Mar. 25—Donovan Dent, who recorded one of the best individual seasons in UNM Lobo basketball history, has also likely played his final game in cherry and silver.
The junior point guard announced through On3Sport reporter Joe Tipton that he is entering the NCAA's transfer portal— news that preceded by more than eight hours the news that head coach Richard Pitino would be leaving UNM to take the head coaching position at Xavier of the Big East.
It remains uncertain whether Dent will follow him there, though he made clear when talking with the Journal on Sunday night that playing for Pitino is something he would very much like to do.
While Dent has said he will leave open the option of playing another season for the Lobos, the Journal has learned that he's already been in contact with both UCLA and Kentucky, among several other high-level programs, and the NIL payday in his final season is expected to be north of $2 million.
His starting backcourt mate, sophomore shooting guard Tru Washington, also announced he will be entering the transfer portal, bringing to four the number of Lobo players to publicly announce they are leaving the program.
Sunday night, after the Lobos lost 71-63 to No. 2 seed Michigan State in the second round of the NCAA Tournament in Cleveland, Dent and Washington both told the Journal they had not yet made any decisions about the transfer portal, which opened on Monday morning for all Division I players.
"I mean, this season just ended — in a heartbreaking way, we feel like we could have won this game," Dent said. "So, transfer portal opens tomorrow. We're all going to have meetings. I haven't thought about next year at all."
The 6-foot-2, 185-pound Dent is among the program's all-time leaders in points and assists. He vaulted to the team's primary scoring option and playmaker this past season.
Dent averaged 20.4 points and 6.4 assists per game and earned Mountain West Player of the Year and honorable mention All-America. He was the only player in the nation to average more than 20 points and six assists a game.
Washington, considered one of the best on-ball defenders in the Mountain West, scored 11.1 points per game and averaged a team-leading 2.1 steals per game.
ESPN's Jeff Borzello, who mans the fluid list of transfer portal rankings for ESPN, posted on Twitter of the Dent news, "Dent immediately becomes the best available player in the portal."
Borzello's initial list on Tuesday morning, before Dent's announcement, included a Top 25 with four Mountain West players, all All-Conference selections this past season, in No. 8 Dedan Thomas Jr., PG, UNLV; No. 11 Magoon Gwath, C, San Diego State; No. 17 Nick Davidson, F, Nevada; and No. 20 Obi Agbim, G, Wyoming.
The statistics-based analytics site EvanMiya.com, created by Evan Miyakawa, who has a Ph.D. in statistics and bases his non-subjective rankings on in-game performance, also has dent ranked No. 1 among available transfers.
