Ohio State has brought in no shortage of talent from the transfer portal in recent years, but it's also lost several players who opted to pursue opportunities in a different uniform.
Seven former Buckeyes who transferred out of Ohio State since 2019 played for other college basketball programs this past season, including Jaedon Ledee, Meechie Johnson, Justin Ahrens, Alonzo Gaffney, Luther Muhammad, Ibrahima Diallo and Musa Jallow.
Each had varying degrees of success both team-wise and individually, and with the 2022-23 season now officially in the books after the NCAA Tournament concluded on Monday, Eleven Warriors took a look at how all seven fared throughout their latest college basketball campaign.
SDSU F Jaedon LeDee
- Ohio State tenure: 2018-19
- 2022-23 stats: 38 GP, 7.9 PPG, 5.3 RPG
One former Buckeye had a chance at a national championship on Monday night but came up short as UConn blew out San Diego State by 17 points to cut down the nets in Houston. The four-star 2018 recruit spent his first season of college basketball in Columbus before playing his next two years at TCU. LeDee became an Aztec ahead of his fourth year and wound up enjoying the most individual and team success of his career, helping SDSU to a 32-7 overall record with both regular season and conference tournament titles and a Final Four appearance to boot. LeDee put up a career-high 7.9 points and 5.3 rebounds in 18.1 minutes per game across 38 appearances for the Aztecs, with one start.
Ohio State had a crack at LeDee and company at the Maui Invitational in November, but San Diego State got the better of the Buckeyes with an 88-77 win that served as OSU's first loss of the season.
South Carolina G Meechie Johnson
- Ohio State tenure: 2020-22
- 2022-23 stats: 30 GP, 12.7 PPG, 3.6 APG
After spending his first two seasons at Ohio State, Johnson transferred to South Carolina and enjoyed his best year to date in 2022-23. The Cleveland native was the Gamecocks’ second-leading scorer with an average of 12.7 points per game and led the roster in assists with 3.6 a night. Johnson started 29 games in 30 appearances for South Carolina, scored at least 20 points on four occasions and dropped a career-high 26 in an upset win over Kentucky at Rupp Arena on Jan. 10. However, the Gamecocks went just 11-21 in Lamont Paris’s first year at the helm to finish with the second-worst single-season win percentage in the past 10 years.
Loyola Marymount G Justin Ahrens
- Ohio State tenure: 2018-22
- 2022-23 stats: 29 GP, 6.6 PPG, 32.7% 3FG
An Ohio State captain in 2021-22, Ahrens continued his college career at Loyola Marymount in 2022-23 following four seasons with the Buckeyes. The 3-point specialist averaged a career-best 6.6 points in 23.2 minutes per game across 29 appearances and 24 starts for the Lions but shot a career-worst 32.7% from beyond the arc. Loyola Marymount finished with its most wins in four seasons (19), but was bounced from its conference tournament by BYU in a loss that ended its season. Ahrens scored five points in a Jan. 19 upset win over then-No. 6 Gonzaga that served as the season highlight for the Lions.
Arizona State F Alonzo Gaffney
- Ohio State tenure: 2019-20
- 2022-23 stats: 36 GP, 3.2 PPG, 2.9 RPG
One of two former Buckeyes on Bobby Hurley’s Arizona State roster this past season, Gaffney started three games in 36 appearances for a Sun Devil team that won a First Four game in the NCAA Tournament before falling to TCU in a two-point loss. A top-50 recruit in the 2019 class, the Cleveland native went the junior college route after receiving limited opportunities as a freshman at Ohio State. Gaffney became a regular starter at ASU upon transferring in from Northwest Florida State College two seasons ago, averaging 4.2 points per game and 3.6 rebounds in 2021-22, but saw a step down in both playing time and production in 2022-23. Gaffney put up 3.2 points in 16.8 minutes per game this past season.
Arizona State G Luther Muhammad
- Ohio State tenure: 2018-20
- 2022-23 stats: 36 GP, 3.7 PPG, 37.1% FG
Gaffney’s Sun Devil teammate for the past two seasons, Muhammad experienced a similar trajectory from his first to second year in the program. After averaging 5.2 points in 19.2 minutes per game as a starter of 11 games across 30 appearances in 2021-22, the former Buckeye guard played just 9.9 minutes per game in 2022-23, scoring 3.7 points per game and only making one start. Muhammad started more than twice as many games in his final season with the Buckeyes (2019-20) than he did in his two seasons at ASU combined, and Muhammad has now entered the transfer portal for the second time in his college career.
Arizona State's Luther Muhammad tells me that he will transfer.
— Jon Rothstein (@JonRothstein) March 23, 2023
San Jose State C Ibrahima Diallo
- Ohio State tenure: 2019-21
- 2022-23 stats: 35 GP, 6 PPG, 6 RPG
The Senegalese big man played in just 13 games across two seasons for Ohio State before transferring to San Jose State, where Diallo has carved out a meaningful role for himself over the past two years. Diallo started all 35 games in which he appeared in 2022-23, scoring six points per game on 58.7% shooting and pulling down six boards per game in 17.4 minutes a night. Diallo helped lead San Jose State to a 21-14 overall record and an appearance in the CBI, where the Spartans earned their first postseason win in program history.
Charlotte G Musa Jallow
- Ohio State tenure: 2017-21
- 2022-23 stats: N/A
The injury issues that hampered Jallow in his last two seasons at Ohio State have unfortunately followed him to Charlotte. The lingering effects of an ankle injury he suffered during his Buckeye tenure kept Jallow out of the 49er lineup until the end of December in the 2021-22 season, and he tore his ACL a little over a month later. Jallow underwent surgeries on both his knee and ankle and as a result, he didn’t appear at all in 2022-23. However, Jallow earned a waiver from the NCAA that will allow him to play in a final season of college basketball in 2023-24.
