IU sophomore forward Damezi Anderson announced Thursday he will be entering the NCAA Transfer Portal in an Instagram post.
“I want to say thank you to my brothers, all the managers and the coaching staff for allowing me to be apart of an amazing University,” Anderson wrote in his Instagram post. “After some long talks and coming to an agreement as a family, we feel that entering the Transfer Portal is what’s best for us, Love Hoosiers.”
Anderson came to IU as a four-star recruit by 247Sports from South Bend, Indiana. He is the leading scorer in South Bend and St. Joseph County basketball history.
He averaged 1.5 points per game as a freshman for IU, playing sparingly toward the bottom of IU’s rotation averaging 9.6 minutes per game. Anderson was anticipated to make big improvements during his sophomore year as a forward who could become a reliable 3-point shooter.
That never happened.
Anderson’s sophomore year started with promise in November as he scored double-digit points in two of IU’s first three games. After a strong start, Anderson’s production dropped off exponentially, and his playing time virtually stopped.
After scoring two points in IU’s Dec. 10 win over the University of Connecticut, Anderson didn’t make a shot for the rest of the season. His playing time drastically decreased at the start of 2020, dropping by roughly seven minutes per game during the new year. He didn’t play in any of IU’s final seven games. Anderson played two minutes and missed his only shot in a Feb. 16 loss to Michigan in his final appearance as a Hoosier. .
Anderson’s departure leaves just two players — sophomores Rob Phinisee and Jerome Hunter — left from IU’s 2018 recruiting class, which was ranked top 10 in the country. IU now has two scholarship spots available for next season’s roster. IU five-star class of 2021 commit Khristian Lander would fill one of those spots should he successfully reclassify.
