Jakob Milani
Sports Editor
[email protected]
As college basketball season comes to a close, the one phrase everyone is hearing right now is “transfer portal.”
Murray State men’s basketball has lost all but two players to the transfer portal in the last couple of weeks. This follows their loss to Saint Peter’s University in the NCAA Tournament and the departure of Head Coach Matt McMahon, who was hired as a head coach by Louisiana State University.
The Racers also lost two of its recruits following the hire of Steve Prohm as head basketball coach.
The names of players moving on include: junior forward KJ Williams, sophomore guards Trae Hannibal, Justice Hill and DaQuan Smith and freshman forward Nicholas McMullen.
The two remaining players for the Racers are sophomore guard Rod Thomas and sophomore forward DJ Burns.
Williams declared for the NBA Draft on March 22, but did not sign an agent, allowing him to return for one more season if he chooses. Junior guard Tevin Brown also announced he was declaring for the NBA Draft with an agent on March 24, effectively ending his collegiate career.
While Hannibal and Hill have already moved on to play at LSU with McMahon and Smith announced on Wednesday, April 6, that he will be playing for Radford University, the rest of the players in the portal still have a chance to return to Murray State.
According to the NCAA website, D1 athletes are allowed to test the transfer portal completely for free, essentially seeing what their value is to other schools. If they don’t wish to transfer to another school or don’t receive transfer offers, they can return to their school as if nothing happened.
Murray State isn’t the only university whose basketball program is suffering from the transfer portal. Saint Peter’s lost junior guards Daryl Banks III, Doug Edert and Matthew Lee.
Additionally, LSU lost all but one of its players to the portal, as well as two of its five-star recruits. Even key players from this year’s NCAA Tournament, like University of Illinois’s sophomore point guard Andre Curbelo and Texas Tech’s junior guard Terrance Shannon Jr., were lost to the portal.
Another OVC player was lost when Morehead State’s freshman forward Johnni Broome both declared for the NBA Draft without an agent and entered his name into the transfer portal. Broome is ranked the 10th Best Available Player in the Portal by CBS Sports.
According to @verbalcommits on Twitter, there are over 1,200 names in the transfer portal as of Wednesday. The list of available transfers last season reached 1,700 by July.
Murray State’s options remain wide open, with at least one recruit still coming in next season. The Racers are not the only program struggling with loss of players now, and there are many names out there for them to talk with.
Only time will tell what Murray State’s men’s basketball team will look like heading into the 2022-23 season in the Missouri Valley Conference.
