Three Vanderbilt basketball players enter transfer portal

After Vanderbilt’s basketball season ended last week, I’d kind of figured we would soon lose some players to the transfer portal. Vanderbilt, after all, had four freshmen signed in the 2022 class and 11 players on last year’s team who weren’t seniors; somebody had to go in order for the Commodores to come in at the NCAA’s 13-man scholarship limit.

That came over the weekend as three Commodores — Jamaine Mann, Terren Frank, and Shane Dezonie this morning — elected to leave the program.

So let’s talk about this. Losing guys sucks, but Mann, Dezonie, and Frank, respectively, ranked eighth, ninth, and tenth on the team in minutes played in the 2021-22 season (and all three were actually ahead of Liam Robbins, who would have played much more than that had he not missed 21 games; all three, as well, were behind Rodney Chatman in spite of Chatman missing 20 games himself.)

Frank was, easily, the most obvious transfer candidate on the team. The TCU transfer averaged 10.5 minutes a game and was a “DNP - Coach’s Decision” in the team’s last two games in the SEC Tournament and all three NIT games; in other words, Stackhouse had likely already determined that he was a surplus part. In Mann’s case, he wasn’t a surplus part this season, but was likely going to be with a healthy Robbins and Quentin Millora-Brown returning next season and incoming freshmen Lee Dort and Colin Smith likely to command immediate minutes. There just wasn’t room for either of these guys on the roster.

Dezonie might be a real loss; the former four-star recruit came to Vanderbilt after decommitting from Arizona when Sean Miller got fired, but in spite of playing time at the off-guard spot being there for the taking much of the season, Dezonie only commanded 11.1 minutes a game. Rodney Chatman is now gone, but assuming Tyrin Lawrence sticks around, Vanderbilt will still have both him and incoming freshman Noah Shelby available next season. Those are two guys that Dezonie in theory could beat out for minutes, but perhaps he wanted a fresh start.

Anyway, this attrition leaves Vanderbilt with one available scholarship heading into the spring signing period. Another might open up if Scotty Pippen Jr. (as many expect) decides to turn pro.