Georgia guard Kario Oquendo to test NBA Draft waters, transfer portal

Georgia guard Kario Oquendo formally entered the NCAA Transfer Portal on Tuesday afternoon and will test the NBA Draft waters this offseason, according to On3’s Jamie Shaw and Joe Tipton.

247 Sports’ Travis Branham has the first report on Tuesday that Oquendo was entering the portal and would go through the draft process, and also included the following statement from Kario Oquendo himself on the decision:

“Thank you Georgia! First off, I want to thank the University of Georgia for welcoming me into their family,” Oquendo said, via Branham. “I will always be thankful for the opportunities I was given, the friends and teammates I met and the coaches and staff members that helped me get to this point. I will always be a dawg.

“I also want to thank my friends, family and close circle for supporting me through everything. I wouldn’t be here without them. With that being said, I have decided to put my name in the 2023 NBA Draft. I will also put my name in the transfer portal to keep my options open to return to college.”

Kario Oquendo spent a year in junior college before playing for Georgia during the 2022 and 2023 seasons. He was the team’s leading scorer in ’22 at over 15 points per game and was second this past season at 12.6 per contest. The high-flyer will be a popular name on the transfer market should he stay.

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.