Former Virginia lacrosse star now living his dream of playing college basketball after transfer

AP Sports Writer

STANFORD, Calif. (AP) — Count on Lars Tiffany canceling men’s lacrosse practice at the University of Virginia for one specific day in January. He already knows his players have no plans to be there.

The Cavaliers athletes long ago alerted their coach that a group will be taking a road trip to Chapel Hill, North Carolina. At least a dozen of them will go watch former teammate Cole Kastner play basketball for Stanford against the Tar Heels on Jan. 18.

“I’ve already been warned, we’re not practicing that day,” Tiffany said, “that everyone’s going to drive 3 1/2 hours — just the love for him.”

The 6-foot-7 forward is finally living his lifelong dream of wearing a college basketball uniform following a decorated collegiate lacrosse career across the country.

Tiffany initially wondered how Kastner would do in lacrosse given his size.

“In the recruitment process we weren’t sure, we were thinking, ‘Can you be too tall to be impactful in college lacrosse?’ You had these short guys with short sticks who are quick,” Tiffany said. “Changing direction, lateral movement, if you get too big of a lateral step and stride, will you not be able to change direction quickly enough to stay with them?

“But when you’re as athletic as Cole, he not only proved he could do it but do it at an elite level.”

Kastner moved to the Cardinal program as a graduate-transfer walk-on following his studies at Virginia, where he helped the Cavaliers win an NCAA championship in 2021.

Kastner is fine not knowing exactly how he might fit in on the court. He’s just thrilled to have this chance.

“Every single day I feel it,” Kastner said. “It’s been amazing to be a part of this group and part of this university. It’s such a fortunate opportunity for me to have and I’m so grateful for everything that University of Virginia and the lacrosse team prepared me to live this experience and live out a dream of mine.”

He graduated in May and had hoped to earn a master’s degree. In January 2023, Kastner began to think about the possibility of playing one basketball season, somewhere.

Coming to Stanford has made it all the more special. He’s home, having grown up not far from campus in Palo Alto. His father, Eric, played football and rugby at rival California.

Kastner had an excellent example and fan, too: Golden State Warriors guard Pat Spencer was a four-time All-American lacrosse star at Loyola University Maryland before playing a season of college basketball at Northwestern.

“For me it was just about following my dream, and if that inspired some other guys behind me then that’s pretty cool,” Spencer said. “I always loved lacrosse but basketball was always my first love so it’s pretty cool that it inspired some other guys to take that similar journey.”

The lacrosse community is small, so Kastner tracked him down.

“Really it had always been (on my mind) as soon as I saw Pat Spencer do it who was an amazing lacrosse player and he went on to play a year of basketball and now is doing an amazing job, two-way contract with the Warriors,” Kastner said. “I had a chance to speak with him a couple times, he encouraged me to go for it.”

There are plenty of lacrosse skills that cross over to hoops, too.

Pretending to hold his lacrosse stick in hand outside Maples Pavilion earlier this fall, Kastner demonstrated the lateral movements and similarities to defending in his previous sport to now doing so again on the basketball floor.

While the transition has been far from seamless, Kastner has been a welcome veteran addition to the roster in coach Kyle Smith’s first season.

Kastner had been in touch with previous coach Jerod Haase about joining the program, and even once Haase departed and Smith took over there were discussions about still giving him a chance — with no guarantees when it comes to playing time, role or minutes.

Smith wasn’t sure what to make of the idea at first, until he kept hearing from everybody about “a local guy, he wants to come back” and what a wonderful person Kastner is.

He realized he had to give the athletic big man a shot.

“I just kind of brushed it off, it wasn’t a sense of urgency, I wasn’t worried about it,” Smith said. “I must have run into 10 other people, ‘Hey, this guy Cole, I heard he’s coming back,’ and then I finally talked to him three, four weeks into it. I said, ‘I tell you what, you have an unbelievable PR campaign.’ I feel terrible now, I was giving him a hard time and I can see why everyone is singing his praises.”

Stanford guard Oziyah Sellers is from nearby Hayward and can understand what it means for Kastner to be home.

“I’d seen he played lacrosse but I’d never seen his highlights. Once he committed, I saw the highlight tapes they posted and he was hitting full-court shots, running people over,” said Sellers, a junior who transferred from USC. “Seeing him in practice, just how good of a dude he is, he’s been great to have.”

For Kastner, this is an experience he will cherish.

“I couldn’t be more grateful.”

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AP college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll and https://apnews.com/hub/college-basketball