Well, it’s been a busy couple of days for Syracuse Men’s Basketball players in the portal. Unfortunately, it’s been a lot of subtraction and not much addition.
Yesterday, it was announced that Naheem McLeod is entering the transfer portal. A bench piece the past two seasons for Syracuse, McLeod was rarely a major impact player and likely doesn’t have any eligibility yet.
Then today, Chance Westry, SU’s once highly-touted Auburn transfer who barely played, was announced to be going to UAB for his next school.
Now analysis of these moves is kind of complicated. Both came to Syracuse with a lot of hope – one of the tallest players in college basketball, plus a former top-40 high school recruit in the country. Then, neither of them lived up to their full potential. A lot of it was simply bad injury luck and bad fit with the team.
But the bigger question that arises from this is whether Syracuse is falling behind with the transfer portal. These aren’t huge skill losses for Syracuse, but SU has lost a lot of personnel this offseason. And has there been a splash add? Former Georgia Tech guard Naithan George is the closest to a splash and could very well turn into a star for Syracuse.
The more concerning point is that, for another offseason, Syracuse has been rumored for multiple big-name transfers as soon as the portal opens. As the offseason goes on, none of those have panned out.
Sure, Syracuse has received a decent number of commits. But the Orange still doesn’t have a consistent big, and the depth at point guard is still in question.
The window to add more players via the portal isn’t over yet, and SU’s incoming freshman class is excellent. But the portal trend isn’t great for SU.
