Official: Kansas transfer Issac McBride joins Vanderbilt basketball

Back in December, we learned that Issac McBride, who had left the Kansas basketball program in September, would be transferring to Vanderbilt — but after that, crickets.

Without official confirmation from Vanderbilt, nobody was really sure what was going on with McBride. But that official confirmation finally came today in the form of a press release from Vanderbilt indicating that McBride will, in fact, join the basketball program for the 2020-21 season.

McBride was a four-star recruit coming out of Baptist Preparatory School in Little Rock, and had enrolled at Kansas. But he left before preseason practice even started, never appearing in a game for the Jayhawks.

Now, the open question is whether McBride will be eligible to play for Vanderbilt in 2020-21. Under normal NCAA transfer rules, he’d be required to spend a year in residence at Vanderbilt before playing, and since he didn’t enroll in the 2019-20 academic year, that would mean he’d have to sit out 2020-21. But my guess is he’ll apply for a waiver, and since he left Kansas immediately after Kansas received a Notice of Allegations from the NCAA, I would think he would have a good chance at being eligible to play next season. And of course, the NCAA could render all of this moot by allowing a one-time transfer without having to sit out.

Either way, McBride has four years to play four since he never appeared in a game at Kansas. We’ll have to wait and see what the NCAA says.