West Virginia transfer center Mohamed Wague officially lands in Tuscaloosa for Alabama visit

West Virginia transfer center Mohamed Wague has officially touched down in Tuscaloosa for a visit with Alabama, he tweeted Monday. Wague was initially supposed to visit the Crimson Tide over the weekend before his trip was delayed.

Nevertheless, he has arrived and coach Nate Oats and staff will get to work putting together their recruiting pitch. Alabama isn’t the only team on Wague’s radar, as he has also made visits to DePaul and Kansas State. On3 currently predicts there to be a 92.6% chance he signs with the Blue Demons, with the Crimson Tide having just a 7.4% chance.

Wague played one year at West Virginia in 2022-23 after transferring to the Mountaineers from the JUCO level. Playing in 28 games, he averaged 4.1 points per game to go with 3.1 rebounds. He suffered a right foot injury in February that caused him to miss the remainder of the season.

The Crimson Tide have another roster spot to fill after Jahvon Quinerly announced his plans to enter the portal this past week. They were originally thought to be in the running for another WVU transfer, guard Joe Toussaint. However, On3‘s Joe Tipton reported Monday that Alabama is “no longer in consideration” for him.

To keep up with the latest players on the move, check out On3’s Transfer Portal wire.

Transfer portal background information

The NCAA Transfer Portal, which covers every NCAA sport at the Division I, II and III levels, is a private database with names of student-athletes who wish to transfer. It is not accessible to the public.

The process of entering the portal is done through a school’s compliance office. Once a player provides written notification of an intent to transfer, the office enters the player’s name in the database and everything is off and running. The compliance office has 48 hours to comply with the player’s request and that request cannot be refused.

Once a player’s name shows up in the portal, other schools can contact the player. Players can change their minds at any point and withdraw from the portal. However, once a player enters the portal, the current scholarship no longer has to be honored. In other words, if a player enters the portal but decides to stay, the school is not obligated to provide a scholarship anymore.

The database is a normal database, sortable by a variety of topics, including (of course) sport and name. A player’s individual entry includes basic details such as contact info, whether the player was on scholarship and whether the player is transferring as a graduate student.

A player can ask that a “do not contact” tag be placed on the report. In those instances, the players don’t want to be contacted by schools unless they’ve initiated the communication.

The portal has been around since Oct. 15, 2018 and the new calendar cycle within the portal begins each August. For example, the 2021-22 cycle started Aug. 1. During the 2020-21 cycle, 2,626 FBS football players entered the transfer portal (including walk-ons). That comes after 1,681 entered during the 2019-20 cycle and 1,709 during the abbreviated 2018-19 cycle. In comparison, 1,833 Division I basketball players entered the portal during the 2020-21 cycle after totals of 1,020 in 2019-20 and 1,063 in 2018-19.