Ebenezer Dowuona enters the transfer portal
NC State basketball junior center Ebenezer Dowuona has decided to enter the transfer portal. Mike Barber of the Richmond Times-Dispatch first reported the news.
After being forced into action a year ago and starting 27 of 31 games, Dowuona returned to a primary reserve role, although his playing time increased after starter Dusan Mahorcic’s injury in December forced him to miss the rest of the year. Dowuona averaged 1.7 points and 1.9 rebounds while blocking 26 shots in 30 games and averaging 10.9 minutes per contest.
When he was a starter in 2021-22, Dowuona averaged 4.1 points and 4.1 rebounds while shooting 55.9 percent from the field and added 54 rejections.
The 6-foot-11, 225-pound native of Accra, Ghana has two seasons of eligibility left should he decide to use his extra year provided by the NCAA during the pandemic. Coming out of Newnan (Ga.) Heritage School, Dowuona took official visits to Pittsburgh, Denver, San Diego State and South Florida before picking NC State.
The On3 Industry ranking for Ebenezer Dowuona had him the as a three-star and the No. 23 center nationally in the 2020 class.
Transfer portal background information
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.
