Will Aziz Bandaogo, Trey Woodbury Follow Mark Madsen to Cal?
We may know in the next few days whether two of Mark Madsen’s best players at Utah Valley last season are ready to follow their coach to Cal.
Center Aziz Bandaogo and guard Trey Woodbury -- both first-team All-WAC selections last season -- entered the transfer portal on Friday and both could find a new home at Haas Pavilion.
Bandaogo, a 7-footer from Senegal, averaged 11.7 points, 10.1 rebounds and was third nationally with 2.9 blocked shots per game as a junior last season for the 28-9 Wolverines. He is considered one of the best big men still on the transfer market.
Trey Woodbury (4) scores against UAB during the 2023 NIT.
Photo by Candice Ward, USA Today
Woodbury, a 6-4 guard, gave Utah Valley 13.8 points, 5.9 rebounds and a team-best 4.7 assists per game as a graduate senior. He has one year of eligibility remaining.
Neither player has indicated publicly what his timetable is for making a decision.
Madsen, hired to take over a Cal program that was 3-29 last season, already has signed two transfers — 6-11 Fardaws Aimaq of Texas Tech and guard Jalen Cone of Northern Arizona.
Five players on last year’s Cal team — Grant Newell, Jalen Celestine, ND Okafor, Devin Askew and Monty Bowser — either have confirmed or are believed to be returning.
With just seven scholarship players currently on the roster, Madsen clearly needs at least two or three more, and Bandaogo and Woodbury would bring significant value.
Bandaogo was the WAC Defensive Player of the Year and the Newcomer of the Year after blossoming into a dominant presence at that end of the floor last season in his first campaign at UVU. He had 17 double-doubles and 13 games with at least four blocked shots, and he grabbed seven rebounds in a game vs. Wake Forest.
Because his began his career at Akron after playing at the NBA Academy Africa, this will be his second transfer, which often means a player must sit out a year. But Bandaogo told ESPN he has been experiencing difficulties, and that could allow him to transfer and play immediately because of the mental health factor.
"The reason I am entering the portal is just not for my basketball career but more importantly for my mental health," Bandaogo told ESPN. "I have been going through a very hard period for months where my day-to-day life has severely been affected. I'm grateful for the chance and I hope all my supporters will acknowledge the importance of this decision.
"This is a recent decision I have made to transfer. I haven't had much time to think or to be worried about it. I just know I want to be closer to my friends and family that I have in USA. I feel that's very important for me at the moment.”
Tristan Freeman for the website bustingbrackets.com wrote about 10 programs that should have an interest in Bandaogo, and included Cal on that list.
“The one potential option that’s obvious for Bandaogo is simply following Coach Madsen over to Cal,” Freeman wrote. “He’s the man who helped unlocked the big man’s potential and it might not work out with anyone else.”
Freeman addressed the question of how Bandaogo and Aimaq could play together, suggesting Aimaq has sufficient skills to play at the power forward spot. Aimaq played two productive seasons for Madsen at Utah Valley before moving to Taxes Tech, where he averaged 11.1 points and 7.9 rebounds.
Madsen, quoted by 247Sports, talked glowingly about Bandaogo after UVU’s loss to UAB in the NIT.
"Aziz, he's a big man that has a point guard mentality," Madsen said. "You should hear him in our shootarounds. He's noticing nuances that a lot of players do not notice, and he's communicating that to the coaches and communicating that to teammates. And he has an unbelievable career ahead of him."
Woodbury is a native of Las Vegas who played a limited role in one season at UNLV before joining Madsen at Utah Valley for the 2019-20 season. He scored more than 1,000 points at UVU despite playing just two games in 2021-22 due to a knee injury.
He seemingly made a full recovery this past season as Utah Valley’s only player to average more than 30 minutes per game. Woodbury had 14 games of at least six assists and a triple-double with 11 points, 11 rebounds and 11 assists against Stephen F. Austin.
In six postseason games — the WAC tournament and NIT — Woodbury hiked his production, averaging 19.7 points, 8.0 rebounds and 6.2 assists while shooting 56 percent from the field.
Cover photo of former Utah Valley center Aziz Bandaogo by Candice Ward, USA Today
Follow Jeff Faraudo of Cal Sports Report on Twitter: @jefffaraudo
