This week, we ran through what a number of former Ohio State football players are doing at their new homes. You can find the players on offense here, and on defense here.
But football isn’t the only sport the Buckeyes play, and it’s also not the only program to lose players to transfers in recent years.
In the latter stages of the Thad Matta era, the OSU men’s basketball program was basically a revolving door of players coming and going.
The entire five-man recruiting class of 2015 was gone less than two years after enrolling at the school, and players in 2014 and 2016 ended up leaving as well.
Since leaving Columbus, three of the players are now at their third school, one was a starter in the NCAA Tournament, another has yet to play due to injuries, and one has quit the sport entirely.
Here’s a complete rundown of where they are now, in alphabetical order.
Dave Bell
A 3-star power forward from Garfield Heights, Ohio, Bell was rated as the 189th-best prospect in 2014. While his classmates D’Angelo Russell, Jae’Sean Tate, and Keita Bates-Diop all went on to have strong careers, Bell redshirted and then played sparingly in two seasons with the Buckeyes.
Bell scored a total of 46 points in 38 career games at OSU, including career highs of 7 points in 19 minutes against Air Force in 2015.
He sat out the 2017-18 season after transferring to Jacksonville. This season, Bell is averaging 6.8 points and 5.1 rebounds per game for the Dolphins in his final season of eligibility.
Derek Funderburk
Derek wasn’t in Columbus long enough to have Dick Vitale say mean things about him.
He was the No. 73 overall player in 2016, a 4-star center from St. Edward High School in Lakewood.
Funderburk redshirted during Thad Matta’s final season in charge, and was then booted by new head coach Chris Holtmann in June 2017 for “failure to meet team expectations.”
Funderburk spent one season at Northwest Florida State College, a JUCO school, and then transferred to North Carolina State.
Now going by DJ Funderburk, he has put up 9.2 points and 4.5 rebounds per game for the Wolfpack this season.
Daniel Giddens
Considered the 51st-best player in 2015, he was a four-star center from Georgia.
He averaged 18 minutes per game as a freshman with the Buckeyes, starting seven games and appearing in 26 others.
Giddens averaged 3.8 points and 3.6 rebounds per game, but asked to be released from his scholarship in March 2016.
He ended up transferring to Alabama, and sat out the following season due to NCAA rules.
Giddens put up similar numbers in his first year with the Tide, averaging 4.2 points and 2.5 rebounds in 18 starts and 34 total games in 2017-18.
This year, Giddens has only played in six games, and didn’t appear between November 29 and January 8. There was never an official injury or suspension reported; Giddens apparently just lost his place in coach Avery Johnson’s rotation.
Austin Grandstaff
A four-star shooting guard from Texas, Grandstaff was the 55th-best player overall in 2015.
He played in just 10 games with the Buckeyes before announcing that December that he would transfer due to playing time. Grandstaff first ended up at Oklahoma, but then transferred again six months later after the Sooners brought in a couple additional guards.
He then headed for DePaul and sat out the entire 2016-17 season. Finally eligible to play in 2017-18, Grandstaff saw action in only 20 games, scoring a total of 27 points on 9-for-47 shooting from the field.
Last fall, he was notably absent from DePaul’s roster. Grandstaff apparently chose to go pro in something other than sports, launching a music career as a hip-hop artist.
You can find his work on iTunes.
A.J. Harris
The only Ohio native from the star-crossed 2015 class, Harris was a 4-star prospect from Dayton Dunbar High School, considered the 83rd-best player in the country.
He played only one season with the Buckeyes, starting four games and averaging 2.8 points and 1.0 rebounds in 13.7 minutes per game.
Harris transferred to New Mexico State, and sat out the 2016-17 season due to NCAA transfer rules. He has turned into a consistent contributor for the Aggies, scoring 9.8 points, 3.0 assists, and 1.9 rebounds in 47 career starts in Las Cruces.
NMSU went 28-6 in 2017-18, winning the WAC regular season and tournament championships before losing to Clemson in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
Harris scored two points and had three assists in 28 minutes in that game.
He may get another crack at March Madness this year. The Aggies are 14-4 this season, and 3-1 in conference play.
Jaquan Lyle
A four-star shooting guard ranked as the No. 40 player overall in the 2015 class, Lyle was the only member of that class to play a second season in Columbus. He finished his Buckeye career with an 11.3-point average in 66 games.
In the summer of 2017, Lyle announced that he would transfer to New Mexico. He sat out the 2017-18 season, and then suffered an Achilles injury on September 29, 2018. He’s expected to miss the entire season.
Friday, Lyle tweeted that he had just run for the first time since the injury.
First time running today since 9/29/18…it was not a breeze ? #GB
— JaQuan Lyle (@_jlyle13) January 18, 2019
Mickey Mitchell
A four-star prospect from Texas ranked 120th overall in the 2015 class, Mitchell comes from a family of brief-tenured Buckeyes. His older brother Mike was a linebacker who signed with OSU in 2013, and then transferred to Texas Tech a year later.
Mickey missed the first 11 games of his freshman year with an NCAA eligibility issue. Once he got on the floor, he started seven games for the Buckeyes, and played in 23 overall. He averaged 2.0 points and 2.8 rebounds as a Buckeye.
Following that year, Mitchell announced that he would transfer to UC-Santa Barbara, and signed with the Gauchos in 2016, but never enrolled. Instead, he transferred again to Arizona State. After sitting out the 2016-17 season, Mitchell started 11 games for the Sun Devils last year, averaging 5.8 points per game.
This season, he has struggled with back issues and only played in six games.
Micah Potter
A 3-star center from Mentor, Ohio ranked 243rd overall in 2016, Potter played two seasons as a reserve with the Buckeyes before transferring to Wisconsin.
Potter enrolled in Madison this month, and will have two seasons of eligibility remaining starting in the fall.
His younger brother, Noah Potter is a four-star defensive end prospect who just signed with Ohio State’s 2019 football recruiting class.