Former Kansas guard Bobby Pettiford commits to East Carolina

Former Kansas guard Bobby Pettiford has found a new place to call home. After entering the NCAA transfer portal in March, Pettiford has now landed at East Carolina, he announced on Monday.

Pettiford spent two seasons at Kansas, playing in 46 games off of the Jayhawks bench. In 32 games this past season, he averaged 12.1 minutes and posted a line of 2.2 points, 1.3 assists and 1.2 rebounds per game. He shot 53.4% from the field and 30% from three-point range.

When he arrived at Kansas, Pettiford was a four-star recruit that was rated as the No. 99 overall player in the 2021 class, according to the On3 Industry ranking, a weighted average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies.

Rebirth, ECU let’s do it 💜🏴‍☠️. pic.twitter.com/oVCbFQpDou

— Bobby Pettiford Jr (@BobbyPettiford) April 10, 2023

Prior to choosing East Carolina, Pettiford had revealed a top three that included Georgetown and Florida State, in addition to the Pirates.

A Durham, North Carolina native, Pettiford now returns to his home state. He joins an East Carolina team that finished 16-17 overall and 6-12 against AAC opponents in 2022. It was the first year under head coach Michael Schwartz, and the team took great strides and played well down the stretch.

Pettiford will look to carve out a meaningful role for himself at East Carolina, and he will have an opportunity to do so. The Pirates return Jaden Walker, who started at point guard for the second half of the season, and Kalib LaCount, who played sparingly, but lost Javon Small to the portal.

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.