West Virginia point guard Kobe Johnson enters NCAA Transfer Portal

West Virginia point guard Kobe Johnson has entered the NCAA Transfer Portal, On3’s Pete Nakos confirmed. Johnson will have at least one year of eligibility remaining.

Across three seasons with the Mountaineers, Johnson played in 92 games, starting 34. He made 26 of those starts during the 2023-24 season.

After two seasons playing mostly a reserve role, Johnson moved into a nearly full-time starting role this past season, and played more than 25 minutes a night. He wasn’t a high-level scorer, averaging six points per game, but did shoot 42.6% from the field and nearly 80% from the free throw line.

Johnson played high school basketball at Canton’s McKinley (Ohio) High School, where he was an unrated prospect in the 2021 cycle, according to the On3 Industry Ranking, a weighted average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies.

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.

West Virginia had an earlier portal departure on Wednesday

West Virginia guard Jeremiah Bembry entered the transfer portal after just one season with the Mountaineers, according to On3’s Jamie Shaw.

Bembry appeared in just eight total games at WVU this season, playing three minutes per contest. He had previously transferred in from Florida State, where he attended in 2022-23 but redshirted.

Bembry played high school hoops at the Pillow Academy in New Jersey, where he was a three-star prospect. Bembry was the No. 279 overall recruit in the 2022 cycle, according to On3’s Industry Rankings, a weighted average that utilizes all four major recruiting media companies.

Bembry is just the latest of many losses so far for West Virginia in the transfer portal amid the coaching change. They have landed a star in Tucker DeVries joining his father from Drake, but otherwise, there’s been a lot more exports than imports so far.

Background on the transfer portal

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 asynchronous 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.