Jacksonville State star KyKy Tandy enters NCAA transfer portal

Jacksonville State star and former Xavier veteran KyKy Tandy is back in the transfer portal, according to on3’s Pete Nakos.

Tandy is a Kentucky native and played four full seasons at Xavier before transferring down to star at JSU. Now, he’s back in the portal and evaluating options ahead of his sixth and final season of college ball.

Tandy never averaged more than seven points per game for Xavier and saw his playing time dwindle as it went on, and thus, transferred down to get an opportunity at more playing time in his fifth season.

Well, the decision paid off, because Tandy popped to average 17.8 points per game, bolstered by his 6.8 3-point attempts per game which he converted at a 38.9% clip. Never the greatest distributor, Tandy did still average just 1.4 assists per game, and for his career has a negative assist-turnover ratio.

But a shooter like him — high efficiency on high volume — ought to be appealing in today’s day and age and he could very well land back on a power conference team.

Prior to arriving at Xavier more than a half-decade ago, Tandy was a recruit that drew a lot of chatter in the state of Kentucky. A Hopkinsville, KY native, Tandy finished his career as the eighth-highest scorer in state history with over 3,000 points.

He was good enough to earn four-star status according to the On3 Industry Rankings and was a top-100 recruit. On3 ranked him the No. 78 overall prospect, No. 5 combo guard and No. 2 player from the state of Kentucky for the 2019 class, just a little bit behind David Johnson from Trinity, who attended Louisville.

Now, Tandy has already played five seasons but there’s reason to believe he’ll be granted a waiver for year No. 6. Back in 2021-22, his season was cut far short thanks to a season-ending surgery to fix a stress fracture in his left leg. Tandy appeared in just five total games that season and will almost certainly be granted an extra year based on that.

With Jacksonville State this past season, Tandy was the sole engine of the offense, serving as the only scorer to average double figures while the team limped to a 14-18 record and eighth place finish in Conference USA. Surely, the former Musketeer will be looking to land at a far more competitive home this time around after a year with JSU.