Steve Jones, the voice of Penn State football and men’s basketball, voiced his thoughts on his daily talk show, Sports Talk With Steve Jones, on the news this past week of the Nittany Lion basketball players that have entered the transfer portal.
Jones first explained that when a player is in the portal, the assumption is that the player is gone, but he explained to his audience it is not completely out of the realm a possibility he can return.
The Nittany Lions currently have seven players from last year’s roster testing the market.
When specifically talking about Kayden Mingo entering the portal, Jones said, “Let me put this way. When a guy (Mingo) is in on Monday talking to the strength and conditioning coach about re-scheduling his lift because he was sick, it’s kind of an unusual thing to do if you’re out the door. So anytime anybody goes into the portal you know it’s less than 50% you retain him. That’s the odds. You’re also a point guard. You’re a really good player. They’ll be people that will attempt to throw money at him. If that happens, that happens. It would not surprise anybody. It also would not shock me if he’s here. Sometimes you test the market. It’s extremely uncomfortable for everybody when it’s your guy testing the market, and it feels bad when it’s your guy testing the market and he may go into the market and say this is great or he may go into the market and say, I was fine where I was. The assumption is that he’s gone, gone, gone. I got that, because very few people come back. I’m just saying don’t completely yet rule it out…we’ll see. And somebody could throw a ton of money at him and go, okay, thanks for being with us.”
Add Nittany Sports Now as a preferred source in Google! Click here to add us.A player and his agent cannot test the market for his value until the player has entered the portal. The portal closes April 21 but Jones explained it probably won’t officially close until April 23 due to the 48 hours extra it takes to properly post and finalize the transactions. He also reminded his audience that players can still sign with another team even after the April 23 deadline, for example, even into June.
On another one of his previous shows, Jones explained why Penn State needs to keep two players: Ivan Juric and Mingo. Penn State re-signed the highly-talented 7-foot forward Juric, but then the starting point guard decided to test the market. Jones said you can build a team around your building blocks and cornerstones, which is your starting center and point guard.
Penn State has already been in contact with solid guards through the portal in IUP’s Dallis Dillard, Central Connecticut’s Jay Rodgers, Buffalo’s Daniel Freitag and UAB’s Chance Westry.
