Erik Stevenson, Jamarius Burton among Wichita State players who are transferring
One day after the Wichita State men’s basketball season was cut short, several players left the program and entered the transfer portal on Friday.
A third of the returning scholarship players — Jamarius Burton, Erik Stevenson, Noah Fernandes and DeAntoni Gordon — and a walk-on, Tate Busse, all announced they are planning on leaving the WSU program. VerbalCommits and ESPN’s Jeff Borzello were the first to report the transfers.
The defections put a significant ding into what looked to be a strong foundation for the coming years, as Burton and Stevenson had two years of start experience and Fernandes and Gordon were promising freshmen. Now all four will be prized players on the transfer market and potentially eligible to play immediately if the NCAA changes its transfer rules before next season, which would require a release from WSU, leaving WSU academically eligible and maintaining their academic progress at their new schools.
WSU coach Gregg Marshall and his staff are left with four scholarships to fill this spring now. As it stands, WSU has eight scholarship players returning with one incoming freshman signed, top-150 wing JaDun Michael. At guard, Grant Sherfield (sophomore), Tyson Etienne (sophomore) and Dexter Dennis (junior) will be back with Trey Wade (senior) and Josaphat Bilau (redshirt freshman) at power forward and three centers returning in Asbjorn Midtgaard (senior), Morris Udeze (junior) and Isaiah Poor Bear-Chandler (junior).
Burton was just emerging as WSU’s late-game, go-to option and wrapped up a superb sophomore season with averages of 10.3 points, 3.5 rebounds and 3.4 assists in 27.1 minutes. He registered 52 career starts and improved his three-point shooting from 26.3% and 10 total makes to 38.1% and 24 total makes this season.
Stevenson also made a significant leap his sophomore season, as he averaged 11.1 points, 4.7 rebounds, 2.3 assists and 1.5 steals in 24.7 minutes. He was WSU’s best player during its 15-1 start to the season and its most explosive scorer with four games of 22 points or better.
With the graduation of senior Jaime Echenique (11.3 points), WSU will now lose all three of its double-digit scorers from this season.
Although Fernandes and Gordon did not make much of an impact this season, they were both considered talented, up-and-coming prospects that could eventually become key pieces for the Shockers.
WSU privately thought Fernandes could have been the starting point guard to begin the season, but a foot injury caused him to miss nine weeks right before the season and put Fernandes behind from the start. He did manage to provide a spark in WSU’s win at UCF to stop a three-game losing slide with his surprise promotion to the starting lineup, but another foot injury ended his season and forced him to miss the final three games. Gordon appeared in 20 games and averaged 0.8 points and 1.1 rebounds in limited minutes.
According to those within the program, Friday’s news of four scholarship players leaving was stunning for many in the program discovering the news on social media.
It was a sobering ending to what could only be described as a tumultuous season for the Shockers, even though their record of 23-8 could have very well been good enough to play in the NCAA Tournament. But the team was never able to overcome its off-the-court issues after a 15-1 start to the season.
After WSU lost three straight games, WSU coach Gregg Marshall said he felt more like a team psychologist than a coach.
“More than ever,” Marshall said earlier this season. “This is the most. I don’t know why other than they’re pretty young. Most I’ve ever dealt with things like this. You deal with this more than you deal with X’s and O’s. You deal with egos, kids wanting more of the limelight.”
Marshall also said that instead of practicing basketball the day after a 33-point loss at Houston, WSU instead had an emotional meeting that ended up becoming closer to a therapy session.
“We got out some pent-up anger, jealousy, selfishness, guys called each other out,” Marshall said at the time.
“Just the raw emotion that they spoke with, they were pointing out things that they didn’t like. There was a tear or two shed and some very, very pointed comments. Guys are angry at how they’re playing and then they’re angry at me because they’re not playing more because of how they’re playing. And they’re angry at their teammates that they think they should be playing in front of.”
WSU responded by winning six of its final eight games to finish the season with a 23-8 season, its 11th straight year of at least 22 wins.
WSU also went through something similar following the end of the 2017-18 season when Landry Shamet decided to leave school early to enter the NBA Draft, then Austin Reaves and C.J. Keyser transferred shortly after.
That left WSU with one of the youngest rosters in the country for two straight years, something it might have again next season.
This story was originally published March 13, 2020 at 4:54 PM.
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