Many happy returns

UConn, Illinois, Miss State among programs that had star players pass on the portal (and the pros) to play another season. Plus: We rundown the busy weekend in portal commitments, entrants, Tennessee and Illinois landing HS recruits, and much more.

Author

Samuel Lance
April 20, 2026

Good morning! Hope you’re ready to let the wave of portal commitments wash over you. But first, we had a few notable players elect to stay put.

In partnership with D1.relocation

1. UConn, Illinois among retention winners

In this new era of NIL, we’ve started to see surefire first round NBA Draft picks return to college basketball instead of heading to the league.

This past season it was Labaron Philon and Yaxel Lendeborg. This year, an early prominent name is UConn guard Braylon Mullins.

The man who hit the shot to send UConn to the Final Four announced his return to the Huskies on Saturday. And he could be in for a big sophomore leap. If Solo Ball announces his return, it’ll be hard to find a better starting five than Silas Demary, Solo Ball, Braylon Mullins, Nik Khamenia and Najai Hines.

Moving onto maybe the biggest retention winners of the offseason, Illinois was at it again with Andrej Stojakovic announcing he’s back. The Illini retained five of their top eligible role players with the only loss being Keaton Wagler to the NBA Draft.

We also had Mississippi State star Josh Hubbard (22.1 ppg), Louisville guard Adrian Wooley (8.7 ppg) and EVERYONE on the Iowa roster besides Alvaro Folgueiras announce their returns.

More players who returned:

  • London Jemison, Alabama

  • Paulo Semedo, Arkansas

  • Isaiah Denis, North Carolina

  • Kai Rogers. Oklahoma

  • Sin’Cere Jones. Virginia Tech

  • Caleb Shaw, Grand Canyon

  • Noah Badibanga, Santa Clara

  • Jeremiah Quigley, Binghamton

  • Dezmon Briscoe, Jaymen Townsend and Landon Vanderwarker, Kent State

  • Tyler Robbins and Kyle Waltz, Miami OH

  • Trey Simpson, Kaden Rickard and Amir Taylo, Kennesaw State

  • Chike Ndefo, Ryan Skerry, Caleb Embeya, Jaquan Womack, Brandon Holmes and Jon Barton, Towson

2. Several top transfers come off the board

Entering Friday, there were 37 players from our top 100 transfers who were undecided on a new school. That number dwindled to just 24 after a busy weekend, and only 12 remain from the top 50.

So, who were the biggest additions from the past three days? Here’s everyone who committed out of our top 100:

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