Former 5-star Indiana recruit entering transfer portal after Mike Woodson departure
03/24/2025 04:21 PM
The transfer portal is open in college basketball and the coaching carousel is on fire, with players and coaches all over the nation switching places and looking for new homes. Indiana basketball is one school that has lost a lot of key players from last season after the departure of head coach Mike Woodson.
On Monday, another key player put his name in the transfer portal. Starting forward Mackenzie Mgbako is looking for a new home after two seasons in Bloomington, according to recruiting analyst Sam Kayser.
Mgbako is a former five-star recruit and was one of the biggest gets out of high school for Woodson and his staff. He has lived up to the billing in two seasons in the candy stripes, starting in 64 games for the Hoosiers.
Mgbako averaged 12.2 points in his two seasons with Indiana to go with 4.3 rebounds a night. He was a staple for Woodson and company on the inside, so new head coach Darian DeVries will have a lot of work to do to replace that presence.
Indiana also lost leading scorer Malik Reneau to the portal after a season where he averaged 13.3 points per game for Indiana, so the Hoosiers are losing a big chunk of their scoring production heading into the DeVries era.
Of course, Darian DeVries is expected to bring his son Tucker DeVries to Indiana in the transfer portal, so the Hoosiers will have at least one star scorer coming in to offset the amount of talent that is leaving. There is also a chance that the new head coach could recruit Reneau, Mgbako or any other Hoosiers back to Indiana, but that possibility feels slim.
Even if he can’t pull that off, DeVries did a good job putting a tournament-caliber team together in year one at West Virginia this year. Even though the Mountaineers were snubbed from a bid to the Big Dance, they had a very competitive team in the Big 12 even after the injury to the younger DeVries in December that ended his season.
In other portal watch news for Indiana basketball, West Virginia wing Jonathan Powell is in the portal. While it’s not a foregone conclusion that he would just follow DeVries, the Hoosiers could be taking a look at the sharpshooter this offseason.
The post Former 5-star Indiana recruit entering transfer portal after Mike Woodson departure appeared first on ClutchPoints.
