Which Missouri Valley basketball players are in the NCAA transfer portal? Here's the list
· Yahoo Sports
The college basketball transfer portal officially opened Tuesday, and players wasted no time pursuing the game's version of free agency.
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The portal opened about 40 minutes after Michigan completed its national title win over UCONN.
Within 10 hours after that, more than 1,000 players were already in the NCAA transfer portal, armed with agents and analytics and accolades. It's expected nearly 3,000 players will join the portal before the 2026 cycle is over, more than half the players at the NCAA Division-I level in the 2025-26 season.
The portal grows every year. In 2024, it reached about 2,100 players. Last spring, it increased to more than 2,700.
The 2026 portal is churning in overdrive, with 1,899 players entered as of Wednesday, April 8.
The Missouri Valley Conference is right in the mix.
The Missouri Valley Conference was ranked ninth by metric site KenPom.com out of the 31 NCAA Division-I conferences in the 2025-26 season. As of April 8, there were 50 MVC players in the transfer portal.
Valley Player of the Year Tyler Lundblade of Belmont and Bradley point guard Jaquan Johnson – the runner-up in voting – were the headliners to enter the portal. Lundblade is ranked by ESPN as No. 39 among the prospects in the portal.
Of the 16 players chosen for the MVC three all-conference teams, only four remain. Six were seniors exiting with expired eligibility. Six were transfers. Of the 11 players comprising the first- and second- all-MVC Team berths, only Chase Walker (Illinois State), Elijah Crawford (UIC) and Javon Jackson (Murray State) remain.
Here are the MVC players to enter the portal. A school listed in parenthesis after the player's name indicates he chose that as his new team. Schools are listed with their final place in the MVC standings, then school name, and number of players lost to portal in parenthesis:
1. Belmont (5)
Tyler Lundblade, sr, SG (Tennessee) (MVC Player of Year); Win Miller, jr, SG; Sam Orme, soph, PF (All-MVC 2nd team); Brigham Rogers, jr, PF; Drew Scharnowski, soph, PF (All-MVC 1st team).
2. Bradley (5)
Jaquan Johnson, soph, PG (All-MVC 1st team, MVC Def Player of Year); Montana Wheeler, fr, PG (MVC All-Bench); Demarion Burch, jr, SG; Kai Yu, soph, C; Handy Toussaint III, jr, PF.
9. Drake (4)
Braden Appelhans, jr, SG; Heri Bukinga, fr, C; Wilguens Exacte Jr., jr, SF; Okku Federiko, soph, SF.
11. Evansville (8)
Weston Aigner, jr, SG; Leo Amari IV, jr, PG; Marlon Barnes Jr., soph, SF; Kaia Berridge, soph, PG; Dakota Candler, jr, SF; Josh Hughes, jr, C; Leif Moller, fr, SG; Connor Turnbull, sr, PF.
4. Illinois Chicago (0)
None.
3. Illinois State (3)
Tyreek Coleman, fr, PG; Jack Daugherty, soph, SF; Ty Pence, jr, SG.
10. Indiana State (9)
Bruno Alocen, soph, SG; Cooper Bean, soph, PG; Zyair Greene, sr, SG; Hunter Harding, soph, C; Caden Huttenlocker, jr, PG; Enel St. Bernard, jr, SF; Derek Vorst, jr, C; Camp Wagner, jr, SG; Jayan Walker, soph, SG.
5. Murray State (4)
Tristian Ford, fr, PG; Layne Taylor, soph, PG; K.J. Tenner, soph, PG; Brock Vice, soph, PF.
6. Northern Iowa (5)
Leon Bond III, jr, SF; Ismael Diouf, sr, PF; Marino Dubravcic, soph, C; Will Hornseth, soph, PF; R.J. Taylor, soph, PG.
8. Southern Illinois (3)
Rolyns Aligbe, soph, PF; Quel'Ron House, soph, PG (All-MVC 2nd team); Drew Steffe, soph, PG.
7. Valparaiso (4)
Mark Brown Jr., jr, PG; Tucker Tornatta, soph, C; Shon Tupuola, jr, C; Jayden Watson, fr, PF.
Dave Eminian is the Journal Star senior writer and sports columnist, and covers Bradley men's basketball, the Rivermen and Chiefs. He writes the Cleve In The Eve sports column for pjstar.com. He can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on X.com @icetimecleve.
This article originally appeared on Journal Star: NCAA transfer portal: Missouri Valley Conference players transferring for 2026-27