Inside The Huskies

Ex-Husky Menifield Back In the Transfer Portal After Trying Arkansas Season

The former UW guard faced all sorts of obstacles at the SEC school.

Dan Raley

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Former University of Washington guard Keyon Menifield Jr., after a forgettable season at Arkansas, is back in the transfer portal, according to multiple news outlets on Friday.

The 6-foot-2 sophomore from Flint, Michigan, showed up at the SEC school academically ineligible, hence he had to walk on, pay his way and hope to land a scholarship the following season, and it was tough going thereafter.

For the Huskies, the ultra quick Menifield had proved to be an exciting first-year player without drawbacks, starting 21 of 32 games and averaging 10 points per game — and then he left.

At Arkansas, he missed the first month of this season, went to court and obtained an NCAA waiver that enabled him to play immediately, beginning on Dec. 16.

While Menifield had a 32-point outing against North Carolina-Wilmington in his third outing, he fell into a pattern of being used as a spot starter before his playing time fell way off.

On Feb. 17, Menifield injured a groin muscle at Mississippi State and didn't take the court again.

The school announced this week that the young player didn't accompany the Razorbacks to the SEC Tournament in Nashville, Tennessee, because he was dealing with academic issues.

Menifield, who averaged 7.9 points per game and started in 4 of 14 games, will look for someone willing to take him and all of his baggage. 

At the UW, Menifield and Koren Johnson were freshmen together who were supposed to be the Husky backcourt of the future. 

On Friday, both were in the transfer portal, looking for new teams. 

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Dan Raley
DAN RALEY

Dan Raley has worked for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Atlanta Journal-Constitution and Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, as well as for MSN.com and Boeing, the latter as a global aerospace writer. His sportswriting career spans four decades and he's covered University of Washington football and basketball during much of that time. In a working capacity, he's been to the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals, the MLB playoffs, the Masters, the U.S. Open, the PGA Championship and countless Final Fours and bowl games.

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