NCAA Basketball: Former New Mexico State star Teddy Allen enters transfer portal

Teddy Allen was the star of last season’s New Mexico State team that won its first-ever NCAA Basketball Tournament game. Where will he end up next?

There are three things for certain in this world. Death, taxes, and Teddy Allen transferring. This will be Allen’s sixth different school in his college career. He began his career at West Virginia back in 2017. Along the way, he had stops at Wichita State, Western Nebraska Community College, Nebraska, and New Mexico State. A mixture between off the court issues and coaching changes is the main reason behind his well-traveled college experience.

Last season at New Mexico State was his best yet. Allen averaged 19.6 points per game, 6.7 rebounds per game, with 43.8/33.5/87.6 splits. Allen also led the Aggies to their first NCAA tournament win in nearly 30 years with a win over UConn. A game in which he scored 37 points and had two buckets with time running out to secure the upset. One in which he drove to the rim with 35 seconds left and 20 seconds left on the shot clock. Every Aggie fan was screaming for him to pull it out, yet he was able to lay it in and get the foul called and the rest was history.

Allen did enter the NBA draft while maintaining his eligibility. This was quickly after Greg Heiar was hired as head coach. One can assume if he is putting his name in the transfer portal he is not getting a lot of love from NBA scouts. Most NBA draft boards do not have him slated as a top 100 prospect. So giving it one more college try only makes sense.

Now as good as the WAC star has been in the college ranks, there is still a lot to work on if he is going to make it at the next level. Which could be a major factor in his decision on which school he will be attending in the fall.

Allen has an alpha dog mentality and tends to take a lot of bad shots. If he is going to make it in the NBA, I think he needs to choose a team with other scorers and show scouts he is capable of playing off the ball and being more than just a scorer. The ball is in his court, he will have plenty of options on which school he will be playing for next season. Does he want to go somewhere to be a high-usage player or does he want to go somewhere to prove he can do more than just score.

With his production, he could easily end up at a power 6 school. Everyone will point to Mississippi State where his coach at New Mexico State accepted a job this offseason. But part of me thinks will find a spot where he can be the main option in hopes to lead his team to another NCAA tournament berth.