LSU lands another transfer in Hunter Dean

The LSU basketball team has landed another transfer commitment, this time reeling in former George Washington center Hunter Dean.

Dean committed to the Tigers on Monday, he told On3 National Recruiting Expert Joe Tipton. 

The 6-foot-10, 235-pound graduate transfer averaged 8.7 points, 6.1 rebounds, and 1.1 assists per game this past season for the Colonials. He also shot 64-percent from the field this past season.

This is Dean’s third college stop.

The Louisiana native (Mandeville, La.) originally played at Southern Miss before transferring to George Washington, where he spent the past three seasons.

Another Louisiana native heads to LSU

Dean is the fifth player LSU has added out of the NCAA Transfer Portal, and the fourth from Louisiana.

Dean joins fellow Louisiana natives in Tulane’s Jalen Cook (19.9 PPG), Vanderbilt’s Jordan Wright (10.6 PPG) and Santa Clara’s Carlos Stewart (15.2 PPG).

LSU also added a Texas native in Nevada’s Will Baker (13.6 PPG).

LSU head coach Matt McMahon and his staff also added two freshmen signees four-star power forward Corey Chest (No. 105) and three-star shooting guard Mike Williams (No. 172).

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

The Transfer Portal Rundown

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.