Report: Miami transfer Wooga Poplar visiting Villanova, set to visit Oregon

One of the top remaining college basketball transfers available, Miami’s Wooga Poplar, has set visits at a few different high-profile schools in the coming days and weeks.

College hoops insider Jon Rothstein reported Thursday morning that Poplar will visit Villanova and Oregon. You can see his tweet with that news right here: “Miami transfer Wooga Poplar is visiting Villanova today and will visit Oregon soon, per his father.”

Poplar spent three seasons with the Hurricanes. This past season, Poplar started all 29 games he appeared in for the team, averaging 13.1 points, 4.8 rebounds and 2.1 assists per game while shooting 42.6% from the field and 38.5% from beyond the arc.

However, Poplar’s numbers can be interpreted a little bit differently since an ankle injury really hobbled him for parts of last season. In the first 11 games of the 2024 season, when Poplar was fully healthy, he looked the part of an emerging star, averaging 17 points per game while shooting 50% from 3 and 53% from the field.

But after suffering an ankle injury in a late December game, he simply wasn’t the same producer the rest of the way. From Dec. 29th through the end of the year, Poplar’s figures dipped to just 11 points per game, 32% from 3 and 36% on all field goals. That’s a pretty obvious statistical shift beginning the minute he injured his ankle.

Poplar played high school basketball at Math, Civics and Sciences Charter School (PA), where he was a four-star prospect. He was the No. 108 overall recruit in the 2021 cycle, according to the On3 Industry Ranking, a weighted average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies.

Head coach Jim Larranaga expects his team to bounce back next season after a tough year in 2024 and noted that injuries certainly set back the ‘Canes.

“I’ve said this way too many times, but when we were 100 percent healthy we were a very good basketball team,” Larranaga said after the season, according to CaneSport.

“Injuries impacted us in a huge way. Second, our bench players were very inexperienced, younger guys who hadn’t been through the wars and weren’t able to help us overcome those injuries. … When there is no continuity in practice and preparation (due to injury) you lose a lot of close games, and we did.”

Perhaps with a healthier Wooga Poplar, Miami would have enjoyed a much different campaign in league play.