On the court, Donovan Dent can read the floor like no other.

Off the court, the California kid who proved to be one of the best UNM Lobo point guards of all time still needs some work on reading the room. He just doesn’t seem to get how many people are so interested in what he’s doing.

Advertisement

Take Saturday, for instance. The 6-foot-2 point guard, who finished his senior season in March at UCLA and recently moved back to Albuquerque, announced on Saturday he would host an inexpensive ($25) pop-up kids camp at ABC Prep Basketball Academy in Old Town.

“I was expecting like roughly 25 to 30 kids,” said Dent.

Monday morning, 120 kids showed up, many with Lobo fan parents, to catch a glimpse of, and three hours of working out with, the Lobo great now known by some as “Coach Dent.”

“I never expected this,” he said with a big smile after the camp concluded, and after he’d signed any and every autograph and took pictures with kids and parents alike.

Advertisement

He just couldn’t quite figure out why so many wanted to come to his camp.

Also on Saturday, and certainly the more newsworthy part of the weekend for those outside of Albuquerque, Dent seemed to think nobody would be all that interested in what he told the Journal about his plans to get into basketball training and coaching rather than pursuing a professional playing career.

Yeah, he was fairly oblivious as to that being some information the college basketball world might latch onto.

“My phone started blowing up on Sunday about whether I was still playing or not and I couldn’t figure out why,” Dent said Monday. “I guess it was because of the article. It was crazy.”

Advertisement

As the news started to spread Saturday and then into Sunday about Dent’s comments in Saturday’s Journal article — posted online Saturday, in print on Sunday — Dent was, at least initially, oblivious to it all.

Many Los Angeles-based and national media began citing sources close to Dent that the point guard was retiring. Some cited the Journal. Others just posted the information to their social media accounts without any indication where they learned about it.

To be clear, here is what Dent — a source as close to Dent as the Journal could find for this story — told the Journal on Saturday: “I’m done with pro basketball. That’s why I came back here. I want to give back to the youth and I want to start training. I want to start working in individual training, group sessions, things like that and I want to get started on that out here (in Albuquerque) — young kids, older kids, just help them with their game and I wanted to start it here because Albuquerque gave me so much.”

So, he did.

Advertisement

He held his first camp on Monday, has another, larger one in Albuquerque July 13-15, and will also host camps in Farmington, Santa Fe and Las Cruces over the next couple months.

The lucrative UCLA experience — reportedly $3 million in total revenue share and NIL compensation to play one season for the Bruins — afforded Dent the luxury of pursuing his next step in the game before most players get that chance.

Sure, maybe people should have noticed he wasn’t taking part in any pre-NBA Draft team workouts or combines, but still, when you hear a guy with lucrative playing opportunities out there isn’t going to pursue them, it’s going to get some buzz.

And to be clear, Dent does still train daily and is staying in top shape. And he will be playing in the $2 million, winner-take-all TBT (The Basketball Tournament) in July as the captain of The Enchantment, a primarily UNM Lobo alumni team (there are also a couple NM State Aggies playing and a couple of players with New Mexico ties who didn’t play for either UNM or NMSU).

Advertisement

So, is he really done playing basketball? Is that “R” word that so many used over the past 48 hours to describe his status in basketball (“retire” never appeared in a Dent quote or in the Journal’s article on his decision to get into coaching and training) an accurate one in Dent’s mind?

The Journal asked again on Monday in response to all the social media chatter, if he really meant it.

More specifically: “Is there a chance that one day you’ll still play basketball at a professional level?”

“I don’t know, I haven’t thought about that,” Dent said. “All I’m thinking about right now is doing what I’m doing right now (at the kids camp), and that’s not a pro career. So, I guess people can say I’m retired as of right now.”

Advertisement

OK, then. Nice and clear.

As for the camp…

First off, Dent after the camp said there were 93 kids in attendance. Turns out that was just the online number he saw. Some in-person paying campers — a couple dozen, in fact — pushed the total to 120, according to Brandon Mason, President of ABC Prep where the camp was held in Old Town and where several current and former Lobos regularly work out and train in the offseason. That number has included Dent over the past year when not at UCLA.

The camp was controlled chaos — probably a few too many kids for that setup than ideal, but certainly a learning moment for all — and got handled, as Dent noted, thanks to so many of the players and coaches at ABC Prep. Those included prep star Brandon Mason Jr., a top-70 nationally ranked high school recruit for the Class of 2027, and Bella Hines, the Albuquerque native who was a top 100 recruit last year, played this past season at LSU and has transferred to TCU.

Advertisement

As for the kids in the camp? It was everything Dent could have hoped for.

“Absolutely, it made me so happy,” Dent said. “I appreciate everyone who came out today, especially on short notice. They had high energy, everyone just had a lot of fun. That’s all I can ask for. It was a great time out here.”

Reach Geoff Grammer at ggrammer@abqjournal.com or follow him on Twitter (X) @GeoffGrammer.

Rabindra Dhant, 27, will walk into the Galaxy Arena in Macau on May 28 and do something no Nepali fighter has ever done: compete in a Road to UFC tournament, two wins away from a UFC contract.After trying for a few years, Dhant has got his big opportunity with Road to UFC – a win-and-advance tournament offering top MMA prospects from across Asia-Pacific a direct path to the UFC, and he will be taking on Kimbert Alintozon of the Philippines in the Quarterfinals.Ask him what it felt like to be selected for Road to UFC Season 5, and he will not give you the answer you expect.“Indifferent,” he says, through his coach and interpreter Diwiz Piya Lama while speaking to TimesofIndia.com. “This is not the first year we tried. As a team, we had been pushing for this for probably the second or third year running. So when it finally happened, it felt like a step in the right direction, but there’s still a long way to go. He’s been putting the work in the gym. It’s a job. Just a job he’s got to keep doing.”It’s a calm and measured response, even though he stands at the cusp of history. No Nepali has ever signed a UFC contract. No Nepali fighter has ever competed at this level of the sport’s global infrastructure. Dhant is, by any measure, in unprecedented territory for his country, yet when asked about pressure, his response remains unchanged.“The questions are putting more pressure on him than the fight,” Lama says, laughing. “He feels no pressure from the fight itself.”The Making of Nepal’s Top MMA ProspectDhant’s journey to the doorsteps of UFC tells a lot more about his mindset ahead of the biggest night of his career.Coming from Bajhang, a village in far-western Nepal, where there is no visibility for the sport, Dhant has had a tough and long journey that took him to India at a young age, doing manual labour, and an office job of serving tea and cleaning. MMA was never in the picture, but karate training at odd hours kept him going quietly, without family support or institutional structure.The results, however, were anything but quiet.He went 15 fights unbeaten across Indian regional amateur circuits. He won the Indian National Amateur MMA Championship back-to-back in 2019 and 2020, a feat that should have made him eligible for the World Amateur Championships.However, Nepal’s MMA infrastructure at the time was not equipped to send a fighter to an international amateur competition. He had qualified, but he simply could not go.“It was a salty phase,” he says, through his coach and interpreter Lama. “He had put in the work, won two tournaments back to back, and it counted for nothing on the international stage.”Then came a lucrative offer. Recognising his talent, he was given a way out: to assume Indian citizenship, compete internationally, and build a career on a more resourced platform. He turned it down. He decided to keep his Nepali passport.“Thank God he didn’t do that,” Lama says on his behalf, breaking into a laugh. “Right now, with where things stand, people would have burned us alive.”Diwiz Piya Lama: The Coach Who Backed HimLama, who has been Dhant’s voice throughout this interaction, has also been his guiding light. A jiu-jitsu and Muay Thai practitioner based in Kathmandu, Lama saw Dhant fight and decided to invest in him personally. Lama funded a training camp at the Fairtex Gym in Thailand, covering the costs out of his own pocket. It proved worth his while.In September 2023, Dhant made his ONE Championship debut in Bangkok, defeating Russia’s Torepchi Dongak by TKO in the third round. He became the first Nepali fighter to win a bout in ONE Championship. Then in August 2025, at Matrix Fight Night 17 in Greater Noida, he stopped unbeaten Indian bantamweight champion Chungreng Koren in the third round to become the first Nepali to win a major international MMA title.“The win was more important than anything else,” he says, when asked about the reception that followed – meeting the Mayor of Kathmandu, a cash reward, and recognition.“If he had lost, there would have been no President, no Mayor, no Minister. At the end of the day, it’s the win and the task at hand. These side quests don’t really mean much.”His original opponent, Australia’s Matty Iann, withdrew injured before the bout. Filipino fighter Alintozon, a 7-3 bantamweight with six finishes on his record, stepped in on short notice. Dhant’s preparation, he says, required no dramatic overhaul.“He didn’t train so specifically for Matty that an entire system needed to change. He did his due diligence and kept doing what he was doing. No drastic change.”Despite the accolades, Dhant is grounded, and as he says, it’s a job. A win moves Dhant to the Road to UFC semifinals. Two wins deliver a UFC contract: the first in Nepal’s history. So what does winning in Macau on May 28 mean to him?“A stepping stone towards what he’s destined for.”Watch Road to UFC (Day 1) – Round of 16 – Day 1 ( Rong Zhu vs. Martinez) on May 28th 2026 at 3:30 PM IST live and exclusive on Sony Sports Ten 1 SD & HD.

Following a controversy-filled offseason, Stefon Diggs is back at it. The veteran wide receiver has gotten a lot of people talking in the last couple of months for football and non-football reasons, and it seems that won’t be stopping soon as he prepares for the 2026 NFL season.

On Monday, a video of the four-time Pro-Bowler’s intense offseason training surfaced online. Diggs, who remains without a team after being released by the New England Patriots in March, was seen doing push-ups with two weight plates placed on his back by his trainers.

The clips quickly went viral among NFL fans, generating a lot of reactions mocking Stefon Diggs. While he appears to be putting quite a lot of work into the private training session, many fans were not impressed with his effort, sparking a series of classic social media trolling.

Workout videos like this have become signature content for Diggs on social media over the years. They are often focused on highly intense off-season conditioning, agile route-running drills and high-energy gym sessions, enabling him to showcase his footwork and athleticism.

Fans’ reaction to the latest highlights Stefon Diggs unique place in the NFL ecosystem. He’s become one of the players in the league whose every action, on and off the field, generates a lot of attention and reaction from fans.

Here’s a look at some of the reactions online:

Analyst links Stefon Diggs to the Pittsburgh Steelers

Stefon Diggs remains one of the top available free agents this offseason. In an article published on Monday, Christopher Knox of Bleacher Reports is linking the wide receivers to the Pittsburgh Steelers. This is despite the complete overhaul they’ve done on the offense this offseason.

“The Pittsburgh Steelers finally re-signed Aaron Rodgers, and the quarterback has admitted that this will be his final NFL season,” Knox wrote. “If Pittsburgh hopes to make Rodgers’ last ride a memorable one, it should add a little more to its receiving corps.

“DK Metcalf and Michael Pittman Jr. should make a solid receiver duo. However, rookies Germie Bernard and Kaden Wetjen are unproven, and Pittsburgh’s overall receiver depth is lacking. Adding a vet like Hopkins or Stefon Diggs would help give the Steelers a playoff-caliber offense.”

Diggs had a successful 2025 season with the Patriots, recording 85 receptions on 102 targets for 1,013 yards and four touchdowns. This means he will be looking for a prominent role in his next team. With the presence of DK Metcalf and Michael Pittman Jr. in Pittsburgh, there’s little chance he will accept going there.