NCAA Basketball: Grad transfer Tramaine Isabell chooses Saint Louis as his final college destination

After a fantastic junior season, the former Missouri Tiger Tramaine Isabell will be joining St. Louis for his final season of college basketball.

Tramaine Isabell had a rough start to his college career. He spent two seasons at Missouri, playing around 15 mpg and scoring 5.0 ppg for really bad teams.

The Seattle native got a fresh start at Drexel, where he became a brand new player. After sitting out a season, Isabell averaged 21.0 ppg, 7.5 rpg and 3.4 apg, leading the team in scoring most games this season. He had several 30+ point games, including a career-high 40 points in a win over Elon this past January.

So after a big year on a sub-.500 team, it’s not too surprising that Isabell wanted to go somewhere else for his final season of college eligibility. The grad transfer had a number of suitors, including several power conference programs.

But the former SEC guard decided that he liked the mid-major world, and thus choose another one.

https://twitter.com/oTrillMaine/status/1002643412041060354

This is a huge get for former Oklahoma State Head Coach Travis Ford, who has gone the route of transfers to revamp the talent on the roster. The team went 17-16 for the 2017-18 season, which all things considered was good considering that several players were dismissed from the program early on. They essentially had eight players all season to work with, but will have more depth come 2018-19.

Outside of graduating guard Davell Roby, all of the key players return for the Billikens, including leading scorer Javon Bess. When it comes to the point guard position, Isabell is a more natural fit than the incumbent Jordan Goodwin. The rising sophomore led the team in both assists and rebounds but was a poor shooter.

The team as a whole was ranked in the 300s in perimeter shooting a clear weakness that Isabell will help. If these two can develop good chemistry, then the Bilikens look good for next season.

Next: 2018-19 Preseason Top 25 After NBA Draft Decisions

With all three NCAA Tournament teams (Rhode Island, Davidson, and St. Bonaventure) all losing the team’s best players from this past season, the Atlantic 10 Conference seems to be more wide-open than in past seasons. Will this be the year that Saint Louis makes the climb towards the top of the standings?