Five-star USC quarterback commitment Julian Lewis of Carrollton (Ga.) woke up in Colorado on Sunday morning to the news that five-star defensive lineman Justus Terry had flipped his commitment from Georgia to USC. Later in the day, top-ranked EDGE Isaiah Gibson, who had been viewed a heavy UGA lean, announced his commitment to the Trojans as well. 

“I was surprised,” Lewis said. “I’m just getting to know the guys in 2025 that play defense because they played in a different classification than me as well. So even though they’re in GA we didn’t know each other. We’ve said what’s up but that about it. Coach Riley made a crazy d-line coach hire and now all the guys want to play for him.

“So it’s exciting to see for sure because that’s kind of what everyone talks about is SC can’t play defense. So if they can get national recruits on both sides of the ball, it can change that narrative.” 

The gift from Nelson’s dad, Nels, was a bag of Wild Dutchman sunflower seeds.

“They’re baked in salt and sugar, instead of too salty,” Nels said Friday. “You can eat them for hours without getting thirsty.”

In some ways, Grant Nelson is the picture of modern college basketball – a mid-major transfer who found a new, more prestigious school through the portal as he tried to best position himself for the pros.

But the 6-foot-11 kid from North Dakota with messy hair and a mustache is a throwback to a simpler and more wholesome past.

Los Angeles’ Crypto.com Arena was where Nelson broke out with a 24-point, 12-rebound and five-block game against the No. 1-seeded Tar Heels, delivering on the hype that had him slotted as the No. 3 overall transfer last cycle. His hometown of Devils Lake, population 7,000 and situated halfway between Fargo and the Canadian border, is where Nelson is rooted.

The roots are deep. Grant is one of Nels and Meg Nelson’s five children, and from previous marriages the couple has five other children. When you have 10 children to raise, self-sufficiency is a trait taught early.

“I looked down at them when they were two or three years old and said, ‘You’ve got to learn how to dress yourself and feed yourself, or you’re gonna die,'” Nels recalled. “And they looked up at me and said, ‘OK, Dad.'”

In this case, Dad was a recovering alcoholic who carried his kids in bassinets to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings. But Nels, who has been sober for almost 30 years, believed that helped shape his children’s upbringing.­­

“They grew up with people swearing and cussing, and all that,” he said. “But they took God serious — good stuff serious, because they’ve seen the bad.”

Part of taking the good stuff seriously meant never telling a lie – something Nels can hardly remember any of his kids doing.

“Being in recovery is so important because in our life, basically, if we’re not 100 percent honest, it can affect our behavior, which would be bad,” he said. “The kids learned honesty at a young age. Then their mother had great honesty.

“They’re just good souls.”

That’s where honor enters the equation for the Nelson family. It’s a word Nels holds in high regard, and it transcends whether you’re from where Nelson got his start in Devils Lake or where he starred this week in the shadow of the Hollywood sign.

“I always taught my kids that I don’t care if it’s the Pope or somebody who goofed up – we call them on it,” Nels said. “I don’t think the money, prestige is as big of a deal to my kids as it is to however-many percent of other people.

“We got some very good, wealthy friends that are just most honorable. If they’re not honorable, we don’t really hang with them. It’s that simple.”

Grant’s brother Leif, now a javelin thrower at nearby USC, once was “pissed off for days” when Nels’ sister “conned him into swearing by saying a Norwegian’s name.”

The kids “took it serious to be honorable,” Nels stressed.

“There’s a difference between kids that have God in-between them and the world,” Nels said. “We’re blessed our kids got that.”

When Grant entered the NCAA transfer portal last spring after three seasons at North Dakota State, he explored the NBA draft process before withdrawing and narrowing his choices to Alabama and Arkansas.

In June, Nelson visited Alabama and met coach Nate Oats – the son of a Bible professor at a Baptist university in Wisconsin. The younger Oats, who has a deep knowledge of scripture, connected with Grant and Nels on that topic.

“He builds off a Bible verse some practices. That’s a blessing,” Nels said. “We visited the schools and heard from all the different schools. Nate Oats stood out immensely as an honorable man. His staff, everyone around him kept saying how honorable he was.”

Nelson’s decision was made as soon as his visit ended.

“It was hands-down, when we were getting on the plane, Grant just looked at me and said where he was going,” Nels recalled Friday. “He said it’s not about money. It’s about coaches. And that’s what we did.”

The administrative transfer process extended a few weeks before Nelson announced his decision, but Tuscaloosa would be his home for another season of college basketball.

That doesn’t mean it was always smooth sailing. Nelson, who has NBA potential because of his length and athleticism, needed to prove he was a better shooter. He showed flashes of that ability this season but entered the NCAA tournament stuck around his 27-percent three-point rate from last season. Turnovers were issues for Nelson at times when he was used as a ball handler on the perimeter, and fouls plagued him when he played in the paint.

Some of those problems persisted through sub-par games in the first and second rounds of the NCAA tournament.

“I feel like I didn’t perform how I should have,” Nelson said Friday. “I feel like I let my teammates down.”

But that only set the stage for Thursday night, when Nelson played the game of his life against North Carolina. He scored 15 points in the final 7:05, powering a pair of 7-0 runs that kept the Tar Heels at bay. That included Nelson making a three-pointer, finishing the game 2-of-2 from beyond the arc. Nelson also blocked three shots in the final two minutes, including the final desperation heave from North Carolina’s Harrison Ingram.

“Grant Nelson looks more comfortable,” said Clemson coach Brad Brownell, whose Tigers beat Alabama in November and will meet the Tide again Saturday in the Elite Eight. “Obviously, the way he played in the last 10 minutes of the game [against North Carolina] was remarkable. Probably made himself a lot of money.”

When a reporter asked Nelson after the game about people watching and wondering who he was, Oats interjected.

“I don’t think they’re asking that anymore,” Oats said. “Maybe in the middle of the game, but by now they shouldn’t be asking anymore.”

Nelson’s big family is now flocking to Los Angeles. More friends and family will arrive in time for Saturday’s Elite Eight game.

With a win, Alabama would make the school’s first-ever Final Four appearance. The Tide would play next Saturday in Phoenix, a place that has special meaning for the Nelson family. Earlier in his life, Nels had spent almost a decade in Arizona and became sober there.

Years later, Nels wanted to go back to Arizona with his family. They bought a modest house about an hour east of Phoenix in the shadow of the Superstition Mountains.

“My boys and my wife and my family and the girls all built the guest house that we stay in down there,” he said. “Them guys have helped pour the concrete, build the walls, do the stuff. That was part of our vacations – we would go down there and build.”

And when Grant was dealing with the stresses of his transfer from North Dakota State, the NBA draft and finding a new school, that’s where he went last March with his brother, Joel.

“We slipped to Arizona for a couple days, just so Grant could have a break,” Nels said. “When he left NDSU, it wasn’t real fun. So we decided to go on a little trip and clear his head a little. He wanted to get away from people, too.”

Now Nelson, the kid from Devils Lake, is 40 minutes away from heading back to Arizona with the world watching. He might not seek the attention, but he’s weathered enough to handle it.

“I think the kids can achieve anything they want to in life,” Nels said. “I just believe if we give them the right tools to step out of the house.”