Transfers Making Biggest Early Impact on 2021-22 Men's College Basketball Season

Between the blanket extra year of eligibility because of the pandemic and the new rule allowing everyone one "free" transfer without needing to sit out a year, the men's college basketball transfer portal was, predictably, quite busy this year. Compared to the recent norm of roughly 1,000 transfers per year, there were more than 1,700 during this cycle.

Three weeks into the 2021-22 season, several of those transfers have stood out above the rest.

Our ranking of the top 10 transfers is based predominantly on the individual's contributions through the first six or so games. However, team success is also an important component, considering there are 358 Division I teams and there aren't enough hours in the day to keep tabs on them all.

That isn't to say we're exclusively focused on AP Top 25 teams, but, you know, it helps.

Before we dive into the top 10, let's start things out with a few honorable mentions who could be just one big game away from jumping up in the rankings.

Statistics current through the start of play Tuesday, unless otherwise noted.

Remy Martin, Kansas: The former Sun Devil has scored in double figures in five of six games with the Jayhawks. It would be nice to see more assists and/or steals from the starting point guard, though.

Terrell Brown, Washington: Averaged 20.8 points with Seattle in 2019-20, disappeared last year with Arizona and is back up to 21.9 points through eight games with the Huskies. Too bad they're 4-4 with several embarrassing losses in spite of his efforts.

Qudus Wahab, Maryland: The former Georgetown center has been hit or miss in the early going, but one of the hits was an 18-point, 15-rebound game against George Washington.

Caleb Mills, Florida State: He accounted for at least eight points, three assists and two steals in five of Florida State's first six games. Mills may well be the MVP of a deep Seminoles rotation.

Kyler Edwards, Houston: After starting 57 games at Texas Tech over the past two seasons, the shooting guard has become quite the second fiddle to Marcus Sasser for the Cougars. He's hit 17-of-38 from deep through the first six games.

Tari Eason, LSU: The former Cincinnati Bearcat is coming off the bench and filling up the box score with 13.9 points, 8.3 rebounds, 1.4 steals, 1.3 blocks and 1.3 assists per game.

Jayden Gardner, Virginia: He averaged 18.0 points and 8.7 rebounds over the past three years with East Carolina and has quickly asserted himself in the low post for UVA, leading the team in both scoring (14.0) and rebounding (8.3).

Alonzo Verge Jr., Nebraska: At the start of the day on Sunday, Verge and Duke's Wendell Moore Jr. were the only players in the country averaging at least 13.0 points, 5.1 assists and 5.1 rebounds per game with at least five games played. He might lead the Cornhuskers to signs of life in Fred Hoiberg's third season.

Brady Manek and Dawson Garcia, North Carolina: These are two stretch 4s both shooting better than 40 percent from distance and averaging better than six rebounds per game, but they'll need to improve on defense.

Bryson Williams, Davion Warren and Kevin Obanor, Texas Tech: The Red Raiders have not yet faced anyone ranked in the KenPom.com's top 200, but these three newbies have impressed against subpar competition.

If we had put this list together 10 days earlier, Darryl Morsell might have landed at No. 1.

Four games into the Marquette portion of his career, Morsell had scored 21, 26, 21 (in a stunning upset of Illinois) and 22 points, making exactly three three-pointers in each of those games. He also averaged 7.8 free-throw attempts per game as an award for his assertiveness when he opted to take a break from draining deep balls.

And compared to what he managed over the past four years in College Park, those performances came out of nowhere.

In 126 career games with Maryland, Morsell shot 26.7 percent from three-point range, never made more than two triples in a single game and had a career high of 19 points. He also averaged just 2.4 free-throw attempts per game with the Terrapins.

In other words, each of his first four games with Marquette was better than even his best game with Maryland.

Over his past three games, though, Morsell has fallen back to earth, averaging 8.0 points while shooting 1-of-9 from three-point range. Still, a year-to-date scoring average of 16.3 for a guy who lived in the 8.5-9.0 range in each of the past four years is nothing to sneeze at, and it's why the Golden Eagles are surprisingly out to a 6-1 start.

We simply must start the Alondes Williams conversation with a "consider the competition" grain of salt. Wake Forest's first five games were at home against William & Mary, Western Carolina, Charleston Southern, North Carolina A&T and Kennesaw State. Not exactly a meat grinder right there.

All the same, goodness gracious has Williams been a surprising breakout star for the Demon Deacons.

Despite starting 24 games at Oklahoma over the past two seasons, Williams wasn't even among Jeff Goodman's top 101 transfers this offseason—and justifiably so. He only averaged 14.5 points per 40 minutes, shot 25.0 percent from three and wasn't making much of an impact elsewhere in the box score for the Sooners.

Through seven games with the Deacs, though, Williams has averaged 19.3 points, 5.3 rebounds and 3.7 assists. And while the first five games were against lower-level competition, he had 24 points and four dimes in the overtime win over Oregon State and 14 points, eight rebounds and three assists in a loss to LSU in the Emerald Coast Classic.

Wake Forest isn't expected to be particularly competitive in the ACC, but it should at least be better than the past four seasons (17-57) if Williams can keep performing at this level.

If nothing else, Rutgers transfer Myles Johnson has done a fine job with UCLA after being forced into a bigger role than expected, and the Bruins defense is much better because of his presence in the paint.

That bigger role was a product of Cody Riley suffering a sprained MCL just a few minutes into the season opener against Cal State Bakersfield. Riley started 31 games for the Bruins last year, and the expectation was that he would play roughly 20-25 minutes per night as the starter with Johnson coming off the bench for the other 15-20.

Instead, Johnson was out there for 36 minutes against Villanova in his first game as a starter. He took (and made) just one shot in that entire overtime clash, but he had a pair of blocked shots and was the biggest deterrent to a Wildcats offense that shot just 38.6 percent from inside the arc.

In fact, Johnson has blocked multiple shots in six of UCLA's seven games. The one that he didn't, however, was the game against Gonzaga that got out of control in a hurry. If Drew Timme and Chet Holmgren hadn't made things look so easy in that game, Johnson would maybe have a case for a spot in our top three.

Once Riley comes back, don't be surprised if Johnson becomes even more of a defensive menace, as he won't have to be as concerned about foul trouble leaving the team short-handed in the paint.

Could a "top transfers" list possibly be complete without someone who is thriving under the tutelage of Eric Musselman? The man turned Nevada into a mid-major juggernaut for a few years with rosters made up almost entirely of former transfers, and he has done well with that same blueprint in Fayetteville.

All five of Arkansas' leading scorers started their college careers elsewhere, and three of them—Au'Diese Toney (from Pittsburgh), Stanley Umude (from South Dakota) and Chris Lykes (from Miami)—were new arrivals this past offseason.

Of that trio, Toney made the largest impact in the biggest games. He had 13 points and nine rebounds in the Hall of Fame Classic opener against Kansas State, and he kicked it up a notch for 19 points and nine boards in the championship victory over Cincinnati.

Notably, 12 of those 18 rebounds were of the offensive variety, which is one heck of a luxury to be getting out of a 6'6" small forward when you also have a 6'10" power forward (Jaylin Williams) and 7'3" center (Connor Vanover) in your starting lineup.

Toney also had 18 points and 11 rebounds (five offensive) in Arkansas' season-opening win over Mercer.

I can't quite justify putting Jamal Cain in the top five since Oakland simply is not nationally relevant (yet?), but Marquette fans probably would like to see Steve Wojciechowski somehow fired for a second time after failing to properly utilize Cain over the past four years.

While with the Golden Eagles, he averaged just 5.2 points, 3.9 rebounds and 0.7 steals per game.

Even if we ignore the first three years in which he was a backup and focus solely on his senior year in the starting lineup, it was 9.6 points, 6.3 rebounds and 0.9 steals.

Still, nothing compares to the 22.6 points, 11.1 rebounds and 2.6 steals he has averaged with the Golden Grizzlies.

And let's be sure to point out that Oakland has faced a pretty legitimate schedule thus far. Three of its first four contests were true road games against West Virginia, Oklahoma State and Alabama—in which Cain averaged 20.7 points, 9.7 rebounds and 2.7 steals. The Golden Grizzlies also played in and won the eight-team Gulf Coast Showcase, beating a trio of teams (Vermont, Rice and Delaware) ranked in the KenPom top 160.

In other words, Cain has thus far dominated against the most challenging portion of Oakland's schedule. By the time he's done with the 22-game Horizon League schedule, he may well be flirting with leading the nation in both points and rebounds.

Inconsistency plagued Boogie Ellis throughout his two seasons with Memphis.

Lights-out shooting performances were bookended by brick-laying parties. Eighteen games into his career, he had two games with more than 20 points and four games with no points, despite starting nearly all of them. Even toward the end of his sophomore year when he did have a handful of excellent showings, he was still busting about as often as he was booming.

But now with USC, he is finally the undisputed lead guard for the first time in his college career, and it's working out quite nicely for him and the Trojans.

Ellis did have a pretty big dud (two points on six shots with no assists) this past Saturday against San Diego State. Prior to struggling through that rock fight, though, he was averaging 17.0 points and 4.0 assists while shooting 45.0 percent from three-point range.

Because of his immediate success, USC has gotten out to a 6-0 start and seems no worse for wear after losing Evan Mobley, Tahj Eaddy and Isaiah White from last year's Elite Eight squad. Games in the next few days against Utah and Washington State should be a good litmus test for determining whether the first five games or the San Diego State game represent what we should expect from Ellis for the next four months.

Throw a dart and pick a Longhorn, honestly. Five of the eight team leaders in minutes transferred into the program this offseason, and Vanderbilt transfer Dylan Disu is going to make it six of nine once he makes a full recovery from the knee injury that kept him out for the first five games of the season.

Thus far, though, Timmy Allen (formerly of Utah) has been the brightest star of Chris Beard's transfer-heavy roster, averaging a team-best 13.3 points and 6.0 rebounds.

In Texas' only game of note, Allen was just about the only Longhorn who showed up at Gonzaga. He finished that one with 18 points, six rebounds and four assists, leading the team in all three categories. He also had at least 10 points, eight rebounds, three assists and two steals in each of the subsequent games against Northern Colorado and Cal Baptist.

Tre Mitchell (by way of Massachusetts) has also been pivotal as Texas' primary big man. Though he has gotten out to a rough start to the year, Marcus Carr (formerly of Minnesota) was regarded by most as the best player to enter the transfer portal after last season. By the end of the year, it's likely all three will secure their spots among the 10 best transfers.

NBA scouts have been flocking to Auburn games for the chance to evaluate freshman phenom Jabari Smith and, to a lesser degree, North Carolina transfer Walker Kessler. However, it's safe to assume the early play of Georgia transfer K.D. Johnson has also piqued their interest.

Johnson did not play until mid-January last season while waiting to be cleared by the NCAA, and he wasn't even a starter for the Bulldogs once he was able to take the floor. But he was a microwave scorer off the bench, averaging 24.0 points per 40 minutes during his 16 games with Georgia.

Through six games with Auburn, Johnson is averaging 15.7 points, 3.3 steals and just 1.0 turnovers while shooting 40 percent from three-point range. He was outstanding in the double-overtime loss to Connecticut in the Battle 4 Atlantis, finishing that one with 27 points and five steals. He also went for 15 points and five steals as the Tigers routed Syracuse in the fifth-place game in Nassau, Bahamas.

With Johnson leading the way with all those takeaways, this Auburn team—at least on defense—looks a lot like the one that went to the Final Four in 2019. If he's able to keep playing with controlled aggression as a slasher and fast-break leader on offense, this might be the team to beat in the SEC.

Last year, one of the most critical transfers in the country was Mike Smith going from Columbia to Michigan and fully embracing more of a managerial role. He averaged 22.8 points and 19.3 field-goal attempts per game in his final season in the Ivy League, but those numbers plummeted to 9.0 and 7.5, respectively, as he became more of a pass-first point guard in the Big Ten.

While James Akinjo's transformation hasn't been quite that drastic, his willingness to adapt to a role as less of a scorer and more of a distributor and defender has already made Baylor emerge as one of the top threats to win the national championship.

During the previous three years with Georgetown and Arizona, Akinjo averaged 14.3 points, 5.2 assists and 1.3 steals while taking 11.6 shots per game. Through seven games this year, he's at 10.1 points, 6.6 assists, 2.4 steals and 9.6 field-goal attempts. Baylor simply hasn't needed him taking many three-point attempts, as holdovers from the 2021 championship team LJ Cryer, Matthew Mayer and Adam Flagler have been the primary perimeter options.

That might change if Mayer (29.0 percent) and Flagler (30.0 percent) don't improve from three-point range, especially considering Akinjo is a career 37.9 percent shooter from distance. But currently he is thriving as more of a tertiary scorer for the first time in his college career.

At the start of play on Monday, Oscar Tshiebwe was leading the nation in rebounds per game (16.0), Sahvir Wheeler was leading the nation in assists per game (9.2) and neither had a close challenger.

Starting with the big man, Tshiebwe opened the season with back-to-back 20-rebound performances, and he hasn't slowed down much since. He has grabbed at least 10 boards in each game, and he has also scored at least a dozen in six of seven games. (Although he did get completely shut out by Ohio in the exception to the rule, which was bizarre.)

In both of his previous seasons with West Virginia, Tshiebwe averaged a little under 16 rebounds per 40 minutes. This year, he's sitting at 23.3 rebounds per 40 minutes, plus 2.3 blocks per 40 for good measure. Freshman forward Daimion Collins is coming along nicely and may well cut into Tshiebwe's one-man rebounding show in the near future, but that's only going to make Kentucky tougher to beat.

But the point guard the Wildcats picked up from Georgia has been arguably even more important than Tshiebwe.

Wheeler had 16 points and 10 assists—albeit on 15 field-goal attempts with seven turnovers—in the Champions Classic against Duke. He also recently had 12 points and 14 assists in a blowout of North Florida. The only game in which he hasn't had at least six dimes was against Ohio (a cause/effect of Tshiebwe being held scoreless, no doubt).

Kentucky had a lot of issues during last year's 9-16 campaign, but the most glaring one was the lack of a legitimate point guard. The Wildcats had gobs of talent but simply couldn't run the offense. Thanks to the arrival of Wheeler, this team feels like a title contender once again.

Kellen Grady, a fifth-year senior out of Davidson, has also been a critical addition for the Wildcats, as he is clearly their best perimeter threat. It's hard to put his early impact on the same level as that of both Tshiebwe and Wheeler, though.