A trio of men’s basketball players has entered the NCAA Transfer Portal since Thursday, signaling their potential plans to leave the program.
Senior forward Qwanzi Samuels entered the transfer portal Thursday, according to a tweet by college basketball recruitment website Verbal Commits. Sophomore forward Daniel Nixon and junior center Noel Brown entered Thursday and Friday, respectively, according to On3.com – a college sports website that posts transfer portal updates.
The potential transfers would mark a loss of two key reserve players and an up-and-coming sophomore wing player early in the offseason. An athletic department spokesperson confirmed the three entries into the portal to The Hatchet last week.
Entry into the portal frees them up to leave GW and continue their careers elsewhere, but it does not count as a final decision, leaving a return to the Colonials is still possible. Any return to the team after entering the portal would allow the basketball program to lower or eliminate the player’s scholarship for the next academic term.
Samuels, who was a key role player off the bench for the Colonials this season and has been with the program for two years, entered the portal as he approaches his final year of eligibility. Samuels averaged 1.3 points and 7.9 minutes of play per game, a decline from his junior year numbers of 2.6 and 14.4, respectively.
Though the senior played in every game down the stretch, he was not a part of Head Coach Chris Caputo’s core rotation late in the season. He registered just 13 seconds in the lone A-10 Championship matchup and logged just under five total minutes of play in the final three regular season games.
Samuels transferred into the program in the 2021 offseason after two seasons at Florida Gulf Coast.
Brown just finished his third year with the program, scoring 3.2 points per game on an average of 11.4 minutes, serving as the main frontcourt reserve.
He played a slightly larger role, consistently relieving the frontcourt duo of forwards Ricky Lindo Jr. and Hunter Dean from his bench role and serving as the lone center with consistent minutes. His playing time and production did not increase from his sophomore year, where he averaged 11.9 minutes, 3 points and 2.3 rebounds per game.
Nixon, in his second year with the team, played only one game – the season opener against Virginia State – before undergoing a season-ending knee injury in January. He hails from Winston-Salem Christian School in White Plains, New York and joined the Colonials immediately after high school.
The three entries mark the opening salvo in what will likely be a busy offseason for Caputo and his staff with more transfers both into and out of the program. In what will likely be the biggest of these shifts, the future remains uncertain for senior forward and A-10 scoring champion James Bishop. He is “definitely keeping his options open” as he mulls a transfer, he said in an interview with The Hatchet last week.
A final year of graduate eligibility with the Colonials, or even an entry into professional basketball are all possible for Bishop.