Kansas State Wildcats in mix for heralded Detroit basketball transfer Antoine Davis
One of the top scorers in college men’s basketball is seriously considering a transfer to Kansas State.
Antoine Davis, a 6-foot-1 and 165-pound senior guard who spent the past four seasons playing for his father at Detroit Mercy, listed the Wildcats among his five top five transfer destinations over the weekend.
K-State is in the running along with BYU, Detroit, Georgetown and Maryland.
If K-State can win a recruiting battle for Davis, he would be a major addition to the Wildcats’ roster as new coach Jerome Tang looks to rebuild the team in his own image. Davis ranked third nationally in scoring last season for the Titans, as he averaged 23.9 points per game. Davis also averaged 4.4 assists and 3.6 rebounds while making 37.9% of his shots from three-point range.
Those numbers came as no surprise. Davis has been a scoring machine throughout his college career and ranks No. 22 on the NCAA men’s basketball scoring list with 2,734 career points.
He decided to explore his transfer options as a “super senior” after starring for Detroit the past four seasons.
Detroit Mercy coach Mike Davis said the transfer was at least partially motivated by the possibility of NIL opportunities at other schools.
“If I wasn’t his coach, I would tell him to do exactly what he did,” Mike Davis told The Detroit News. “You have a chance to make a half-million to a million dollars in NIL, and you put that money in the bank and you don’t spend it ... let it sit for 10 years, that’s pretty impressive. It’s hard to turn that down.”
Tang has been on the hunt for talented guards to complement Markquis Nowell next season, and it seems like Davis would help him create an exciting backcourt at Bramlage Coliseum.
The hope is that he could come in and boost the team for one year the same way Missouri transfer Mark Smith did this past season on his way to third-team All-Big 12 honors.
Davis is expected to announce his decision after he visits BYU later this week.
But it seems as though Tang and the Wildcats have made a good impression on Davis. He made a recruiting visit to Manhattan over the weekend and made it clear on social media that he enjoyed the trip.
“That was the best visit I went on,” Davis wrote on Twitter. “Thank you coaches for having me. Manhattan, thank you for having me.”
Tang got off to a slow start in terms of recruiting after he was hired at K-State to replace Bruce Weber, but things are beginning to pick up in that department for the Wildcats.
Last week, Tang landed his first two incoming transfers.
Jerrell Colbert, a 6-foot-10 freshman forward from LSU, committed to K-State after playing in just four games for the Tigers last season. Cam Carter, a 6-foot-3 freshman from Mississippi State, also decided to transfer to K-State.
Those announcements came as welcome news for K-State fans after the Wildcats lost nine scholarship players to the NCAA transfer portal after Tang arrived on campus.
Several of those former K-State players — Selton Miguel (South Florida), Carlton Linguard (UTSA), Nijel Pack (Miami) and Seryee Lewis (Rice) — have already found new homes.
Pack turned heads when he landed a lucrative NIL deal worth $800,000 shortly after he signed with the Hurricanes.
Those departures left Tang and his coaching staff with plenty of open scholarships to use on transfers and incoming high school recruits.
There are many prospects available, but their top priority is clear.
Good luck finding anyone who could help the Wildcats more than Davis next season.
This story was originally published April 25, 2022 at 10:24 AM with the headline "Kansas State Wildcats in mix for heralded Detroit basketball transfer Antoine Davis."