Earlier this week, BYU Cougars basketball walk-on Hao Dong became the first player from this season’s team to enter the transfer portal.
On Saturday, the first scholarship player from the roster reportedly followed suit.
Verbal Commits first reported that freshman forward Braeden Moore has entered the portal in search of a new place to play.
Moore’s move is not altogether surprising. The 6-foot-9, 210-pounder signed with BYU with a decent amount of hype, as he had previously been committed to Rutgers and held scholarship offers from numerous other Power Five programs, including Kansas.
The Nashville, Tennessee, native (he finished his high school career in California) dealt with injuries all throughout the 2022-23 season, however, and redshirted, appearing in no games for the Cougars.
Moore’s departure opens up a scholarship for head coach Mark Pope to use this offseason to bolster his roster after BYU went just 19-15 this season.
Beside any high school players he might sign, Pope said earlier this week, “We’ll be super aggressive in the portal and see if we can augment our daily growth with a couple of veteran bodies.”