Oklahoma basketball: Sooners pick up an SMU transfer
By Chip Rouse
Within the past week, Oklahoma basketball has added four new faces to the 2021-22 men’s roster.
Former SMU forward Ethan Chargois is the fourth new player Porter Moser has picked up from the transfer portal since being named the new Oklahoma head coach on April 3.
Chargois will join the Sooners as a fifth-year senior. The 6-foot, 9-inch forward will help replace the interior presence OU lost with the departures of seniors Brady Manek (who is transferring to North Carolina) and Kur Kuath (turning pro).
A four-year starter at SMU, Chargois averaged 8.8 points and 5.4 rebounds per game this past season.
Earlier this week, Moser added Tanner and Jacob Groves, the brother tandem from Eastern Washington who gained national attention after giving No. 3-seeded Kansas all kinds of fits in this year’s NCAA Tournament. They combined for 60 points and kept 14th-seeded Eastern Washington in the game to the very end against the heavily favored Jayhawks.
A couple days later, it was reported that the Sooners had added Jordan Goldwire, a 6-foot, 2-inch guard out of Duke. Like Chargois, Goldwire is taking advantage of the extra year of eligibility granted student-athletes by the NCAA in compensation for the pandemic year.
Oklahoma will only have three, and possibly all four, of the new transfers for one season, but the additions nearly fill out the roster that was hit hard by the departures of up to six players from the 2020-21 roster after the retirement of Lon Kruger, who coached the Sooners for 10 seasons and took them to seven NCAA Tournament appearances.
The Sooners also have three recruits in the 2021 class who will join the team next season: C.J. Noland, Bijan Cortes and Alston Mason.
Oklahoma reportedly has one scholarship roster spot to fill for next season. A couple of possibilities from the transfer portal are Bryce Thompson, who is from Tulsa and chose Kansas over Oklahoma and several other interested programs, and former Texas A&M player Jaxson Robinson from Ada. OU recruited both players out of high school.
Thompson played in 18 games for Kansas and averaged 4.9 points; Robinson played in 14 games at Texas A&M, averaging 10 minutes a game and 2.1 points.
Oklahoma is losing four players to the transfer portal and has now added four and likely a fifth to come through the same process.
Because of the loosening of transfer restrictions prompted by the pandemic, this offseason has been crazy with the number of players switching schools, gaining an extra year of collegiate eligibility and being able to play immediately.
You will definitely need a new scorecard before next season to keep up with all the roster moves.