As March fades into April, the college basketball season is heading toward its dramatic conclusion. Meanwhile, teams watching the NCAA tournament from home have already turned their attention to next year and are looking to make key additions that will help them achieve their long-term goals. Now, more than ever, the transfer portal is a huge portion of talent acquisition in college basketball.
Luckily, Ohio has already joined the transfer portal party with the addition of former Ashland center Victor Searls.
As a senior last season, Searls averaged 15.4 points and 7.5 rebounds per game. Searls was efficient for Ashland with a 68.8% field goal percentage.
With AJ Clayton confirming, via Instagram post that he will return to Ohio for his senior season, the team will likely be solidified in its frontcourt for the 2024-25 season. The jump from DII basketball to DI isn’t an easy one but Searls should provide Ohio with some more lineup flexibility with his 6 feet, 9 inches and 245-pound size, more prototypical of a center.
With two years of quality experience as a starter for Ashland, Searls at worst provides Ohio with solid depth on the bench to back up Clayton. With Clayton’s offensive versatility in mind, it could be possible that the two frontcourt teammates share the court together throughout the season. Searls, a graduate transfer and All-Great Midwest Conference player continues a theme of Ohio adding older players to its roster.
Searls’ experience could be very useful for a younger player like Ayden Evans, who will be a freshman center for Ohio in 2024-25.
Ohio has no transfer portal departures to this point, a strong sign for the program. With Jaylin Hunter and Miles Brown leaving Ohio for graduation, it wouldn’t be surprising to see Ohio look for a point guard in the portal to replace them.
While Ohio still has strong scoring options at the guard positions, such as Shereef Mitchell, Ajay Sheldon and Elmore James, it may look for a reliable ball handler to take over for the loss of Hunter.
Regardless of the moves Ohio makes or does not make, Ohio Coach Jeff Boals and the rest of the coaching staff have built a young and improving roster, mostly with its own recruits.
Ohio may have another strategic portal addition coming, but as it is, the program has the depth and high-end talent to make a run for its second MAC championship in the last four seasons.
Players to watch:
Tom House, Small Forward
House, a sophomore from Florida State, is a player to watch for Ohio. Originally from Dayton, House was offered by the Bobcats out of high school. House played two seasons with Florida State but did not get substantial playing time.
AJ Smith, Guard
How about one more AJ? According to reports on Twitter, Smith has heard from several schools since entering the transfer portal, and Ohio is one of them. As a sophomore, Smith averaged 14 points and nine rebounds for Southern Indiana.
bg238320@ohio.edu
