And then there was one.
On Tuesday afternoon, Real Scout Basketball’s Nate Blue reported that sophomore center Assane Mbaye has entered the transfer portal.
Mbaye becomes the ninth Pirate to do so, the second on Tuesday alone after junior Mike Williams did the same, and the fifth since Monday.
This leaves The Hall with just one returning player in sophomore Trey Parker, who appeared in 32 of 33 games last season, averaging 4.3 points, 2.8 rebounds and 1.5 assists in 15.5 minutes per game.
As it stands, Parker is one of just three players on SHU’s roster, the others being incoming freshman Darien Moore, who committed in February 2024, and The Hall’s lone transfer commit thus far in Simeon Wilcher, a junior combo guard and Plainfield, NJ native who joins from Texas.
Mbaye, who redshirted his freshman year at The Hall, appeared in five games last season for a total of just five minutes. At 7-foot-3, he is one of the tallest Pirates in program history, and is a product of The Patrick School in Elizabeth, N.J. just like head coach Shaheen Holloway.
Interestingly, Mbaye committed to SHU the last time the program lost nine players to the transfer portal in 2024-2025. That offseason, Holloway was tasked with building an entirely new roster from scratch.
Although the result was the worst season in program history, Holloway’s second try proved much better, with the Pirates finishing with 21 wins this time around.
Now faced with that task yet again, Holloway and the rest of Pirate Nation will be hopeful that the third time is the charm—anything’s possible with Holloway at the helm, after all.
Zachary Mawby is the head editor of The Setonian’s Sports section. He can be reached at zachary.mawby@student.shu.edu.
