Freshman Orientation :: Alex Pirog

Call it the Jim Valvano Postulate -- that any good day, any really, really, good day, involves time given to thought, time spent laughing and allowing your emotions to move you to tears, the unmatched trinity of a day lived to its fullest -- as applied to college basketball recruiting.

Alex Pirog was two-thirds of the way there as she toured the campuses of two Mountain West Conference schools. They had her laughing, as coaches try to do on official visits, keeping things light, joyful, and they certainly had her in thought, picturing herself going to school, wearing the uniform.

But neither visit checked the final box. She liked them well enough, but she wasn't moved. She wasn't overcome. She didn't get the feeling that people told her would hit her when she knew, when she just knew, that she had found the one, the one that removed all doubts.

"They were good. No red flags," says her dad, Mike, who was a college basketball player himself, at least briefly.

He tried to walk on at Northern Colorado. When that didn't work out, he used a connection to join the team at Mid Plains Community College in North Platte, Neb., for a year. And that was enough, so he finished school at Colorado State, where he met Kim, and three-plus decades later, here we are.

They weren't novices to the modern recruiting process when their daughter entered that world, not after their first of two children, Zach, sprung up to 6-feet-11 and had college coaches trying to figure out how to pronounce Pirog correctly. (It's pah-RAWG.)

They went with him on a recruiting visit to Columbia, were won over by coach Kyle Smith, but Zach couldn't get past the thinking part, the thought of moving from Highlands Ranch, Colo., to The City That Never Sleeps. Holy Cross, in Massachusetts, was interested but had no chance either.

"I was a homebody. I thought New York City was too far away," he says. "Now that I'm older and more mature than I was at 18, I think it would have been cool, but at 18 I think I would have lost my mind living there."

He landed at Nebraska-Omaha, spent two years as a Maverick before deciding to look elsewhere. Smith, today the head coach at Washington State, had moved on himself, to San Francisco. When he heard Pirog was on the market, he reached out, thinking the new location might fit him better.

It would have but he had no scholarships available to offer. So, he did the next best thing: He connected Pirog with Rick Croy, the head coach at California Baptist.

The two coaches had worked together at Saint Mary's, and now Croy was the head of a program that was transitioning from Division II to Division I and wouldn't landing a 6-foot-11 center be just the boon CBU could use to make the move just a little bit easier?

Pirog sat out the 2017-18 season, then blocked 100 shots the next two years as the Lancers won a combined 37 games. The path to find his college home wasn't straight and narrow, but it was the final destination that mattered more than the ease of the route taken.

"I never had that 100 percent feeling. I loved Columbia, but it was too far away. Omaha was closer, but it was all kind of wishy-washy for me," he says. "Once I was able to go to CBU, with that coaching staff, everything felt like this was where I was supposed to be this whole time.

"It's all part of the journey. If you end up at the right spot at the end, that's all that matters."

He's seven years older than his sister, so he was able to pass down his accumulated, acquired wisdom, right at a time that she was putting herself on the recruiting radar. Six-foot-two post players in the women's game tend to do that.

"Every place you visit, they are going to pull out all the stops, because if you're at the point where you're on a visit, they want you," he told her. "They are going to do all the cool stuff.

"At the end of the day, it has to feel right. That's what she had to go off of. At the end of the day, what feels like a second home? Because that's going to be home for four years. She definitely took that to heart."

She was halfway through her official visits – two down, Montana and Seton Hall to go – and that feeling had yet to wash over her. Maybe it never would. Or maybe it already had and it wasn't quite what she was expecting.

So, when she entered her room at the DoubleTree in Missoula on Sept. 10 last year and couldn't hold back the tears, Mike and Kim didn't quite know what to think.

Was she disappointed she wasn't feeling it once again? Had someone said something that had turned her off, with another day of the visit still to go? They looked at each other and thought, uh-oh, what's going on?

It wasn't anything like that. She had been moved to tears in a good way. She couldn't contain her emotions. They flowed out. "She says, this is where I want to go," recalls Mike. "We felt it too." She said she wanted to commit. He told her to be patient, to give it time, to at least let the next day play out.

But what's a girl supposed to think when the coaching staff is at the airport, welcoming her to town like she was visiting royalty? When she meets the school's president on the first day of her official visit, the ultra-cool Seth Bodnar? Who's going to say no to that?

The family spent that first afternoon at South Campus Stadium, watching the Montana soccer team dismantle Texas Southern 6-0. She hung out with the players, Mike and Kim sat and visited with the coaches.

Then, a stopover at the DoubleTree before dinner. That's when the tears came. She knew what she wanted. It was over.

"Each visit, I was like, wow, this is really cool. I liked it and thought I could see myself there, but something was a little off," she says. "It didn't feel like home. That was the problem. Everyone talks about that feeling when you step foot on campus. I didn't think that was going to happen for me.

"I went through the other two schools and didn't feel that feeling. Here, I felt that. I finally understood what everyone means when they say that. The first two provided the basis, then coming here blew me away. It was perfect that Montana was last."

She took that decision, a secret that belonged to only the Pirogs, with her into Day 2 of her visit. The coaches continued doing their thing but they wouldn't have needed to. She was already a Lady Griz in her heart, even if she hadn't yet given a verbal commitment.

"We went to practice, loved what we saw," says Mike. "The coaching staff is unbelievable, so down to earth. You can tell (head coach Brian Holsinger) is a teacher. Then we met individually with Brian. He did an unbelievable job. We were blown away."

What went on in the coach's office, the methods he uses to try to seal the deal, will remain his secret. What we can report is that he closed with his final pitch. He wanted the chance to coach Alex Pirog. Well, that's great, coach, because I want to be Lady Griz, she said.

Wait, he asked, are you committing right now? Yes! "And everybody started crying. It was awesome. It was so cool," says Mike, who hit the Valvano trifecta that day. He was in the zone, so he had no issues racing over to the UM bookstore to load up on Griz gear, some $300 worth. "It was awesome."

As straightforward as the story appears, it wasn't. Sure, Montana was the first school to make an offer to Pirog, but it came from the former staff, one that was operating under an interim tag. If they weren't retained after the 2020-21 season, the offer would exit the building with them.

"Take the offer for what it is," father told daughter. "We just didn't know. Wait and see what pans out after the season."

What panned out was Holsinger was hired from Oregon State in April 2021 and he needed to get his bearings after working at the Power 5 level since 2007.

"I was just trying to figure out the lay of the land and what we needed," he says. He learned of Pirog and the offer that had been made. He took it all into consideration but made no promises.

"Brian was very pragmatic," Mike says. "He told us, I can't take someone's word for it. I have to get to know you guys. I have to see her play. He was upfront with us. I had to commend him for that. He wants the right people, the right fit."

Even before any official visits had taken place, Pirog was leaning toward Montana and everything about it: the location, the city, the campus, the program and its history. Its potential.

"One of the conversations we had with Alex is, do you want to play where you have a chance to get to the NCAA tournament? I think Montana, out of all her offers, was definitely the best chance for that happening," says Mike.

"Do you want to play in front of 150 people, 300 people, or do you want to play in front of 2,500 or 3,000?"

Then he tells this story: Lady Griz assistant coach Nate Harris made a recruiting call, just to check in. It happened to coincide with the Pirogs watching "The House That Rob Built," the documentary detailing how former Lady Griz coach Robin Selvig built Montana into a powerhouse.

"Brian's vision is that he wants to get the Lady Griz back to when Rob was coaching," says Mike. "That's another level but that's where he wants to get it."

But before that could become reality for a program with Pirog on the roster, she had to convince another Lady Griz coach, through her play on the court, that she was worthy of a spot on his team.

The summer before her senior year, she was in Indianapolis with her team from the Colorado Basketball Club. She looked over and saw Holsinger, who would be evaluating her in person for the first time. And don't think that doesn't mess with a girl. "I was full of nerves," she says.

She had a dream. He was the gatekeeper, the holder of the key.

Funny thing: they had both been working the back channels, learning about the other. He reached out to Caryn Jarocki, who was both the Director of Coaching at the Colorado Basketball Club and Pirog's coach at Highlands Ranch High.

And the Pirogs had been doing their own investigating as well. Raegan Beers, who played at Valor Christian, which is across University Boulevard from Highlands Ranch High, is now a freshman at Oregon State. She was recruited to the Beavers by Holsinger.

"We knew (the Beers) family from playing against them," Alex says. "I got to hear about him from her and her parents, and they just had great things to say."

In last week's Freshman Orientation, Holsinger admitted he wasn't sold on Libby Stump at first, after being told about her by Tree of Hope coach Mo Hines. A 5-foot-8 shooting guard? At the Division I level? Then he saw her and he knew he had to have her. She did too many things too well to ignore.

He was skeptical about Pirog as well.

Then he started looking into her, how she had battled so well against Beers, a fellow 6-foot-2 post player who would be named a McDonald's All-American as a senior.

How Pirog hadn't backed down when she had to go up against Lauren Betts, from Grandview High, in the Class 5A state tournament semifinals her senior year. The same Betts who is a freshman at Stanford, who is 6-foot-7, who was named the WBCA High School Player of the Year last spring.

"My parents and everyone after the game were laughing. They said it was the first time I looked short," she says. "They are both great players, tough competitors. I think it made me better going up against them."

"She definitely held her own," says Jarocki. "She's a tough kid." Made that way by a no-nonsense, old-school coach who founded the Colorado Basketball Club in 2010 to give kids in Highlands Ranch a local option for club basketball.

"We felt we could do something better for our Highlands Ranch kids and for other kids who weren't getting a fair shake in some of the other clubs," she says.

They started small, with three teams. Now it has teams at all age levels, from fifth grade to high school. It gave Pirog a double dose of Jarocki, on both high school and club teams, and she's better because of it.

"Coach J is very, very tough. Being able to accept that type of coaching and learn and grow is a testament to Coach J and to Alex," says Holsinger. "She gets her kids to play the right way. She teaches the right way. She prepares her players for college as good as most.

"When you get to college and the intensity rolls up, Alex is like, I'm used to this. She's used to being held to a high standard."

Pirog says, "She's sent a lot of girls beyond high school to play. She definitely has an old-school way about her coaching, but it works. She knows how to push you to your limits and make you the best you can be."

Pirog was a junior varsity player as a freshman at Highlands Ranch, then made her move as a sophomore, when everything started coming together, her coordination after being a head above her classmates since elementary school and Jarocki's coaching.

"She sort of grew into her body a little more and became more comfortable and some of the things we had put into her head started to come out on the court," Jarocki says. "She put both of them together, then worked really hard to do it."

Schools started reaching out, Jarocki stepped in to help her player navigate it all, and Pirog followed through, step by step.

"She was extremely good at communicating with me and probably one of the top kids for listening to us on what you should do to get recruited and what kind of work you have to do," Jarocki says.

"Most kids think, oh, I'm really good, people will just come and see me and I'll get recruited, I'll get 25 offers. All I have to do is go play. That's not really true unless you're one of the top 10 kids in the country. She did everything I asked her by the book."

Pirog told Jarocki about Montana, the first program to offer her. The coach advised her to thank them and then sit on it while seeing how the coaching situation played out.

"At least she had time to watch what was going to happen, which is helpful versus kids who have already committed," Jarocki says. "Then the coaching staff changes and they're like, now what?

"Brian wanted to see her himself, which I felt was fair. Once he saw her play, he called me and said we definitely want her. That was affirming, for her as well. He wants me to go there, not just honoring what someone else (offered)."

It was Zach's size and defense that landed him a college opportunity. His sister too, just as their dad always told them.

"If you can play defense, you'll be able to play in college," he says. "It helps being on the taller side of things. They've embraced their role.

"Both Zach and Alex growing up were kind of like deer on a frozen lake because they were so tall. When it came together, they had a knack for playing defense and the timing to block shots."

When COVID arrived, Zach returned home to wait it out while finishing his degree from a distance. He used the opportunity and teach his sister everything he'd learned over the years, and a close relationship became even tighter.

"He's my best friend," she says. "He taught me a lot of post moves. He helped me work on my range a little bit, ball screens, defensive positioning, things he thought would help me in college."

Her game grew just a little bit more, and that led to an offer from Montana, which was put on hold until she had received an offer once again from Holsinger.

"I loved two things. One, she's an awesome kid. She brings a lightness. She's smiling and laughing all the time. That's a great quality," he says.

"Defensively she is going to be an impact for us right away. She's physical, she's tall, she's been well-taught. She's gone up against elite post players and really held her own if not guarding them as well as anybody. That part of her game is really high level.

"The defense combined with a willingness to be coached and the willingness to get better and the kind of teammate she is? I feel like we can develop her on the offensive end and help her be a really good player at this level. There is no question she is going to be a really good player for the Lady Griz."

That feeling that you've found the perfect landing spot, a second home, an extension of your family? It's something Mike Pirog never got to experience as a college athlete. Zach Pirog did, but it took him two tries.

Alex? Nailed it on try No. 1.

"It's perfect. I don't know how else to say it. Alex loves it there," says her dad. "With Zach, it was a happy time, but looking back he was maybe 80 percent in going to Omaha. Alex is 100 percent, all the way. Even when we talk to her now, she loves it there."

It's enough to bring a tear to a father's eye. Jim Valvano would approve.

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