Now that most of the dust has settled on the transfer portal, it's time to look around the state of Texas and figure out which teams are in good shape after the portal—and which saw too many losses.
The portal has had a huge impact on some of the teams in Texas. There are rosters that will look almost entirely different next year. Sometimes, that's a good thing—but other times, it's definitely a bad sign for the strength of a program.
So, let's look at the winners and losers of the portal. (A team you won't find below is UTEP, because I had no idea what to do with them. Does the addition of N'Yah Boyd and Jazion Jackson offset the loss of Katia Gallegos and Destiny Thurman? Not if Tulsa is going to get the pre-2021/22 version of Gallegos, but she took a definite step back last season. If she doesn't bounce back, I think I like the Boyd/Jackson duo better.)
Portal data is from WBB Blog.
Winners
Baylor
Additions: Aijha Blackwell, Dre'una Edwards, Jana Van Gytenbeek
Departures: Kamaria McDaniel
McDaniel left midseason, so she doesn't really matter in this conversation.
Baylor had to figure out how to replace NaLyssa Smith and Queen Egbo. The additions they made don't necessarily do that, but they do position the team for success moving forward under Nicki Collen.
Blackwell averaged 15.4 points and 13.0 rebounds per game last season at Missouri. She's the best rebounding guard in the country and fits really well in Collen's system.
The 6-foot-2 Edwards was the Pac-12 Freshman of the Year in 2019 and then became a key piece at Kentucky over the last two years. She'll be asked to play a lot of minutes in the frontcourt and can do some of the fastbreak things that Smith could, albeit not at that level.
Gytenbeek didn't play much at Stanford, but she was a highly-ranked prospect out of high school who is the all-time assist leader in Colorado. With Jordan Lewis gone, the team needed help at guard, and Gytenbeek could be that help, if she can show that her lack of production at Stanford was less about her and more about how crowded that backcourt was.
Rice
Additions: Fatou Samb
Departures: N/A
When you add a 6-4 center out of the portal without losing anyone, you're a winner. Samb comes over from Cal, where she averaged around 12 minutes per game over her two seasons. The former ESPN top 100 recruit played high school ball at Westside and will bring a needed interior presence to a Rice team that was intriguing in its first year under Lindsay Edmonds. This team might have lost its spot atop Conference USA, but adding Samb to building blocks like Malia Fisher and Ashlee Austin could have Rice back in the conversation to win this conference.
TCU
Additions: Bella Cravens, KN'isha Godfrey, Tomi Taiwo, Bre'yon White
Departures: Okako Adika, Tavy Diggs, Caroline Germond, Aja Holmes, Kayla Mokwuah, Aaliyah Morgan, Yummy Morris
The Horned Frogs lost a lot of players to the portal, but I really love the collection of new additions that they came away with.
Cravens comes over from Nebraska, where she shot 52.2 percent from the floor last year. She's a good rebounder and shot blocker who will add some nice interior defense to TCU. Godfrey was at Mississippi State the last two seasons but played just two games, but she was the No. 40 player in ESPN's 2021 rankings and should compete for the point guard role.
Taiwo spent four seasons at Iowa, with five starts last year. Like Godfrey, she should compete for guard minutes. And then there's White, who played just 10 games for Oklahoma last year, averaging 3.2 minutes per game. The Shadow Creek grad was one of the best bigs in Texas in high school.
This collection of talent won't have TCU contenders, but it's a good start to the post-Lauren Heard era.
UTSA
Additions: Jordyn Jenkins, Kyra White
Departures: Yuliyana Valcheva
Karen Aston just got two USC players to transfer to UTSA. Even if those players were just benchwarmers with the Trojans, that would be a win.
But Jenkins was the leading scorer for the Trojans, averaging 14.8 points per game on 51.7 percent shooting. She pulled down 6.7 rebounds per game and averaged 1.0 blocks and is going to be an imposing presence in the frontcourt for the Roadrunners.
Joining Jenkins is Kyra White, who went to high school at Converse Judson. She wasn't as crucial to USC as Jenkins was, but White started 22 games over her three seasons there and should see a sharp rise in her numbers playing at the Conference USA level. With former Texas player Elyssa Coleman still on the roster and some intriguing freshman additions like Duncanville's Maya Linton and Bishop Lynch's Madison Cockrell, Aston is clearly building something out of a program that has really struggled lately.
Texas Tech
Additions: Ashley Chevalier, Jazmaine Lewis, Jasmine Shavers
Departures: Chantae Embry, Khadija Faye
Faye and Embry both averaged under 20 minutes per game.
Chevalier had struggled to find her place at Texas, but she's a former top 100 recruit who should add some guard depth for this team. Lewis comes over from Houston, where she saw her playing time take a step back last year after she started 17 games as a sophomore.
But Shavers is the real reason Tech is listed as a winner here. Shavers, who is from Mesquite, didn't play at Mississippi State, entering the portal before her freshman season began due to the team's coaching change. Shavers was the No. 55 overall player in ESPN's 2021 rankings and averaged 26.0 points. 5.4 rebounds, 4.0 steals and 2.2 assists per game as a high school senior. She'll add some needed scoring to this backcourt and has her full eligibility remaining.
Losers
Incarnate Word
Additions: Nina De Leon Negron, Yuliyana Valcheva, Chelsea Wooten
Departures: Arielle Adams, Tiana Gardner, Kamryn Gibson, Destiny Jenkins, Jaaucklym Moore, Starr Omozee, Brittney Stafford
Not all of the portal players have found a home yet so it's possible we end up with Gardner and Omozee back at the Word, which would make these losses feel at least a little better. But losing Jaaucklyn Moore to North Texas really hurts. UIW felt like they were building something, but a huge amount of the production from that team is gone.
SFA
Additions: Avery VanSickle
Departures: Rebekah Crane, Franziska Prinz, Stephanie Visscher
The loss of Visscher is obviously the big story here. One of the best mid-major players in the country, Visscher left for Michigan State this offseason—a bit of a weird choice since that program hasn't had a ton of success, though it does make sense that Visscher would want to spend her final collegiate season playing at a larger school.
Replacing her production—14.4 points, 6.6 rebounds, 2.8 assists, 2.5 steals, 0.9 blocks per game—and her leadership will be impossible. SFA isn't going to be able to run away with the WAC, though the talent is still there to win the conference.
The team adds VanSickle, a former top 100 recruit who left Washington after Tina Langley didn't play her in Washington's first six games last year. VanSickle is an interesting combo guard who should have a large impact here, but it won't be a Visscher-sized one—not at first, at least.
Texas
Additions: Taylor Jones, Sonya Morris
Departures: Ashley Chevaliers, Lauren Ebo, Precious Johnson, Latasha Lattimore, Audrey Warren
Nothing against Jones and Morris, as both are good players, but losing Audrey Warren is tough. She felt like the heart-and-soul of the Longhorns over the last few seasons. Her and Ebo were third and fourth on this team in minutes per game last year and were key parts of why the team had so much success.
Still, this is a very soft "losers" label. Taylor Jones arrives from Oregon State. An All-Pac 12 selection in 2020-21, she played nine games last season before having shoulder surgery, averaging 12.4 points and 6.9 rebounds. She'll fill in the hole left by Ebo and Lattimore transferring.
Morris averaged 17.6 points per game at DePaul last year and shot 34.7 percent from three. She also added 3.2 assists and 1.5 steals per game. She'll bolster the team out on the wings and probably winds up being more valuable than Warren. This really was more of a push than a lose for the Horns, but I had to talk about all the changes in Austin.
UT-Arlington
Additions: Kamaria Gipson, Kayla White
Departures: Olympia Chaney, Clare Chastain, Aaliyah McMillan, Terryn Milton
After a miraculous run through the Sun Belt Tournament, the Mavs came close to pulling off a 3/14 upset in the NCAA tournament, losing by six to Iowa State. With a move to the WAC, it looked like UTA was positioned for a lot of upcoming success.
They still could be, but they'll have to do it without Chastain and Milton, who were two of the three Mavs players to average 30 or more minutes per game. Milton was second on the team in scoring, while Chastain was fourth. Milton led the team in assists.
Bringing in SMU's Kayla White helps replace some of that production. She averaged 13.2 points per game in just 23.3 minutes per game of action this season and will provide some scoring, though she has struggled in college as a long-distance shooter.
The team also added Gipson, who played two seasons at San Diego State. She started 30 games, shooting 48.1 and 48.4% from the floor in her two seasons. She blocked 0.7 shots per game last year and will make for a solid backup behind Starr Jacobs.
