Huskies' 6 Portal Transfers Pale Compare to Pac-12's Worst Hit Programs

Nearly everyone went out the door with Utah, Arizona and ASU basketball teams.

University of Washington basketball fans couldn't believe it once the Huskies' disastrous 5-21 season ended and player after player walked into Mike Hopkins' office and said they were leaving.

It wasn't so much who but how many.

Six in all.

Talk about socially distancing, an entire lineup of Hopkins' hand-picked guys plus one packed up and exited the program at once.

While it seemed like a lot of departures at the time, the Husky coach actually got off easy compared to some of the other basketball outposts around the Pac-12.

Once Arizona fired coach Sean Miller, who was facing serious program irregularities, eight Wildcats bolted for the portal, including guard Terrell Brown, a Seattle native who signed on with the UW.

At Utah, coach Larry Krystkowiak was shown the door and 10 players followed him out, with two eventually returning when new coach Craig Smith from Utah State was hired. The Utes' eight confirmed defectors matched Arizona's.

And then there's Arizona State.

Bobby Hurley, whose coaching job remains as secure as any across the conference, lost a whopping nine players to the portal. Nearly an entire full-court scrimmage left town, among them All-Pac-12 guard Remy Martin, who will play his final college season for Kansas.

For the Sun Devil's that's basically starting over.

Hurley had two more guys declare their intentions to turn pro. He was left with two returning scholarship players in senior forward Kimani Lawrence and junior big man Jalen Graham

He had another, Ohio State transfer Luther Muhammad, become eligible after sitting out for changing schools. That's three holdovers.

Everyone else who pulls on an ASU jersey going forward will have to introduce himself around the room.

There was no scandal such as at Arizona, no overly disastrous season such as with the UW, no small-town Corvallis or Pullman to put up with. Those former Sun Devils just up and left.

As for Hurley, he took it in stride and went out looking for replacements as fast as he could -- and he did a masterful job in finding them.

Four leading scorers from other Division 1 programs will join ASU in 6-foot-7 forward AJ Braman from Robert Morris (21 ppg), 6-foot-1 guard Marreon Jackson from Toledo (18.1), 6-foot-1 guard D.J. Horne from Illinois State (15.1) and 6-foot-3 guard Jay Heath from Boston College (14.5). All are graduate transfers except Horne, who will be a junior, and all can play right away.

"I think it's going to be what college basketball is like moving forward," Hurley, the former Duke and NBA point guard, told Arizona reporters. "This is now a new era."

At Washington, Hopkins has a chance to revamp his entire lineup after consecutive sorry seasons. He has the opportunity to pull off a drastic rebuild in one season that otherwise might require years to take hold had he tried to do it with high school or junior-college recruits.

Mainly, Hopkins has the ability to save his job where before that might not have been possible.

He could have five brand-new starters when the next season opens.

Again, Hopkins is not alone.

The Huskies closed out the 2020-21 schedule with a 98-95 opening-round loss to Utah in the Pac-12 tournament.

Between them, the UW and the Utes teams had 16 players enter the transfer portal.

"It's going to be the new world and you've got to be ready," Hurley said. "You go through a season and you've got to bounce back."

For a full accounting league-wide of portal activity, Oregon has had five defectors, Colorado, Oregon State and Washington State three each, California had two, Stanford and USC one each, while UCLA so far hasn't lost anyone off its Final Four team to a transfer.

Altogether, the Pac-12 has had 51 basketball players leave its schools.

It's still early.

All of the Pac-12 arrivals and departures are being recorded and can be found on this tracker.

Follow Dan Raley of Husky Maven on Twitter: @DanRaley1 and @HuskyMaven

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