Kachi Nzeh has entered the transfer portal

Xavier’s roster turnover continues as their freshman big hops into the portal.

First the news:

Nzeh came into the season seen as a bit of a raw prospect who Xavier hoped would develop in the same vein as bigs like Jason Love or Sean O’Mara, working their way from minimal contribution as a freshman to become standbys as seniors. Nzeh played a grand total of 33 minutes before Valentine’s Day with 19 of them coming at Purdue and UConn as Xavier battled Zach Edey and Donovan Clingan with limited success. In their blowout loss at Seton Hall on Valentine’s Day, Nzeh logged 20 minutes with a 8/2/2 line and looked like a viable option to battle Xavier’s struggles in the post. Nzeh parlayed that into 4 starts down the stretch with Xavier needing all of his 13/6/0 to hold off Georgetown on the road.

Nzeh figured to be a building block moving forward but with Zach Freemantle and Jerome Hunter ostensibly back in the fold for Xavier, clearly Kachi saw his best chance to develop as being elsewhere. This doesn’t strike me as a positive development, but there will be no shortage of teams feeling the sting of the portal in the coming weeks and, as we have learned the past couple of years, the portal giveth and, as is the case here, the portal taketh away.