as this promising player from Seattle's high school basketball ranks four years ago.

After committing to the UW but not getting in to school, the 6-foot-3 Pryor spent two seasons playing for North Idaho College in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. He averaged 16.8 and 18.9 points per game for the two-year school. 

Pryor next headed home to play for the Huskies, but joined Mike Hopkins' team at the worst possible time and shared in a horrendous 5-21 season. He basically got one chance to show what he could do and started two of the 16 games he appeared in. He averaged 4.1 points per game, with a high of 15 against Colorado. And he left.

Pryor resurfaced at New Mexico State, which enjoyed a 27-7 season and qualified for the NCAA tournament, where it beat Connecticut and lost to Arkansas. 

Battling injuries and illness all season, Pryor appeared in 21 games and started six, averaging 2.9 points per game. The highlight of his stay with the Aggies was hitting a last-second shot to beat rival New Mexico 78-76 in the Pit in Albuquerque in front of a full house.

He left New Mexico State when his coach, Chris Jans, took a new job at Mississippi State.

So now Pryor heads to Eastern Oregon in La Grange, joining an 18-13 Mountaineers team that's a few levels below Washington and New Mexico State.

Pryor was one of six players who transferred out of the UW following the disastrous. He's one of three who have bounced around from school to school.

Guard Erik Stevenson is on his fourth team after beginning his career at Wichita State, joining the UW, moving to South Carolina and winding up at West Virginia.

Fellow guard Marcus Tsohonis went from the Huskies to Virginia Commonwealth and now Long Beach State.

Of the other other three, guard RaeQuan Battle appears content at Montana State, forward J'Raan Brooks remains at UC San Diego after sitting out last season with a knee injury and forward Hameir Wright used up his eligibility at North Texas.

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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