There’s no denying that the Age of the Transfer has arrived in college basketball, but one team in the Pac-12 might have just taken it to an entirely new level.
Colorado has enjoyed mixed success in the Pac-12 since joining the conference four years ago, winning one conference tournament and finishing in the top half of the league standings every season until 2014-2015, where they fell to the tenth spot.
In an effort to turn around the program’s trajectory, head coach Tad Boyle turned over every rock he could during the initial months of the offseason, hoping that he would eventually find the talent that Colorado lacks on the perimeter.
Turns out, he didn’t have to venture far.
On April 19, the school announced that Colorado-Colorado Springs wing Derrick White, a Division II All-American and the RMAC Player of the Year, would be leaving the program to join Boyle in Boulder.
The 6-foot-5 White averaged video game stats as a junior, in one of the toughest conferences that Division II basketball has to offer, putting up 25.8 points, 7.4 rebounds, and 5.2 assists per game. He leaves UCCS as the school’s first All-American, and all-time leading scorer despite only playing three seasons.
After dropping 50 points last night, Derrick White now holds game, season and career scoring records at Colorado-Colorado Springs.
— Nick Kosmider (@NickKosmider) March 15, 2015
According to NCAA guidelines, White must sit-out the 2015-2016 season, and he will have one remaining year of eligibility for the Buffaloes, in 2016-2017.
White is a Colorado native, playing his high school ball in the south Denver suburb of Parker, before pursuing his only college offer, from UCCS. While there, he grew four inches and developed one of the most advanced offensively skill sets in the country, with some local media members thinking he might have been the most gifted college player in the state a year ago, including the ones competing at CU and Colorado State.
