From the face of NIL to the Final Four, How Indy's Nijel Pack became a star in the new NCAA

When Nick Daniels first started training Nijel Pack as an eighth grader, he saw the makings of the player Pack would later become.

Pack could shoot unusually well from beyond the 3-point line, even years earlier. “He used to shoot like Larry Bird,” his father David Pack said, referring to Bird’s overhead release. “He had a high arch because he played against his brother, who is nine years older.” Daniels also saw in Pack a smart point guard who made the right decisions and played at his pace.

“A coach’s dream when it comes to being a point guard,” Daniels said.

But Daniels also saw a potential problem.

“‘Your game is going have to be louder,’” Daniels told Pack.

Daniels looked at Pack’s parents, David and Robin, and knew Nijel was not going to be a 6-5 point guard. At his size, he wanted Pack to play with more … sizzle. Flashier. Louder. A necessity if he was going to achieve his goal of playing high-major college basketball.

“I told him, ‘Coaches, at your size, are looking for a reason not to take you,’” said Daniels, skills trainer for M14Hoops. “He moved too slow for my liking. So we worked on changing speeds, picking up 94 feet on defense and developing a floater to add to his game. His game was going to have to be louder. At 6-foot and under, you have to bring it.”

Pack’s personality is hardly loud. But the former Lawrence Central star’s game, still rooted in that steady, can’t-speed-me-up pace, is shouting from the college basketball pinnacle of the Final Four this weekend in Houston as his Miami Hurricanes play UConn on Saturday night in a national semifinal. Pack was named the Most Outstanding Player of the Midwest Regional as fifth-seeded Miami navigated arguably the toughest path of any Final Four team, taking out Drake, Indiana, top-seed Houston and red-hot second-seed Texas.

“To be able to make it to the Final Four for the first time in program history is something special,” Pack said after Miami rallied from a 13-point second-half deficit to beat Texas, 88-81, in the Elite Eight on Sunday in Kansas City. “I know for me and Norchad (Omier) being transfers and this is our first time being in the NCAA tournament, this is like something unreal.”

It is real and his journey here, to Miami and the Final Four, has been anything but quiet — especially after his NIL deal became the talk of college basketball.

From a slow recruitment to high major

Pack was a seventh grader when Al Gooden, who retired last week as Lawrence Central’s basketball coach, first met him. Gooden’s assistant, D’Andre Davis Sr., had coached Pack and Davis’ son, Dre Davis, since they were together in second grade.

“I thought right away he could be a good point guard,” Gooden said. “I thought he just needed to work on his leadership. And he started to develop that going into his junior year.”

That progression really started in Pack’s sophomore year at Lawrence Central. He and Dre Davis teamed with seniors Donyell Meredith and Jaden Terry — and an improving then-junior, Jake LaRavia, among others — to help the Bears to a 16-7 record. Three of those losses came to a Warren Central team that went on to win the Class 4A state championship with a 32-0 record, though the third was a hard-fought 47-42 sectional championship game.

Pack, who averaged 11.3 points and shot 46% from the 3-point line as a sophomore, was officially on the radar. As a junior, he and Davis, a vastly-improved LaRavia and senior Wes Jordan made the Bears arguably the best team in the state in 2018-19.

Lawrence Central let a late lead get away in a crushing 60-56 loss to Warren Central in the Marion County tournament championship in mid-January. Pack scored 19 points in that game and impressed Warren Central senior David Bell, who did not easily dispense credit to opponents.

“Nijel is a phenomenal player,” Bell said of Pack. “He’s one of the best guards in the state of Indiana. You just try to stay in front of him and hope he misses.”

A week later, Lawrence Central ended Warren Central’s 46-game winning streak — the third-longest in state history — with a 54-44 win on the Warriors’ home floor. The Bears rolled over Warren Central again in the sectional championship, 67-52, to take a 22-3 record and No. 2 state ranking into the regional. But Lawrence Central ran into Ben Davis and Jalen Windham (27 points) and Dawand Jones (20 points, 10 rebounds) in the morning regional semifinal at Southport in a 75-65 loss.

Pack was clearly one of the best guards in the state as a junior, averaging 16.5 points and 4.1 assists and shooting 43% from the 3-point line. That spring he made the move to the Indy Heat grassroots program to play in the Nike EYBL circuit against the top players in the country. Pack, at that time, had several offers from mid-major programs including Rice, Indiana State, Ball State, IUPUI, Miami (Ohio), Southern Illinois, Loyola (Chicago), Bradley, Belmont, Cleveland State, Northern Kentucky, Nevada and Toledo.

“A lot of in-state programs and other high-major programs thought he was too small,” said Cathedral coach Jason Delaney, who coached Pack’s Indy Heat team. “You don’t appreciate him until you really, truly watch him. He’s a great defender and he’s a highly-efficient offensive player. We still talk about that floater that he can get off so quick. He can offset anything used against him.”

Pack, playing on a team with Davis, Jaden Ivey, Caleb Furst and another Final Four participant — Gary 21^st Century product Johnell Davis of Florida Atlantic — rose to the challenge on the EYBL circuit. In the first tournament that spring in Atlanta, he helped his team to a 4-0 record and averaged 17.2 points and 3.2 assists.

“I remember that first game we played Boo Williams and there were probably 25 coaches there,” David Pack said. “Nijel played really well and we beat them. The next morning, a 9 a.m. game against All-Ohio Red, there had to be 100 coaches there. Within 60 seconds of the game, Nijel took an elbow to the nose and it wouldn’t stop bleeding. By the time he got back in the game, there were probably 15 coaches there. It wasn’t his time, which is what I told Nijel. But Kansas State did come back.”

David Pack, until that point had talked with Nijel about going to a mid-major school where he could play a major role on a team with coaches who were fully invested in him. But after Nijel proved himself against the top competition in the country on the EYBL circuit, his opinion changed — if it was the right program.

“Bruce Weber (then the coach at Kansas State) had done a great job previously with smaller guards,” David Pack said. “I told Nijel, ‘If this is the going to be the right fit, make the decision to commit and don’t worry about the other scholarships.’”

Butler offered in May of 2019. Other high-major programs, like Iowa and Northwestern, were interested but did not offer. Pack, at the time, said he understood.

“They probably want to see more games like I played in Atlanta,” he said. “They want to make sure they are getting the right person. It’s a business. They want to make sure the money they invest in me for a scholarship is worth it.”

In June, during a visit to Kansas State, he decided to commit Chris Lowery, an Evansville native on Bruce Weber’s staff at the time, also played a key role. Pack took official visits to Rice and Belmont prior to his commitment to the Big 12 program. Pack was rated a three-star guard and the No. 170 player nationally in the class on the 247Sports composite list.

With his commitment locked in, Pack and Davis teamed as seniors to lead Lawrence Central to a 22-0 record against every team except rival Lawrence North. Unfortunately for the Bears, there were three of those meetings against the Wildcats, including a 68-57 loss in the first round of Sectional 10 at Lawrence Central in 2020.

The pandemic ended the season for everyone a week later and Pack and the rest of the 2020 Indiana All-Stars, which included teammate Davis and Gary 21^st Century’s Davis, did not get a chance to play together in June. Pack finished his high school career with 1,085 points and 266 assists and headed off to Manhattan, Kan.

“When I was trying to get him recruited, a lot of coaches would ask, ‘Will he be able to guard his position?’” D'Andre Davis said. “I explained, ‘He’s fast as lightning. He can guard anyone.’ But especially in the Big Ten and ACC, it’s all about the size and matchups. They thought teams would take advantage of him. Now they see that’s not the case. A lot of schools passed on him that had a chance to get him.”

College success and face of NIL

All Pack needed was an opportunity. At Kansas State, he won the starting point guard position as a freshman and averaged a team-high 12.7 points and 3.8 assists per game, shooting 41% from the 3-point line. He started all 24 games when healthy.

It was a successful season personally, though Kansas State was just 9-20 and finished ninth in the 10-team Big 12. The following season was better as the Wildcats finished 14-17 and much better for Pack, who was named the Big 12’s Most Improved Player and first-team all-conference as he averaged a team-high 17.4 points, 3.8 rebounds and 2.2 assists on 43.6% shooting from the 3-point line.

Weber resigned after his 10^th season at Kansas State, and Pack was immediately one of the most highly-sought transfers in the country in the spring of 2022.

“I probably talked to 25 coaches,” David Pack said. “I probably talked to Gonzaga 15 times. Arizona. Duke. The No. 1 thing we were looking for is if he was going to be able to play point guard about 60% of the time.”

David Pack, the CEO of Trinity Financial Consulting, and his wife Robin helped Nijel put together a seven-part plan on what he was looking for in his next stop. The list David sent to college coaches of goals:

● Coach stability, established cultural and family environment;

● Point guard fit — give him the confidence to run and lead the team. Average at least 30 minutes per game. Improve his assist numbers (minimum of 5 per game) plus still stay aggressive with scoring — 17 to 20;

● Strength of roster with wings and bigs;

● Top 20 team in country;

● Compete for conference championships and Final Four appearance;

● Help him get better to compete for 1st team All-American and player of year in your conference;

● NIL Opportunities

On April 21, Pack let Miami coach Jim Larranaga know he was ready to commit. It would not become public, though, until two days later. In fact, it became very public two days later, when LifeWallet owner John Ruiz announced on Twitter that Pack had agreed to a two-year NIL deal for $400,000 per year and a car.

Within minutes on an April Saturday afternoon, the unassuming, underrated, hard-working kid from Indianapolis became the face of NIL. Pack later said he was unaware the details of his deal were going to become public. But he saw the silver lining, too.

“No, I didn’t know it was going to become public,” Pack said in January on ACC Radio in an interview with Chris Spatola. “Obviously, I saw it kind of how everyone else did over social media. Am I mad? No. Am I upset it happened? Yeah, but obviously it brought a lot of exposure to my name and to John’s name. There’s nothing I can do about it. It’s obviously in the past now.

“But it’s just getting me prepared. I see it as a blessing. It’s getting me prepared for the next level. Obviously when you get to the next level, people are going to know how much money you make and there is a certain expectation of you, especially when they know how much money you’re making. It’s getting me prepared for what I’m going to see if God so blesses me to make it to the next level.”

David Pack said the initial backlash to the deal was “tough” and, at least partially, unexpected. But he saw the upside, too, beyond the income Nijel was able to earn.

“From last April to now, my son has grown a lot,” David said. “… In the big picture, it helped so many student-athletes. All of a sudden, that pay scale got increased. If you go back and look at the number beforehand and the number after, the value increased. … Nijel had to be the one to shoulder a lot of responsibility, but we talked about how he had a village around him supporting him and he’d come out stronger on the other side of it. But (the negative attention) was tough for the first nine or 10 months.”

Larranaga, Pack’s coach, said last week before Miami’s Midwest Regional championship against Texas that he believes all NIL deals should be made public.

“I think everybody should be transparent,” Larranaga said. “Why is it hidden behind the curtain? Why? You can go on a website and check out anybody’s salary in the NBA.

“There are a lot of schools that do the same thing we do. We just don’t know about it because it’s not public knowledge. Why not? Why are we afraid of sharing that information?”

David Pack dismisses the idea that his son went to Miami “just for the money.”

“He wasn’t going to just go somewhere and skip all those other things we had on the list,” Pack said.

The road leads to the Final Four

The decision to transfer to Miami could not have worked out any better for Pack.

Playing on one of the most talented offensive teams in the country with ACC Player of the Year Isaiah Wong, 6-6 guard Jordan Miller (who played his last two seasons at Miami after three at George Mason), 6-7 Arkansas State transfer Norchad Omier (last year’s Sun Belt Player of the Year) and 6-5 guard Wooga Poplar, Pack thrived.

Miami started 13-1 and shared the ACC regular-season championship with Virginia. Pack is averaging 13.8 points and 2.4 assists per game for the 29-7 Hurricanes, shooting 40.2% from the 3-point line.

“I’m not surprised at all,” D’Andre Davis said. “I knew what he was capable of doing if he had the chance. The one thing I’m most proud of is how he’s handled adversity with everything he had to go through (with the publicity of the NIL deal). That’s a lot of pressure and adversity when people are talking about you. I’m really proud of how he’s handled all of that.”

David Pack often talked to Nijel when he was dealing with frustration about his recruitment, telling him, “It’s not your time yet.” Now that it is his time, he is taking full advantage.

“I will say to any kid, ‘If you pout and cry about it, you are going to fall on your face,’” David said. “That was always the message for him. Nijel always kept his demeanor to be a good teammate and continue to work and wait until your time comes. The message was always, ‘Hey son, keep working.’”

Daniels, who remains close to Nijel and works with him regularly, compared David Pack to a point guard in life “who can see two or three plays ahead.”

“Nijel has benefitted from some really good coaching in his life and in basketball from coach Gooden and coach Davis and coach Delaney,” Daniels said. “I think that’s why he always seems to excel in pressure situations. That’s where he’s at his best.”

Pack may never be the loudest person in the room. But his game is roaring.

Call Star reporter Kyle Neddenriep at (317) 444-6649.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Nijel Pack has gone from the face of NIL to the Final Four with Miami