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WSU Men's Basketball

Guard Carter Skaggs announces plans to grad transfer from Washington State

Washington State guard Carter Skaggs hits a 3-pointer against Kansas State on Dec. 20, 2017, at Spokane Arena. (Tyler Tjomsland / The Spokesman-Review)
By Theo Lawson theol@spokesman.com(509) 459-5584

Six days after the Cougars fired coach Ernie Kent, Washington State guard Carter Skaggs announced he’ll spend his final year of eligibility somewhere other than Pullman.

Skaggs, a 3-point-shooting specialist who played sparingly for WSU as a redshirt junior, tweeted Wednesday that he’d entered his name into the NCAA’s transfer portal and will be eligible to play in 2019-20 as a graduate transfer.

“Basketball has taken me places I could of only dreamed of and the last 2 years here at Washington State have been a dream come true as it was always my dream to be able to play at the Division I level,” Skaggs wrote on Twitter. “With that being said, for my last year of eligibility I plan on graduating, becoming a grad transfer and finding a different program to compete at my last year.”

The Logansport, Indiana, native is the second Cougar player to put his name into the transfer portal since Kent was dismissed last Thursday, one day after WSU’s season ended with a 33-point loss to Oregon at the Pac-12 Tournament in Las Vegas.

Cougfan.com reported Tuesday that junior forward Jeff Pollard, a 23-game starter this season, has also entered the portal and could pursue a grad transfer opportunity.

Skaggs’ minutes and production dipped this season, with the second-year Cougar averaging only 16.8 minutes per game after averaging 20.5 in 2017-18. Skaggs scored 8.2 points per game last season and just 6 this season, playing in 25 games compared to 31 as a redshirt sophomore.

A concussion that Skaggs sustained during a passing drill caused the guard to miss seven games down the stretch of the season. He only logged a combined 22 minutes in the team’s final three games.

A 40 percent 3-point shooter in 2017-18, Skaggs made seven 3-pointers and scored a career-high 26 points in a win over Seattle University last season. He made six 3-pointers and scored 24 points in another nonconference game against Kansas State, but Skaggs didn’t reach the 20-point plateau for the remainder of his career with the Cougars.

Kent brought Skaggs to Pullman from Florida’s Chipola College, where he spent the 2016-17 season. Before that, he played one year at Bridgton Academy in Maine.