Former South Carolina shooting guard Erik Stevenson announces transfer destination
Fifth-year senior Erik Stevenson has bounced around a number of colleges across the college basketball landscape and on Sunday afternoon, he officially announced he will transfer to the West Virginia Mountaineers. It will be his fourth stop in college basketball and he has suited up for Wichita State, Washington, and South Carolina in the past.
“I chose WVU because of the style of play and the culture that Huggs (Bob Huggins) has up there,” Stevenson explained to On3’s Joe Tipton. “I feel like that’s the best fit for me for my last year of eligibility. Playing for a Hall of Fame coach is something special as well. Also, I have family up in that area. Playing in the Big-12 is going to be a challenge every night that I look forward too.”
He entered the transfer portal last month and chose the Mountaineers over interest from Arkansas, Auburn, and Creighton. This past season for the Gamecocks, Stevenson averaged 11.6 points, 4.7 rebounds, and 2.8 assists, while shooting 36.9 percent from the field.
Coming out of high school, he was rated as the No. 38 shooting guard in America and a three-star prospect, according to the On3 Consensus Rankings for the 2018 class.
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.