The NCAA Basketball transfer portal added two more frontcourt players in Dishon Jackson and Wildens Leveque. Could power conference programs target them?
When it comes to the NCAA Basketball transfer portal, there aren’t a ton of quality centers left in the process. There are two “centers” left that are on the national radar in Grant Nelson (South Dakota State) and Jordan Brown (Louisiana). The rest are flying under the radar and won’t have a ton of attention but at the right spot, could be an effective bench piece.
Two names entered the portal on Tuesday, with one of them entering a second time. That player is Dishon Jackson, a 6’10 big man from Washington State. In his first two seasons, he averaged 6.6 ppg and 4.2 rpg in 18 mpg and 19 career starts. But a medical condition caused him to miss all of this past season before eventually transferring over to Charlotte.
However, the sudden departure of head coach Ron Sanchez back to Virginia as an assistant has forced Jackson to leave the 49ers and enter the portal again. The good news is that he’s still eligible to play next season since he originally entered before the deadline. The bad news is that a new school needs to clear him first and that will be hard.
The other player to watch is Wildens Leveque. He’s a 6’11 center with a career average of 5.1 ppg. Leveque played his first three years at South Carolina before following Coach Frank Martin to UMass. This past season, the big man averaged 5.5 ppg and 4.6 rpg and started 25 games with the A-10 program.
However, Leveque too is now in the portal, eligible to play as a graduate transfer. He has two options. He can go down to the true mid-major level and play more minutes with a large role, or go back to the power conference range and settle for 10-15 mpg off the bench but potentially for an NCAA Tournament team.
Both of these players are capable of playing at the highest of levels as key reserves when healthy. And teams such as Alabama, Arkansas, Memphis, and others are still in need of bigs. While their future decisions won’t light the world on fire, look out for what these two decide to do next.