West Virginia Basketball: Jose Perez’s 4th transfer trip ends up back home
Jose Perez was the final West Virginia Basketball player that was in the transfer portal. In the end, he’s set to play his final year with the Mountaineers.
In the month of July, the main college basketball storyline involved West Virginia Basketball. After losing HC Bob Huggins, several players opted to enter the transfer portal. One of them was Jose Perez, who had sat out the entire past season after transferring over from Manhattan due to a sudden coaching change over there.
Among the five players that originally entered this past month for the Mountaineers, four of them had picked new landing spots. Joe Toussaint (Texas Tech), Mohamed Wague (Alabama), James Okonkwo (UNC), and Tre Mitchell (Kentucky) are gone and it looked as if Perez was going to leave the Big 12 program too. He reportedly had a visit set for Michigan a week from now, with teams like Gonzaga and Oregon also being in the mix.
In the end, Perez made his decision, one that West Virginia Basketball fans had to be happy with.
NEWS: Jose Perez will withdraw from the transfer portal and return to West Virginia, he tells @On3sports.
— Joe Tipton (@TiptonEdits) July 22, 2023
Garnered interest from Michigan, Oregon, Gonzaga, and others. Averaged 18.9 PPG during the 2021-22 season. https://t.co/0eva4y2kBl pic.twitter.com/xzIrUGWkxe
It’s been a big week of roster building for interim head coach Josh Eilert. The team landed former Florida State guard Jeremiah Bembry, along with Quinn Slazinki, a power forward transfer from Iona that was a former St. John’s commit. Now, the team has 11 scholarship players on the roster for the 2023-24 campaign.
What’s interesting is that despite having so many storylines since picking West Virginia in the first place, we still don’t know what to expect from Perez in his final college season. He was great at the mid-major level at both Gardner-Webb and Manhattan but struggled in his lone year at Marquette. What if he doesn’t do well on the court in the Mountaineers?
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It really doesn’t matter because West Virginia needs him and his offensive potential. This is going to be a completely new roster regardless and there’s no telling which of the new pieces ends up working or not. But now, we at least will know how it finally works out with Perez and the Mountaineers, one of the teams to watch for sure next season.