Wichita State basketball sees team’s first player enter the NCAA transfer portal
After his third season on the Wichita State men’s basketball team, Isaac Abidde entered the NCAA transfer portal on Monday afternoon. It was first reported by Verbal Commits, then confirmed by The Eagle with a WSU spokesperson.
Abidde is the first WSU player to enter the portal, which allows players to talk to other teams while keeping the option of returning open, since a 15-19 season concluded in the American Athletic Conference tournament quarterfinals this past Friday. WSU head coach Paul Mills said exit interviews with players would take place over the weekend and on Monday.
A springy 6-foot-8 forward from Albany, Ga., Abidde never found consistent playing time during his years with the Shockers.
He was a late addition to the 2021 recruiting class who opted to bypass a prep year to instead redshirt his first season on campus at WSU. He showed Shocker fans a glimpse of his athleticism in the 2021 Shocker Madness dunk contest, topping Ricky Council IV and Dexter Dennis.
In his first season playing for the Shockers, Abidde received sporadic playing time in the 2022-23 season. He went from not playing at all to playing a career-high 32 minutes in a double-overtime win over SMU to out of the rotation again.
This past season began with great promise, as Abidde scored 40 points in the first four games of the season and even received a promotion to the starting lineup in a win over Saint Louis on Nov. 19. He was a regular in the rotation for WSU’s nonconference stretch, but his playing time faded once Ronnie DeGray III became eligible and the Shockers started AAC play, where he would see just 5.5 minutes per game.
He finished the 2023-24 season with modest averages of 3.3 points and 1.8 rebounds, while shooting 43.6% from the field and 34.5% on 3-pointers. But he flashed plenty of potential, the kind that will likely make him an attractive player in the portal for teams who can offer him more playing time going forward.
Abidde joins former teammate Jalen Ricks, who left WSU’s team before the start of the season, in the transfer portal.
The Shockers now have two open scholarships to fill in their 2024 recruiting class, which currently features two incoming freshmen signed in Wichita Heights star TJ Williams and Texas guard Zion Pipkin.
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