Florida basketball loses another: Isaiah Stokes enters transfer portal, per reports

Basketball

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Image Credit: Tim Casey/UAA

After just two seasons with the program and one as an active player, forward Isaiah Stokes has decided to leave the Florida Gators ahead of his redshirt sophomore season and enter the NCAA transfer portal, according to Stadium’s Jeff Goodman and the Orlando Sentinel‘s Edgar Thompson. Stokes, who joined Florida as a heralded recruit, averaged just 2.7 points per game in limited action over the course of the 2018-19 campaign.

Stokes, who tore his ACL as a true freshman and dealt with weight issues that saw him hit the scales at almost 300 pounds, trimmed down and began to improve midway through his second season. He slowly but surely got more court time, though how much he saw often depended on game matchup as he made strides offensively but remained a liability defensively.

Though he would have received more playing time next season, Stokes’ transfer is ultimately not that much of a shocker after the Gators added star graduate transfer F Kerry Blackshear Jr., who is expected to start and eat a ton of minutes in the frontcourt. Still, Stokes is the fourth Florida basketball player to transfer this offseason, joining fellow reserves Deaundrae Ballard, Keith Stone and Mike Okauru.

With UF also seeing three key starters graduating, it will have just five returning players from last year’s team, four of whom actually saw the court. It also means that junior center Gorjok Gak is the only member of head coach Mike White’s 2016 and 2017 recruiting classes still on the roster.

The Gators will begin the 2019-20 season with eight student-athletes who have never suited up for the team before.

Many are speculating whether Stokes will consider a transfer to Tennessee where his brother, Jarnell Stokes, starred earlier this decade.