An eighth Northwestern Wildcat has entered the transfer portal, as Tyler Kropp is now the third player to enter today. College Basketball Content reported the news on X before Kropp himself confirmed the post.
The 6-foot-9 forward was a freshman this past year and part of head Coach Chris Collins' highest ranked recruiting class ever. Two other members of that class, Tre Singleton (the highest ranked) and Cade Bennerman, are also already in the portal.
In addition to the freshmen, Arrinten Page, Jayden Reid, K.J. Windham, Jordan Clayton and Blake Smith are headed elsewhere.
Kropp didn't put up super impressive numbers in his freshman campaign with Northwestern, but he looked like a solid piece for the future. Averaging 3.1 points per game, Kropp made more of an impact on the defensive end and didn't take many bad shots.
He was also forced into an unfortunate position last season because Northwestern needed him to play the majority of his minutes at the five. Kropp is really a four, and he ended up having to cover and work in the paint against some guys who were a lot bigger than him.
If he were to have stayed, the hope would probably have been to find a way to move him to a post forward position where the 'Cats could have tried to get more out of him.
It's now clear that something is afoot here. This many players don't just transfer for no reason, and Wildcat Report's Louie Vaccher thinks there's still more to come.
It doesn't mean some doomsday scenario is occurring, but there will be a reason. And it's important to keep in mind, as Vaccher suggests, that transfer decisions aren't entirely dependent on the player.
Teams can be motivated to create more scholarship and NIL space to retool the program after a poor season. Players can leave hoping to play for a team that wins more games. Sometimes, both might agree that it just wasn't the right fit.
We don't know yet exactly what's going on here, and it isn't worth it to speculate too much. What we know for certain, though, is that the Wildcats are going to have an unprecedented number of new players on the team next year.
Before this offseason, recent NU teams have had high retention rates and many multi-year players. Today showed the reality of what can happen any given offseason in the portal era.