In college basketball, championships are won in the NCAA Tournament, but in the transfer portal era, championship rosters are largely built in April.
That’s the transfer portal window and the time when the vast majority of player retention and portal addition that makes up modern roster building occurs. You might not win a title in April, but with the wrong roster build, you can almost certainly lose one.
Earlier this week, we looked at the winners from the SEC’s offseason transfer portal overhaul.
With that roster building blueprint in mind, here’s a look at the losers of the SEC offseason to date.
Losers
These are the teams that have had the worst offseasons thus far in the SEC:
Kentucky Wildcats
Note: * = requires waiver; ** = NBA Draft Early Entrant
Key Portal Additions: Zoom Diallo (Washington), Alex Wilkins (Furman), Justin McBride (James Madison), Jerone Morton (Washington State)
Key Portal Losses: Denzel Aberdeen*, Collin Chandler, Andrija Jelavic, Mouhamed Dioubate, Brandon Garrison, Jasper Johnson, Jaland Lowe
Key High School Recruiting Additions: Mason Williams
Key Retained Players: Malachi Moreno, Kam Williams, Trent Noah, Braydon Hawthorne
The Skinny: Where do we begin? Let’s head fake and start with the good news.
The Kentucky Wildcats retained Malachi Moreno, who should blossom into a NBA Draft pick, as well as Kam Williams, a tenacious defender with impactful on-off splits when healthy a season ago. In a season where the transfer portal lacked many bona fide stars, retention and continuity are irreplaceable.
There’s also plenty to like about the backcourt. Zoom Diallo isn’t a great shooter, but he is a quality driver and passer who has a chance to be an outstanding lead guard in the SEC if he can cut down on his turnovers (18% turnover rate in 2 years at Washington). I don’t think the fit with Alex Wilkins, another slasher who is a great passer but needs to limit turnovers, is as awkward as some suggest, either. The bottom line is they simply need to shoot it better than they have before for the backcourt to be prolific offensively (Wilkins shot 32% at Furman last season on 189 attempts; Diallo shot 32% on just 73 attempts). What both players will do is create rim pressure — and open up catch-and-shoot opportunities.
Who hits the shots? James Madison transfer Justin McBride shot a career-best 41% from deep last year at James Madison, averaging 16 points per game. He’s a great first option. The issue is who is second?
Kentucky has lost every battle in that quest. Kansas won the Tyran Stokes contest, which wouldn’t have hurt so badly if Stokes hadn’t come to Kentucky’s campus, leaving Big Blue nation feeling like they had a chance. Stokes was the biggest swing and miss, but maybe not the most personal. That came last weekend, when 5-star center Obinna Ekezie Jr. committed to in-state rival Louisville. Throw in the loss of Syracuse forward Donnie Freeman, who picked Rick Pitino and St. John’s, and the loss of BYU guard Robert Wright III, the walking bucket who decided to stay home and play with Collin Chandler at BYU, and you get the sense of existential dread brewing on the Bluegrass.
It gets worse before it gets better.
Denzel Aberdeen, who industry sources tell SDS is “very likely” to get a waiver, transferred home to rival Florida, depriving the Wildcats of their second-most reliable player a season ago. Two other Wildcats also transferred to SEC programs, adding insult to injury. As a final blow, Baylor guard Tounde Yessoufou elected last week to stay in the NBA Draft, ending the hope that he’d come offer scoring punch to the Casts.
Kentucky still has time to right the rocking ship. Milan Momcilovic, the best shooter in the portal, would help make 2 slashing, cutting guards make sense and fit perfectly in Mark Pope’s off-ball screening and cutting offense. Santa Clara’s Allen Graves is in the draft process, too — and he’d certainly be an upgrade if he elects to return as well. There are, in other words, options and reasons for hope. But it’s time for Kentucky to land some dudes.
Will any of these teams climb out of the pit of despair and make a Final Four run in 2027? Here’s what the latest Kalshi market says:
LSU Tigers
Key Portal Addition: Mo Dioubate (Kentucky)
Key Portal Losses: Jalen Reece, Robert Miller III, Marcus Vaughns, Mazi Mosley, Mike Nwoko, Mat Gilhool, Jalen Reed, Ron Zipper, Dedan Thomas Jr.
Key Recruiting Additions: None
Key Retained Players: None
The Skinny: Will Wade Round 2 in Baton Rouge is hardly off to a strong-ass start. Dioubate is the lone Tiger on the roster as of May 5, 2026, and while he’s a quality defender and depth piece, he’s on his third SEC stop in 4 years and hardly the type of player you build a roster around. LSU lured Wade back to Baton Rouge after just 1 season at NC State with the promise of a massive increase in program investment. Based on the lack of urgency in which LSU has moved through the portal, fundraising is taking some time. Worse yet, there are some curious choices from Wade and his staff out of the gate. It’s understandable that Jalen Reed, a former 5-star recruit who has struggled with injury issues, would depart for Michigan, a better program and coach. It’s also understandable to lose Thomas to a legendary coach like Kelvin Sampson who loves guards that can get their own shot. But losing proven quality SEC pieces like Mike Nwoko (Xavier) and uber-talented Robert Miller III? That’s bizarre, and prevents LSU from building much-needed depth through continuity.
Blind Wade loyalists have hummed that LSU “has a plan,” but the reality is this wasn’t a star-laden portal to begin with and even if LSU lands Ponchatoula, Louisiana native Allen Graves (Santa Clara), who is currently in the NBA Draft, LSU will still have work to do. The bottom line? Absent a few G-League gambles or high school reclassifications, LSU may begin Wade’s second tenure in Baton Rouge with a roster no better than the one that just got Matt McMahon unceremoniously fired.
Georgia Bulldogs
Key Portal Additions: Brady Dunlap (Saint Louis), Andrew Osasuyi (Saint Bonaventure), James Scott (Ole Miss), Freddie Dilione V (Penn State)
Key Portal Losses: Jeremiah Wilkinson, Somto Cyril, Jordan Ross, Jake Wilkins, Dylan James, Jackson McVey, Jaden Newell, Justin Abson*
Key Retained Players: Blue Cain, Kanon Catchings, Smurf Millender, Kareem Stagg, Brandon Klatsky, Markel Jennings
The Skinny: The glass half-full version is that Freddie Dilione V is a former top-50 recruit coming off a career year at Penn State who has proven he can score at the highest level, Brady Dunlap was an impact shooter for the same Saint Louis team that beat Georgia by 278 points in the NCAA Tournament (I’m estimating), James Scott played his best basketball over the final month of the season at Ole Miss, and the Dawgs retained Blue Cain, Kanon Catchings, and Smurf Millender, arguably their 3 best players in 2025-26.
The reality is somewhere south of that fan fiction. Somto Cyril was one of the nation’s best shot blockers, the type of defensive anchor Mike White needs if he’s going to blitz ball screens and play smaller guards who are going to give up paint touches. Jeremiah Wilkinson’s departure is also a massive blow, and he showed it when he dropped 30 in the NCAA Tournament, one of the only Dawgs to play well in March. Jake Wilkins, who oozes upside, is also gone, and Jackson McVey’s departure deprives White of the type of 7-footer with natural defensive instincts you would prefer to develop on your own.
White can coach (contrary to popular narratives). He’s never had a losing season, and Georgia was one of college basketball’s biggest surprises last season, winning 22 games before a 2-game SEC Tournament and NCAA Tournament swoon spoiled things.
Still, this is a story about “almost” retaining a great core.
The loss of Cyril, who CBB Analytics says was Georgia’s most valuable player based on the on-off splits, is crushing, especially since Georgia has done nothing to replae him in the portal.
Neil Blackmon covers SEC football and basketball for SaturdayDownSouth.com. An attorney, he is also a member of the Football and Basketball Writers Associations of America. He also coaches basketball.
