Michigan misses out on another transfer portal prospect
For Michigan basketball, the offseason has been filled with gut punch after gut punch. With Hunter Dickinson, Kobe Bufkin and Jett Howard all departing from the program, as well as Caleb Love's failure to be admitted, and a slew of transfer portal misses, it's been an offseason to forget for the Wolverines.
Bad news struck again early Monday afternoon when it was reported that Michigan's top transfer portal target, Olivier Nkamhoua, cut his list of options to two — West Virginia and Baylor. Not long after the Nkamhoua news broke, U-M suffered yet another gut punch when UC Riverside guard Zyon Pullin cut the Wolverines from his list of potential suitors.
In the span of just a few hours, two of Michigan's last remaining transfer portal targets eliminated the Wolverines from contention, leaving Michigan fans lost and hopeless.
Although missing out on Pullin isn't as tough to swallow as missing out on Nkamhoua is — Pullin never visited Ann Arbor while Nkamhoua was rumored to be trending toward the Wolverines for months — it's still yet another example of how nothing has gone right for Juwan Howard's program his offseason.
Pullin, a 6-foot-4, 195-pound guard, averaged 18.3 points per game with the Highlanders last season, and he would have been a perfect replacement for Bufkin (the two have very similar measurables).
However, Pullin will choose between Florida and LSU, which leaves the Wolverines with many more questions than answers. Michigan still has three scholarship spots available, and even after adding transfers Nimari Burnett and Tray Jackson, there are still multiple areas of desperate need for Howard and the Wolverines as the team prepares for the 2023-24 season.
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