We’re only a week removed from Michigan cutting the nets down in Indianapolis, where it knocked off UConn to win the 2026 NCAA Tournament, but rosters are already beginning to take shape for the 2026-27 season. Let’s hit on some of the key transactions that have taken place since the transfer portal opened a week ago.
–Tennessee has landed a trio of four-star commitments from the portal in power forward Miles Rubin (Loyola Chicago), point guard Dai Dai Ames (California) and shooting guard Tyler Lundblade (Belmont).
In 33 starts for the Ramblers, Rubin averaged 11.3 points, 7.1 rebounds, 2.3 blocked shots and 2.3 assists per game. He made 58.5 percent of his field-goal attempts.
Rubin has started 100 times in 103 career games for Loyola Chicago. He has 237 career blocked shots, hitting 64.7 percent of his career FGAs.
Ames has started 76 times in 96 career games at three different schools. The 6-foot-2 Chicago native played at Kansas St. as a freshman, Virginia as a sophomore and Cal as a junior.
In 34 starts for the Golden Bears this past season, Ames averaged 16.9 points, 2.2 assists and 2.0 RPG. He had shooting splits of 46.4/37.6/85.0.
Lundblade played sparingly at TCU for two seasons before becoming a starter at Belmont this past year. He averaged 15.6 PPG while draining 40.6 percent of his treys and 93.4 percent of his free throws during the 2025-26 campaign.
The Volunteers saw six of their players leave the program via the portal. Two of them have found new homes, as power forwards J.P. Astrella and Jaylen Carey are transferring to Michigan and Missouri, respectively.
247Sports currently has Rick Barnes’ transfer-specific class ranked #3 nationally.
-As of Tuesday morning, Louisville had the #1 transfer-specific class at 247Sports. The Cardinals have landed five-star transfer center Flory Bidunga (Kansas) and four-star point guard Jackson Shelstad (Oregon).
As a sophomore in 2025-26, Bidunga started 34 of 35 games for KU. He averaged 13.3 points, 9.0 rebounds, 2.6 blocked shots and 1.5 APG. Bidunga made 64.0 percent of his FGAs.
Bidunga was the #1 ranked player in the portal at 247Sports.
Shelstad has started 77 times in 79 career games across three seasons at Oregon. He saw his 2025-26 campaign cut short after 12 games due to an injury.
For his career, Shelstad has averaged 13.6 points, 3.0 assists and 2.9 RPG. He’s buried 35.2 percent of his 3-pointers and 84.4 percent of his free throws.
–Iowa St. saw its power forward Milan Momcilovic announce that he’s leaving Ames on Monday. Momcilovic is currently the #2 ranked player in the portal at 247Sports.
He started 101 times in 102 career games for the Cyclones in three seasons. In 37 starts this past year, Momcilovic averaged 16.9 PPG and drained 48.7 percent of his 3-pointers.
On the bright side for Iowa St., it already has five incoming transfers. Point guard JaQuan Johnson (Bradley) and power forward Tre Singleton (Northwestern) are four-star transfers.
Singleton started 31 of 34 games in his lone campaign with the Wildcats, averaging 7.6 points and 4.8 rebounds in 25.0 minutes of playing time. In 34 games for the Braves in 2025-26, Johson averaged 16.9 points, 3.9 rebounds, 3.6 assists and 2.5 SPG. He buried 38.3 percent of his treys.
-Jeff Capel has taken Pittsburgh to only one NCAA Tournament in his eight-year tenure, but he somehow survived to see a ninth season with the Panthers. Maybe the 51-year-old Capel will take advantage of the opportunity? Per 247Sports, he currently has the fifth-best transfer-specific group in the country.
Three of the six incoming players from the portal are four-star transfers, including point guard Naithan George (Syracuse), power forward Baye Ndongo and shooting guard Jalil Bethea (Alabama). George has started 94 times in 95 career games for Ga. Tech and The ‘Cuse.
In his lone season with the Orange in 2025-26, George averaged 10.9 points, 5.4 assists, 3.0 rebounds and 1.5 SPG. He has a 530/261 career assist-to-turnover ratio.
Bethea hasn’t lived up to his five-star billing coming out of Archbishop Wood High school in Warminster, PA. 247Sports had him as the nation’s #7 overall prospect in the 2024 class when he signed with Miami.
Bethea started 16 times in 31 games for the Hurricanes in 2024-25, averaging 7.1 points, 2.1 rebounds and 1.2 APG. In his only year with the Crimson Tide, he averaged 3.9 PPG and logged merely 7.9 minutes of playing time per contest.
-Sean Miller’s two commitments from the portal for Texas have been enough to grab the #2 transfer-specific ranking as of Tuesday morning. The Longhorns have acquired four-star point guard Isaiah Johnson and four-star power forward David Punch.
In his true freshman year at Colorado, Johnson averaged 16.9 points, 3.0 assists, 2.9 rebounds and 1.0 SPG. His shooting splits were elite, especially for a PG: 48.6/37.8/82.1.
Punch led TCU to a 66-64 win over Ohio St. in the first round of the NCAA Tournament by producing 16 points, 13 rebounds, three blocked shots and two assists. In two seasons with the Horned Frogs, he started 61 of 66 games.
As a sophomore this past year, Punch averaged 14.1 points, 6.7 rebounds, 2.0 assists, 1.9 blocked shots and 1.3 SPG. 247Sports ranked Punch as the #9 player in the portal, while Johnson was #14.
-The top available players in the portal include Momcilovic (#2), #3 John Blackwell (Wisconsin), #4 Allen Graves (Santa Clara), #5 Massamba Diop (Arizona St.), #6 Rob Wright (BYU), #8 Juke Harris (Wake Forest), #10 Paulius Murauskas (Saint Mary’s), #12 Aiden Sherrell (Alabama), #13 Moustapha Thiam (Cincinnati), #16 Donnie Freeman (Syracuse) and #19 Terrence Hill Jr. (VCU).
-Other top-ranked players in the portal who have committed to their new schools include #7 PJ Haggerty (from Kansas St. to Texas A&M), #11 Miles Byrd (from San Diego St. to Providence), #15 Stefan Vaaks (from Providence to Illinois), #17 Dedan Thomas Jr. (from LSU to Houston), #20 Acaden Lewis (Villanova to Miami) and #21 Somto Cyril (Georgia to Miami).
-Did ex-Florida center Micah Handlogten know something nobody else did when he entered the portal last week? To be clear, Handlogten does need a waiver from the NCAA to play another season of college ball, as does Denzel Aberdeen, who committed to returning to the Gators last week after one year at Kentucky.
Did Handlogten decide to leave Gainesville, where he was a fan favorite and extremely popular teammate, because he knew other UF bigs were planning on returning to school? Per multiple reports in recent days, Alex Condon and Rueben Chinyelu will likely test the NBA waters, but they are trending toward returning to UF.
Also, Thomas Haugh might make a decision upon his return from a vacation in Hawaii. Many considered Haugh to be gone, but that was way premature. He’s a first-round pick in all NBA mock drafts, but most have him outside of the lottery.
The life-long Gator fan is reportedly 50/50 on his decision, but it says here (just a hunch and nothing else) that he’s more than likely going to wear orange and blue for his senior season in 2026-27.