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College basketball transfer portal: Ole Miss lands Western Kentucky star center Jamarion Sharp – 247Sports
Ole Miss landed Western Kentucky transfer Jamarion Sharp on Thursday. The 7-foot-5, 235-pound center is the tallest player in Division I basketball and was one of the top defensive big men in the college basketball transfer portal. Sharp averaged 7.4 points, 7.7 rebounds, 4.1 blocks and 1.0 steals per game this past season for now-resigned Western Kentucky coach Rick Stansbury. Sharp led the country in block percentage (15.8%) last season. He ranked second nationally in 2021-22 with a sparkling 17.8% block rate. Sharp earned back-to-back Conference USA Defensive Player of the Year awards.
Arkansas, Kentucky, Missouri, Florida, Florida State, Nebraska, LSU, UNLV, Memphis, Wake Forest, Gonzaga, NC State and Cincinnati all reportedly reached out to Sharp when he hit the transfer portal. But Ole Miss has plenty of opportunity and a vacant starting spot at the 5.
Sharp was just a 39.7% free throw shooter in 2021-22, but he vaulted up to 50% on nearly double the attempts from the charity stripe in 2022-23. Sharp is the third prized transfer new Ole Miss coach Chris Beard has reeled in, joining ex-Georgetown guard Brandon Murray and ballyhooed Arizona State transfer guard Austin Nunez.
“Everybody’s roster is kind of changing these days,” Beard said on College Hoops Today with Jon Rothstein. “Obviously it’s a game of talent. Gotta have guys that can compete in the SEC. Another way to say that is you’ve gotta have guys that are NBA-type talents. I think one of the challenges in a first-year job is trying to get enough depth on your roster. I think on opening night when the ball goes up we’ll have some really good players, but to be a team that can win the SEC and not just compete in the SEC, you’ve got to have that depth.
“I’ve never really understood the word ‘rebuild.’ I think you’ve got a chance coming in, especially today with the portal, with name, image and likeness and how the landscape of college basketball has changed, I think more about roster management. For us, it started with trying to re-recruit the players that were here before us.”
Ole Miss is expected to get Matthew Murrell, Jaemyn Brakefield and TJ Caldwell back to bolster a new era of Rebels basketball.
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“The talent is undeniable,” Beard said when asked about Ole Miss’ returners. “I know with some of the key guys coming back, in my eyes they’re All-SEC-type players. Not only really good players, but good people. There’s a lot of character around this program. Our current players have done a great job this spring helping us recruit the new players. So I think we’re just off to a good start, but I think to build this, to get to a consistent year in and year out where people are talking about what seed Ole Miss has in the tournament, not whether Ole Miss makes the tournament – that’s the goal.”
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