Incredibly, we are now just four weeks away from the start of college hoops season, and it's time to get you ready for everything you need to know heading into 2023-2024.
Today, we talk portal.
We all know that the transfer portal has changed college hoops and the way rosters are put together - here are several of the big names you need to know heading into 2023-2024.
Hunter Dickinson, C, Kansas (transfer from Michigan)
In one of the most surprising moves of the offseason, we saw the former two-time first team All-Big Ten member and consensus second team All American enter the transfer portal. Even in today’s new world of college hoops, it was surprising to see a player that has accomplished that much on the move. To Dickinson’s credit he did go to a situation that should get the absolute most out of his game, as there is not a coach in all of college basketball better at putting his big men in a position to succeed than Bill Self.
Kansas will also be losing a decent core from last season’s team that won the Big 12 regular season title and earned a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. Jalen Wilson will go down as one of the better Jayhawks in recent memory, plus Gradey Dick was selected by the Toronto Raptors as a Lottery Pick in the 2023 NBA Draft. Kansas will be relying on Dickinson to help replace that production, and out of all of the transfers available for the Jayhawks this offseason, the former Michigan big man is definitely one that fits Bill Self’s system the best.
Kansas will have a legitimate argument to open up the season as the No. 1 ranked team in the country, with Dickinson and the return of one of the best and most underrated point guards in the country DeJuan Harris, who will know his number one responsibility is to get the big man the ball. With KJ Adams also returning, and the addition of guard Nick Timberlake (a transfer himself, from Towson), Dickinson will have a ton of talented players around him and Kansas should be right back to competing for another top seed in the Big Dance.
Aaron Estrada, G, Alabama (transfer from Hofstra)
Last year was a season to remember in Tuscaloosa with the Crimson Tide winning the SEC regular season and conference tournament titles, plus earning a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament. While there should be plenty of hope entering this season, it is very difficult to ignore just how much production Alabama has lost from last season’s team that played so well. Nate Oats’ team will be losing five of their top six leading scorers from a season ago, and two of them were selected in the first round of the 2023 NBA Draft in Brandon Miller and Noah Clowney. In addition, many were surprised by the decision of big man Charles Bediako to leave school, as he had the potential to be one of the best players in the SEC and premier rim protectors in the country, had he decided to come back.
Alabama was in desperate need of someone who was able to put the ball in the basket, and Estrada fits that bill to a tee. A very experienced player, Estrada has played in exactly 100 games during his four-year college hoops career, for three different schools.
After starting his career at Saint Peters, Estrada transferred to Oregon, where he did contribute for a team that made the Sweet 16 in 2021, but we never saw just exactly how good he can really be at the high major level. Instead, he elected to transfer to Hofstra, and there wasn’t a better player in the Colonial Athletic Association the last two seasons. He averaged 19.4 points over the course of the last two seasons at Hofstra, and now he will be relied upon to be the top bucket getter for an SEC School that was one of the best teams in the country a season ago.
Despite losing a ton of production, Alabama has a ton of young players that we definitely haven’t seen the best version of yet, including guys like Rylan Griffin and Nick Pringle, who will also both be in for significantly bigger roles compared to a season ago. Nate Oats has always shown that he will have Alabama at least competing at the top of the SEC at the very worst, and Estrada will be a big reason for that this season.
Cam Spencer, G, UConn (transfer from Rutgers)
Following UConn’s National Title win in April, it really did feel for the first time in about a decade that UConn was officially back. Yet with the good of winning it all, comes the reality that you will have guys leave campus. The Huskies will be without three of last year's top six leading scorers from last season including the core of the title team, Jordan Hawkins, Andre Jackson, and Adama Sanogo. Hawkins and Jackson were drafted in the first round, while Sanogo played with the Chicago Bulls in Summer League.
Still, the good news is that Dan Hurley didn't slow down this off-season - as in addition to returning several key pieces and adding a Top 5 recruiting class, they also added former Rutgers guard Cam Spencer through the portal. Spencer was the leading scorer for the Scarlet Knights last season, averaging 13.2 points on 44% from the field. For a Rutgers team that didn’t have it easy scoring the ball, he always seemed like the guy who could step up and make a big shot when the team needed it the most.
Now, he will be playing with guys who won a national title last season, and I wouldn’t be surprised in the very least, if Spencer looks even better on the offensive end of the court. He will immediately have a big role in this UConn offense to help fill the void of losing guys like Hawkins and Jackson.
This should be in the category of one of the more underrated adds in all of college basketball this spring.
Reese Dixon-Waters, F, San Diego State (transfer from USC)
Similarly to the team that beat them in the national title game, San Diego State will be looking to replace a ton of talent that will not be returning from last season’s team. The Aztecs lose four of their top eight leading scorers from a season ago, and that includes their leading scorer and best offensive threat Matt Bradley. Dixon-Waters is about as good of a replacement as you can ask for, considering he has a similar game relying on tough shot making and is also a Pac-12 transfer, like Bradley was before he got to San Diego State.
Dixon-Waters looked poised for a breakout 2023 campaign after a very promising Freshman season at USC. I wouldn’t call his season last year disappointing, however it just wasn’t what I was expecting after such a promising end to his freshman year in 2021-2022. Last year Dixon-Waters averaged 9.8 points per game, while shooting only 29.6 percent from three-point range. While it is understandably a significantly lower sample size, Dixon-Waters shot 46 percent from three as a freshman and I expect him to be closer to that guy this season for the Aztecs.
Head coach Brian Dutcher has done a great job putting his top scoring guards in a position to succeed at San Diego State from Bradley, to Jordan Shackel, to Malachi Flynn and Dixon-Waters should be next in line. With guys like Lamont Butler, Darrion Trammel, and Micah Parrish with Dixon-Waters in a very good Aztecs backcourt, San Diego State should have one of the deeper guard rotations in the country and the USC Transfer is a major reason why.
Steven Ashworth, G, Creighton (transfer from Utah State)
Creighton lost two significant contributors to the transfer portal this offseason in somewhat surprising fashion, with Ryan Nembhard and Arthur Kaluma both deciding to move on from the program. With these moves, there are many people down on this Creighton team at the moment, however there is a legitimate chance that their roster this season will be even better than the team that made the Elite Eight a season ago.
The Jays will return a rock solid core group of players that made up the nucleus of teams that have won NCAA Tournament games in each of the last two seasons, and there aren’t many better trios in the entire country than Trey Alexander, Baylor Scheierman and Ryan Kalkbrenner. Now, go ahead and add Utah State Transfer Steven Ashworth, who was the best player on an NCAA Tournament team a season ago, and is one of the best pure three-point shooters in all of college basketball. Ashworth shot a ridiculous 43.4 percent from three a season ago, on high volume. Also averaging 16.2 points per game, the Utah State transfer showed just how capable of a scorer he really is and this is a perfect fit for Greg McDermott’s system. There isn’t a pair of more capable three-point shooters on the same team in all of college hoops than Ashworth and Scheierman.
Considering just how heartbreaking the end of Creighton’s season was in 2023, the Blue Jays should be a team playing with a massive chip on their shoulder, and with their ability to shoot the basketball there isn’t a team in the country they won’t be capable of beating.
Tre Mitchell, F, Kentucky (transfer from West Virginia)
In the sport of college basketball in the year 2023, it is very difficult to win anything significant with a team filled predominantly with true freshmen. Of course that is something that John Calipari has done many times since arriving in Lexington, however with the portal and extra emphasis on age, having that experience is vital if you want to win games. Although Kentucky will enter this season with the No. 1 recruiting class in the sport, it was very important for Kentucky to also add some experience considering this team lost six of their top seven leading scorers from a season ago.
In addition to Antonio Reeves deciding to return to school, Kentucky added West Virginia transfer Tre Mitchell into the mix, and he should play a pretty significant role for this team. Mitchell will be entering his fifth year of college basketball and has played 102 career games at UMass, Texas and West Virginia. Despite this being his fourth school in four seasons, this fit seems pretty justified, considering Kentucky’s need for experience and Mitchell averaging over 11.5 points per game last season while playing for an NCAA Tournament team in the Big 12.
At one point in his college career, Mitchell was widely considered to be one of the best players in the mid-major ranks, and seemed poised to ultimately break through if he went high major. This will be his chance to do so, playing a major role for one of the biggest brands in the country that also needs his experience.
El Ellis, G, Arkansas (transfer from Louisville)
It doesn't take a basketball genius to realize just how bad the Louisville Cardinals were in 2023, finishing with only four wins, which was the worst season for the program since 1940. The only reason why Louisville was remotely competitive in a handful of these games was Ellis, who led the team in minutes per game, points per game, assists per game and steals per game. Now, he will be in a significantly better position to succeed, with a lot more talent around him. Not to mention playing for the one coach in college basketball that is known to get the most out of his transfers in Eric Musselman.
Arkansas struggled with injuries throughout last season, and they were never able to have a consistent stretch with the majority of their top players healthy and it seemed to bite them in many instances in 2023.
Now, Arkansas will enter this season with a much older, experienced and more importantly a healthier team.
That should give Razorback fans hope for 2023, plus Ellis, alongside other transfers like Tramon Mark (Houston), Khalif Battle (Temple), Chandler Lawson (Memphis), and Jeremiah Davenport (Cincinnati) should also make a significant impact as well.
With Ellis being so relied upon to always have the ball in his hands at Louisville, I’m looking forward to seeing him thrive with a little pressure taken off, with a lot better players around him.
AJ Storr, G/F, Wisconsin (transfer from St. John's)
When Rick Pitino first took the job at St. John’s there were only two players in the program that I thought would be absolutely vital for the new staff at St. John’s to keep in the building. One was Joel Soriano, who was one of the best players in the Big East last season, averaging nearly 15 points and 12 rebounds per. The other was rising sophomore A.J Storr, who couldn’t have played better to end his Freshman season in Queens. Storr was one of the few bright spots for a St. John’s team had plenty of talent but just could never find a way to get it done at the end of games. He will add the offensive prowess that this Wisconsin team has been lacking over the course of the last few seasons.
While there are many people that will enter this season low on Wisconsin after missing their first NCAA Tournament since 2018 a season ago, I’m not one of them. Wisconsin started off last season nicely, with an 11-2 record, however things changed when veteran leader Tyler Wahl suffered an ankle injury, and the Badgers season was just never the same. Although Wahl
did return in late January, he wasn’t the same player as he was prior to the injury.
With the Badgers also returning each of their top five leading scorers from last season including Wahl, plus Storr, Wisconsin is a team that should be bought right now, when their value will never get any lower. This is still a program that has only missed the NCAA Tournament twice since 2001.
Other names to know:
TJ Bamba, G, Villanova (transfer from Washington State)
Tyler Burton, F, Villanova (transfer from Richmond)
Jared Bynum, G, Stanford (transfer from Providence College)
Jordan Dingle, G, St. John's (transfer from Penn)
Harrison Ingram, F, North Carolina (transfer from Stanford)
Dalton Knecht, F, Tennessee (transfer from Northern Colorado)
Keshod Johnson, F, Arizona (transfer from San Diego State)
Denver Jones, G, Auburn (transfer from Florida International)
Caleb Love, G, Arizona (transfer from North Carolina)
Ryan Nembhard, G, Gonzaga (transfer from Creighton)
Tylor Perry, G, Kansas State (transfer from North Texas)
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