Another Utah rotation piece is unlikely to return next season, but this one comes as no surprise.
Alfonso Plummer, a sharpshooting, feast-or-famine shooting guard, announced on Twitter Monday afternoon that he will enter the NBA Draft to “test the waters,” while also entering the NCAA Transfer Portal in effort to survey options if he decides to return to college one more year.
Plummer was a senior in 2020-21, but with the NCAA freezing the eligibility clock due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he has the option to play one more season of college basketball.
Plummer is the fifth Ute to enter the transfer portal since March 15, joining Lahat Thioune, Jordan Kellier, Riley Battin and Timmy Allen. New Utah head coach Craig Smith conducted his first team meeting on Saturday morning, but it is unclear if any of the five were in it, nor is it clear if Smith will conduct 1-on-1 meetings with any of them.
A JUCO All-American at Arizona Western College, The Puerto Rico native played 51 games across two seasons at Utah, averaging 11 points on 45.1% shooting and 39.9% shooting from 3-point range.
Plummer’s claim to fame as a Ute came in last season’s Pac-12 Tournament when he hit a tournament single-game record 11 3-pointers on his way to a career-high 35 points in a first-round loss to Oregon State.
Josh Newman began covering the University of Utah for The Tribune in 2019. A Long Island, N.Y. native, he covered Rutgers University and Monmouth University for the Asbury Park Press in New Jersey for 15 years. Basketball remains his first love, a cold IPA coming in a close second.