Former Kansas State basketball great Jacob Pullen thinks his career scoring record is safe

MANHATTAN — When Jacob Pullen left Manhattan in 2011 as Kansas State basketball’s all-time leading scorer, he had no idea that the record would still stand more than a dozen years later.

But times change, and now he’s not sure it will ever be touched.

“Not with the transfer portal,” said Pullen, who was back on campus over the weekend for induction into the Kansas State Athletics Hall of Fame.

Indeed, the transfer portal, not to mention the money available for Name, Image and Likeness (NIL), have turned much of college athletics into a free agent market, where players are quick to sell their services to the highest bidder.

Pullen, on the other hand, stayed four years at K-State, amassing 2,132 points from 2007-11. He averaged 15.8 points for his career and finished 17 points ahead of Mike Evans (1974-78), another four-year star.

Pullen did see an early potential threat to the record in Marcus Foster, who put up big numbers for two years, but then transferred to Creighton in 2015. Same with Nijel Pack, one of the first to cash in on NIL with a big payday from Miami at the end of his 2021-22 sophomore season.

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Former Kansas State star Jacob Pullen (0) looks for an opening against Team Colorado while playing for Purple Reign this summer in The Basketball Tournament at Wichita State’s Koch Arena.

“As a freshman, I only averaged like 10 points, nine points (9.7), but I played with good players, so I didn’t get right into it,” Pullen said. “Marcus got right into it, and then when Nijel first got here, man, that dude could score.

“But this transfer portal, I might have this record for 100 years. The loyalty thing is not the same.”

Interestingly enough, Pullen’s K-State career could have ended after just one season, though the portal and NIL had nothing to do with it. Instead, it was his tumultuous…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/former-kansas-state-basketball-great-183500523.html

Author : The Topeka Capital-Journal

Publish date : 2024-08-31 18:35:00

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