Kevin Cross Announces He’s Entering Transfer Portal After Just One Season With Nebraska Basketball
Kevin Cross might be leaving the Nebraska basketball team. The player announced on Twitter Tuesday afternoon that after talking with his friends and family and thinking over the decision, he was officially entering the NCAA’s transfer portal. This is always the first step when it comes to leaving a school, though one caveat is that a player entering the portal can pull their name out and stay with the school should they wish. Entering it simply means other schools can communicate with and recruit players still under another team’s control, without violating NCAA rules.
Should Cross decide he definitely wants to leave, it would be the latest in what has been a two-year period of upheaval for Nebrasketball. Earlier this offseason, Jervay Green and Charlie Easley both announced their plans to transfer away from Lincoln. Fred Hoiberg and company also signed five transfer players during this year’s national signing day. Both Green and Easley have already found their landing spots.
Green is headed to Pacific and Easley is going to South Dakota State. Cross has not said where he’s considering to go, or if he has a target school at this time.
The announcement from Cross surprised some Nebraska basketball analysts because he played all 32 games last year as a true freshman. Over those 32 games, he averaged 7.1 points and 3.9 rebounds per game. He was fifth among Big Ten freshmen in scoring and seventh in both scoring and three-pointers per game. Cross also managed to score in double digits nine times, which according to Huskers is the most for a Nebraska freshman since Glynn Watson in the 2015-16 season.
— Kevin Cross (@saykev_2x) April 21, 2020
When he committed to the Huskers not long after Hoiberg arrived on campus, he was considered one of the bigger gets because he wasn’t a transfer player. It was thought by some that the playing time he got as a true freshman would be enough to convince him to return to Nebraska.
Cross hasn’t said what conversations took place with his circle of friends and family that convinced him it was time to move on from Lincoln. With the departure, the Huskers continue to have space on their roster for more transfers that could play right away.
Since coming to Lincoln, Hoiberg has completely turned over the roster. Before his departure, Easley was one of the very few players on the team who had been with Nebraska during the Tim Miles era. Should Cross take the final official step and indeed decide to leave, it would be the fifth player to depart Nebrasketball since the 2019-2020 season ended.
