Iowa guard Seydou Traore enters NCAA transfer portal

Iowa guard Seydou Traore has entered the NCAA transfer portal, On3’s Joe Tipton has learned. He averaged 5.9 points, 3.0 rebounds and 1.4 assists this past season for the Hawkeyes.

Prior to his time with the Big Ten program, Traore spent the 2023-24 season with the Manhattan Jaspers. He averaged 11.8 points with the MAAC team. He’ll be looking to get back to averaging double-digit points wherever he ends up for the 2025-26 season.

Traore played high school basketball at Our Savior New American School (New York, NY). He did not have a star rating during the 2022 cycle, according to the On3 Industry Ranking, a weighted average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies.

Iowa is coming off a frustrating final season of the Fran McCaffery era. After leading the Hawkeyes since 2010, Iowa let him go following the 2024-25 season. Iowa finished with a 17-16 record overall and a 7-13 record in Big Ten play, missing the NCAA Tournament for a second season in a row. The 12th-place finish in conference play was the worst of McCaffery’s tenure.

To keep up with the latest players on the move, check out On3’s Transfer Portal wire. The On3 Transfer Portal Instagram account and Twitter account are excellent resources to stay up to date with the latest moves.

More on the Iowa Hawkers, NCAA transfer portal

In other Iowa-related news, Drake Bulldogs guard Kael Combs has committed to transfer to the Hawkeyes amid Seydou Traore’s departure. This comes following head coach Ben McCollum‘s decision to leave Drake for Iowa following the Bulldogs’ NCAA Tournament run.

Combs played his high school basketball at Nixo in Missouri. He was an unranked recruit coming out of high school when he initially landed at Wyoming. After one season with the Cowboys, he made the decision to transfer and landed at Drake.

As a sophomore in the 2024-25 season, Combs appeared in 31 games, all of which were off the bench. He, notably, has started in one game over the course of his college career. That came when he was a freshman at Wyoming.

In his playing time at Drake, he averaged 12.9 minutes per game. He also averaged 3.8 points, 2.0 rebounds, and 0.9 assists per game while shooting 51.1 percent from the field, 20 percent from three-point range, and 80 percent from the free-throw line. On the defensive end, he averaged 0.4 steals and 0.1 blocks per game.

Drake had an excellent season as a team. The Bulldogs went 31-4 overall and 17-3 in conference play. That earned the Bulldogs a spot in the NCAA Tournament where they were able to upset the Missouri Tigers in the opening round before going out in their second game. In that win over Missouri, Combs had four points, five rebounds, and four assists.

— On3’s Dan Morrison contributed to this article.