One-time Kentucky commitment enters transfer portal

Wade-Peeryby:Wade Peery04/15/22

Mississippi State forward D.J. Jeffries officially entered the transfer portal on Friday night. The 6-foot-7 small forward has changed his mind a number of times throughout the years during his basketball career. Before transferring to the Bulldogs’ basketball program, Jeffries played two years for the Memphis Tigers and Penny Hardaway.

Before joining Memphis, he also verbally pledged to head coach John Calipari and the Kentucky Wildcats in March of 2018. Last year with Mississippi State, the Olive Branch, Mississippi, native averaged 8.9 points per game, while corralling 4.2 rebounds per game and dishing out 1.9 assists per game. The former four-star prospect also averaged 28.1 minutes per game last year for the Bulldogs.

According to the On3 Consensus Rankings, Jeffries was rated as the No. 45 prospect in America for the 2019 class. He was named the 2018-2019 Mississippi Gatorade Player of the Year after he averaged 23.3 points, 12.8 rebounds, 5.6 assists, and 2.6 blocks per game during his senior season for Olive Branch High School (Olive Branch, Mississippi).

Now, he’ll be searching for potentially his third team during his college basketball career. There are rumblings that he could potentially re-join the Memphis Tigers and Penny Hardaway for a second time.

For all the latest information and updates on where college basketball prospects are headed this offseason, keep it locked to the 2022 On3 Transfer Portal Wire.

More on the NCAA Transfer Portal

The NCAA Transfer Portal, which covers every NCAA sport at the Division I, II and III levels, is a private database with names of student-athletes who wish to transfer. It is not accessible to the public.

The process of entering the portal is done through a school’s compliance office. Once a player provides written notification of an intent to transfer, the office enters the player’s name in the database and everything is off and running. The compliance office has 48 hours to comply with the player’s request and that request cannot be refused.

Once a player’s name shows up in the portal, other schools can contact the player. Players can change their minds at any point and withdraw from the portal. However, once a player enters the portal, the current scholarship no longer has to be honored. In other words, if a player enters the portal but decides to stay, the school is not obligated to provide a scholarship anymore.

The database is a normal database, sortable by a variety of topics, including (of course) sport and name. A player’s individual entry includes basic details such as contact info, whether the player was on scholarship and whether the player is transferring as a graduate student.

A player can ask that a “do not contact” tag be placed on the report. In those instances, the players don’t want to be  contacted by schools unless they’ve initiated the communication.

The portal has been around since Oct. 15, 2018 and the new calendar cycle within the portal begins each August. For example, the 2021-22 cycle started Aug. 1. During the 2020-21 cycle, 2,626 FBS football players entered the transfer portal (including walk-ons). That comes after 1,681 entered during the 2019-20 cycle and 1,709 during the abbreviated 2018-19 cycle. In comparison, 1,833 Division I basketball players entered the portal during the 2020-21 cycle after totals of 1,020 in 2019-20 and 1,063 in 2018-19.

On3’s James Fletcher III also contributed to this article.