NC State basketball transfers: Where are they now

NC State basketball has had three players enter the transfer portal, and one has already found a new home.

Jaylon Gibson announced Wednesday that he was transferring to Winston-Salem State. Guard Cam Hayes is reportedly set to take an official visit to Arizona State with LSU also under consideration.

Manny Bates is expected to be the more pursued of the NC State basketball transfers.

Under head coach Kevin Keatts, how have past NC State transfers fared at their new schools?

Here’s a look, broken down by year.

NC State Basketball Transfers Off 2017-18 Roster

Guard Lavar Batts Jr.

Batts played 30 games as a rookie and impressed as a defender but his shooting struggles (9 of 48 on threes and 58.9 percent at the line) limited his playing time.

Batts chose to transfer to UNC Asheville, and after sitting out a season had a nice debut year. He averaged 12.7 points and 2.5 assists and improved to 72.2 percent as a free throw shooter. However, he slumped to 4.9 points and 3.2 assists a contest in 2020-21 while making just 7 of 20 threes and shooting 55.9 percent at the line.

Batts re-entered the transfer portal after last season, and reports indicated he was headed to Georgetown College, a NAIA powerhouse, but he was not on its roster this past season.

Forward Darius Hicks

Hicks was one of the last signees of former head coach Mark Gottfried. He played just four games in 2017-18, during Keatts’ first season. He transferred to Eastern Kentucky, following Wolfpack assistant A.W. Hamilton when Hamilton was hired as head coach there.

In one season for EKU, Hicks started 12 of 20 games and averaged 5.8 points and 5.5 rebounds per game. He then left for Jackson State, where he started eight games and played in 43 over the past two years. This past season, Hicks had averages of 1.6 points and 1.4 boards per contest.

Center Omer Yurtseven

Many expected that Yurtseven’s sophomore season for NC State would be his last before turning pro. It turned out to be the last for him in Raleigh, but he surprised when he said he would transfer instead. Yurtseven had averaged 13.5 points, 6.7 rebounds and 1.8 blocks for Keatts in 2017-18.

After sitting out a season, Yurtseven averaged 15.5 points and 9.8 rebounds for Georgetown.

Yurtseven then turned pro, and he is currently with the Miami Heat, averaging 5.3 points and 5.2 boards in 55 games.

2018-19 Roster

Guard Blake Harris

Few are as well traveled as Harris.

Originally, he committed to Washington coming out of high school, but then switched to Missouri. After one season with the Tigers, Harris transferred to NC State. He played 30 games in 2018-19 and averaged 3.1 points and 1.5 assists.

Harris then transferred to North Carolina A&T, where in 2020-21 he had averages of 8.6 points and 1.8 assists per contest. Harris did not play last season, and he was recently back in the portal.

Forward Ian Steere

Steere had one of the more bizarre careers at NC State. Part of Keatts’ first recruiting class (after originally committing to Creighton), Steere played just five minutes in the opener before apparently deciding his future was not in Raleigh.

That started a pattern for Steere.

He played six games for St. Johns’s in 2019, playing just 3.5 minutes per contest, before deciding to transfer again after being suspended.

Former NC State assistant Takayo Siddle took a chance on Steere after being hired at UNC Wilmington. Steere played one game, scoring nine points and grabbing three boards in 16 minutes, in his Seahawks career. Steere was then dismissed from the team.

2019-20 Roster

Forward A.J. Taylor

Taylor played three minutes in one game and that would be it for his NC State career. He dealt with a knee injury the rest of the year and then went into the portal shortly before the 2020-21 seasons started.

Taylor would find his way to Grambling State, where this past year he started 16 of 25 games played and averaged 7.9 points and 5.5 rebounds per contest.

2020-21 Roster

Guard Braxton Beverly

Beverly chose to use his super senior year but not at NC State, instead transferring to Eastern Kentucky with his former prep coach/assistant coach at NC State, Hamilton.

Beverly averaged 9.5 points and 3.5 assists in 17 games, 14 of them starts, for EKU this past season.

Forward Nick Farrar

After battling his weight at NC State, Farrar transferred following his freshman season during which he played just seven games.

He ended up at College of Charleston, where Farrar noticeably slimmed down and improved his frame. Farrar played 28 games and made two starts. He averaged 8.9 minutes per game overall, contributing 5.6 points and 1.7 rebounds per contest in his limited playing time.

Guard Shakeel Moore

After averaging 6.8 points and flashing his potential for NC State during his freshman season, Moore transferred to Mississippi State.

This past year, Moore was essentially a full-time starter and averaged 8.7 points, 3.0 rebounds, 2.2 assists and 1.6 steals per game on a squad that went 18-16. Mississippi State fired head coach Ben Howland when the season was over.

——

Talk about NC State basketball recruiting inside The State of Basketball

Subscribe to our YouTube channel

Learn more about our print and digital publication, The Wolfpacker

Follow us on Twitter: @TheWolfpacker

Like us on Facebook