College basketball transfer portal: Winners and losers

Winner: Minnesota

New Minnesota coach Ben Johnson hit a home run in his first recruiting season by hitting the transfer portal hard. While they did lose seven players, the five that they brought in will more than makes up for the defections.

Additions:

• Parker Fox PF from Northern State: 22.1 points, 9.6 rebounds and 2.5 assists/game.
• Jamison Battle SF from George Washington: 17.3 points and 5.2 rebounds/game.
• EJ Stephens SG from Lafayette: 16.4 points, 4.7 rebounds and 2.5 assists/game.
• Luke Loewe SG from William & Mary: 16.2 points, 3.4 rebounds and 3.2 assists/game.
• Sean Sutherlin SG from New Hampshire: 12.8 points, 9.3 rebounds and 2.6 assists/game.

Losses:

• Liam Robbins C to Vanderbilt: 11.7 points, 6.6 rebounds and 1.1 assists/game.
• Gabe Kalscheur SG to Iowa State: 9.2 points, 2.9 rebounds and 1.8 assists/game.
• Jamal Mashburn Jr to New Mexico: 8.2 points, 1.6 rebounds and 1.6 assists/game.
• Tre’ Williams SG to Oregon State: 5.8 points, 2.5 rebounds and 1 assist/game.
• Jarvis Omersa PF to St. Thomas: 1.7 points and 2.3 rebounds/game.
• Martice Mitchell C to Northern Illinois: 1.3 points/game.
• Sam Freeman C: 1.1 points and 1.5 rebounds/game.

Analysis:

Fox will step right into the Gophers’ starting lineup coming off a season where he was named first-team All-NSIC.

Battle started 45/47 games and averaged 35 minutes/game. He was Third-Team All-A-10 last year.

Stephens played 21 minutes or more in all 31 games last year.

Loewe started every game the last three years and last year won the Mark Betzel Award for leadership, determination and heart.

Sutherlin started all 28 games in 2019-2020 while leading the America East conference in double-doubles. He was injured last year.

Robbins is the biggest loss coming off a season that he was named Big-10 player of the week twice.

Kalscheur did start every game the last two years.