MSU Feeling Portal Woes for First Time The Michigan State Spartans hadn’t been hit too hard by the transfer portal– until Tuesday.
It was an eventful day for the Michigan State Spartans’ basketball squad, but not in a good way.
Tom Izzo saw three of his players – Tre Holloman, Gehrig Normand and Xavier Booker – announce their intentions to enter the transfer portal.
Booker comes as a slight surprise, as he did not play much this year but had a chance to find his footing in his third season in East Lansing. Normand does not come as much of one, as he did not see the court for meaningful minutes at all this year.
However, Holloman’s entry stunned fans, as he was the team’s emotional leader all season. Whenever the team needed a spark in a game it was trailing, Holloman provided it.
There has not been much reason provided as to why Holloman entered his name into the portal, so it is unknown how likely it is that he actually finds a new team or ends up back as a Spartan.
This is new territory for Izzo, as his rosters have not been poached during transfer portal season. He lost two players last year, but the argument can be made that those departures were addition by subtraction.
It’s easy to speculate that Holloman could have been lured into the portal with a lucrative offer from another team, as has often happened across the country since the portal’s rise in popularity.
Just last week, Izzo went on a rant about the state of college athletics and how absurd it is that players can enter the portal while their teams are still playing in the NCAA Tournament. Now, three of his own players will look for new places to play next year.
It is not at all a culture problem at MSU. It is simply the state of the game and how rosters are constructed nowadays.
Some worry it will force Izzo into an early retirement. While that is too much to bite off right now, it’s fair for fans to worry about something the old-fashioned coach hates now affecting his own squad.
The portal works both ways, so MSU could find talent to replace the players they lost. It is, however, tough to find a player who was so ride-or-die for the program like Holloman was.
A long offseason is ahead, and it got off to a rough start for the Spartans.
