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The Waiver Waiting Game: Ole Miss, West Virginia highlight college … – 247Sports
Tez Walker seemingly had a cut-and-dry case to earn a waiver for immediate eligibility. The COVID-19 pandemic wiped out Walker’s 2020 campaign at North Carolina Central, so he transferred to Kent State and turned into a star. He became one of the coveted wideouts in the 2023 transfer portal cycle. Walker picked North Carolina and applied for the waiver because he has not graduated yet.
It was denied.
Consider it a warning. College basketball coaches throughout the country took notice.
Dozens of two-time, undergraduate transfers await their fate from the NCAA. Plenty of coaches have begged for some precedent to be set in the ever-changing transfer portal waters, and these eligibility decisions will set the standard for the 2024 transfer portal cycle and beyond.
Except, it’s complicated. Every case is different. The NCAA sent out a new memo cracking down on undergraduate two-time transfers and noted that a coaching change would not be one of the reasons a waiver to play immediately would be approved. It’s partially why Providence stars Bryce Hopkins and Devin Carter Jr. opted to stay out of the transfer portal and play for Kim English after the coach who recruited them (Ed Cooley) left for the vacant Georgetown gig.
The waiver timelines are still cloudy. It depends on when each school sends the waiver in to be approved (or axed). Plenty of coaching staffs opted to build emergency plans into their roster-building techniques just in case bad news comes down the pipe.
Here are seven teams that are most impacted by the waiver ordeal.
First-year coaches like Kansas State’s Jerome Tang and Iowa State’s T.J. Otzelberger have used the transfer portal to build a second-weekend team. Mark Madsen is hoping to do the same at Cal. But he needs Jaylon Tyson to be eligible right away.
Tyson has a strong case for the waiver after former Texas Tech coach Mark Adams resigned for making racially insensitive comments towards one of his players.
The 6-foot-7, 210-pound forward put up ridiculously-efficient numbers in his first full year of college basketball. Tyson shot 40% on 3s, 53% on 2s and over 72% from the charity stripe. Tyson was a very impactful defender and chipped in on the glass every night. Tyson has the tools to be much more than just a valuable 3-and-D wing. Tyson showed real comfort in ball screens last year, and the jumbo playmaker can create mismatches out of thin air. He has All-Pac-12 potential at Cal.
Tyson, Fardaws Aimaq, Jalen Cone, Devin Askew and Keonte Kennedy is a five-man lineup that can absolutely be a wrecking ball for Madsen against virtually anyone.
Wake Forest is a place where (a transfer’s) dreams come true. Alondes Williams and Jake LaRavia in 2022. Tyree Appleby in 2023. Hunter Sallis hopes he’s next in 2024. With some luck from the NCAA, Efton Reid could join that mix.
Reid is on his third school in three years, so a waiver might be hard to snag. Wake Forest is prepared for that reality. Big men like Matthew Marsh and Andrew Carr can hold down the fort if Reid has to sit out the season. When he gets back on the floor, Reid is a gamechanger for a Wake Forest defense that has not been a strength. If Wake Forest gets some waiver luck and Reid is deemed eligible, there’s a real path for Steve Forbes to break Wake Forest’s NCAA Tournament drought.
Wes Miller has his sights set on competing in the Big 12 for a while. Cincinnati has a few backup plans in place in case it gets bad news on the waiver front. But the Bearcats’ upside in 2023-24 reaches new heights if bouncy Utah Valley transfer center Aziz Bandaogo and burly Temple transfer Jamille Reynolds can both play right away. Cincinnati has Viktor Lakhin and Ody Oguama ready to man the frontcourt spots just in case, but Bandaogo and Reynolds are high-major talents who could give Cincinnati one of the best frontcourts in all of college basketball.
“Yeah, he’s a high-level athlete,” Seattle coach Chris Victor told 247Sports. “That’s for any level. He’s got elite length, size, athleticism. Great timing. He’s a threat at the rim on both ends. He guards the rim well. The way he attacks the offensive boards and finishes at the rim, he’s a weapon and he was really good for them. Obviously, they had a great team. He anchored the defense. They were great on defense and the threat he puts at the rim offensively is something that causes problems. He kicked our ass. Some of the lobs he caught against us were ridiculous. Blocked shots were crazy. Yeah, he’s really really good.”
Florida State needs all the help it can get after a stomach-turning, 9-23 season. The ‘Noles await a decision on Primo Spears’ eligibility. The bucket-getting guard averaged 16.0 points and 5.3 assists last season for an undermanned Georgetown squad. Spears’ case for a waiver rests on some lenience after Patrick Ewing was let go.
Florida State has the pieces to be a middle-of-the-pack, ACC team with legitimate upside if Spears can play right away. Darin Green, Josh Nickelberry, Jalen Warley and Spears would form a tantalizing, versatile backcourt. FSU’s frontcourt quartet of Cam’Ron Fletcher, Baba Miller, Jaylen Gainey and Cameron Corhen is already dripping with potential. Without Spears, FSU’s margin for error gets much more thin.
Jalen Cook opened his career at LSU before bouncing to Tulane for two years. Now, he’s back at LSU, but he needs a waiver. It’s, quietly, an early inflection point of the Matt McMahon era. LSU’s floor in 2023-24 changes dramatically if the 6-foot point guard can play right away. Cook was one of the top point guards in the 2023 transfer portal cycle. He averaged 0.795 points per possession on 210 ball screens last season, according to Synergy. He owns a dynamic in-between game, and Cook drilled 50% of his 46, catch-and-shoot 3-pointers. Cook also had a gorgeous 30% assist rate.
With Cook, LSU can be rather frisky, especially if Santa Clara transfer Carlos Stewart pops and some of its high-upside pieces click. Without him, the Tigers could potentially be rudderless without an elite decision-maker.
There is a cavernous range of potential outcomes for Ole Miss. If both Brandon Murray and Moussa Cisse can play right away, Ole Miss will have a NCAA Tournament-level roster that can make major damage in the wide-open SEC race. On paper, Murray has the best case to play immediately. The talented, 3-and-D wing has played two years of college basketball and both ended with a coaching change. First, it was Will Wade. Then it was Patrick Ewing. Cisse left Oklahoma State even though he was warned by Mike Boynton that he’d likely have to sit out a year. The 7-foot-1, 216-pound center is one of the top defensive players in the sport. Cisse and Murray are likely starters for Chris Beard, or at minimum, valuable rotation pieces.
Ole Miss isn’t cooked without the duo. 7-foot-5, shot-blocker Jamarion Sharp is prepared for a big role if Cisse is deemed ineligible. Ole Miss has a handful of experienced, talented wings to fill in the gap if Murray is out in Matthew Murrell, Jaemyn Brakefield and Allen Flanigan.
Ole Miss can challenge to be the best defense in the country with Cisse and Murray ready to rock ‘n’ roll. Just getting one eligible would be a massive boost.
West Virginia already received some bad news when the NCAA ended Omar Silverio’s career. Unfortunately, West Virginia’s ceiling in 2023-24 is still in the NCAA’s hands. Prized Montana State transfer wing RaeQuan Battle and Eastern Michigan transfer guard Noah Farrakhan both need waivers to play immediately. Battle is the most important piece of all of this. The explosive 6-foot-5 wing averaged 17.7 points per game last season and led Montana State to the NCAA Tournament. A Big Three of Jesse Edwards, Kerr Kriisa and Battle is good enough to lead West Virginia to the Big Dance, especially with the reliable role players on the roster.
“He’s a high-major player,” Sacramento State coach David Patrick told 247Sports. “There’s a reason he went to Washington before (Danny) Sprinkle got him. Danny (Sprinkle) obviously was able to nestle that athleticism and make him a good defender. He’s an extremely good cutter. He’s an extremely good scorer both late clock and early clock. Defensively, he plays passing lanes well and plays with a motor. I think he can play both ends of the floor. I see him having success at West Virginia and in the Big 12 because he’s got that size, he’s got that athleticism, but he’s actually a two-way player. He’s probably the one guy out of our league that you would say would make an impact on both sides of the ball.”
Farrakhan is more of a luxury than a necessity. The 6-foot-2, 160-pound guard shot 40% on 103 attempts from downtown in 2021-22, but his shooting splits dipped significantly last season at Eastern Michigan. He’s still wired to score and could add a jolt of shot creation to WVU’s second-unit lineups, but his case for a waiver seems murky. Farrakhan has not graduated yet and West Virginia will be his third program in a three-year span.
If he’s forced to sit out the year, Farrakhan should provide some semblance of security for West Virginia’s roster-building gameplan in next year’s transfer portal cycle.
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