After Dusty May left Florida Atlantic to take over Michigan’s program, plenty of the top remaining players from the Owls’ 2023 Final Four team departed as well.
But they didn’t all follow their former coach to Ann Arbor. They scattered to various programs.
Florida Atlantic’s top four scorers from last season – all of whom had vital roles during the Owls’ Final Four run a year earlier – are now playing elsewhere. They’re among the most notable of the hundreds of transfers on college basketball rosters across the country.
In the era of the transfer portal, Florida Atlantic’s ability to keep the nucleus of its Final Four team together for one more year was remarkable. The team’s eventual breakup after its 2024 NCAA Tournament first-round overtime loss to Northwestern seemed inevitable.
May’s first Michigan team will include Vladislav Goldin, a 7-foot-1 center who made 106 starts at Florida Atlantic and posted double-figure scoring averages each of the last two seasons. After playing in the NCAA Tournament the last two years at FAU, Goldin believes he’s capable of getting back there at Michigan.
“This team is probably the most talented I have ever played on, so many talented guys,” Goldin told reporters this offseason. “It’s insane talent. I’ve never seen it before.”
Some of Goldin’s other Florida Atlantic teammates opted to go on their own.
Johnell Davis, who led Florida Atlantic in scoring each of the last two seasons, will be playing for John Calipari at No. 16 Arkansas.
“He’s a Hall of Fame coach and he wins everywhere he goes,” Davis told reporters. “I’m excited to play for him.”
Nick Boyd transferred to San Diego State, the team that ended Florida Atlantic’s 2023 Cinderella national title hopes with a Lamont Butler buzzer beater in the NCAA semifinals. Alijah Martin, who scored 26 points in that Final Four loss to San Diego State, transferred to Florida.
Here’s a look at some of the other most notable transfers in college basketball this season. Their former schools are in parentheses.
The 7-footer arrives at No. 17 Indiana after playing four seasons at Arizona. Ballou earned first-team all-Pac-12 honors each of the last two seasons. He averaged 12.9 points and 10.1 rebounds last season after collecting 14.2 points and 8.6 rebounds per game in 2022-23. Ballou has averaged 1.3 blocks per game each of the last two seasons.
When West Virginia hired coach Darian DeVries away from Drake, his son followed him to Morgantown. DeVries, who is 6-foot-7, was named the Larry Bird Missouri Valley Conference player of the year and was the league tournament’s most outstanding player each of the last two seasons. He ranked 10th in Division I in scoring (21.6) last season and was the only Division I player to average at least 20 points, 6 rebounds, 3 assists and 1.5 steals per game. That followed a 2022-23 season in which he had 18.6 points per game.
Hawkins was an Associated Press all-Big Ten second-team selection last season in his fourth year at Illinois. He averaged 12.1 points, 6.1 rebounds, 2.7 assists, 1.5 steals and 1.1 blocks. Big 12 coaches have selected him as the league’s preseason co-newcomer of the year. Hawkins declared for the draft last spring and participated in the NBA Draft Combine before deciding to play one more season of college basketball.
Osobor comes to Washington after playing two seasons at Montana State and one at Utah State. He earned honorable mention on the AP All-America team last season and was named the Mountain West Conference’s player of the year and newcomer of the year. The 6-8 forward collected 17.7 points per game and 9 rebounds per game while shooting 57.7% from the floor at Utah State.
After earning first-team all-Big East honors from the league’s coaches and second-team honors from the AP while playing for Seton Hall last year, Richmond stayed in the conference but switched schools. The 6-6 guard played one season at Syracuse before spending three seasons at Seton Hall. Richmond had 15.7 points, 7 rebounds, 5.1 assists and 2.2 steals per game last season.
This 6-2 fifth-year senior was selected as the Big 12’s preseason co-newcomer of the year along with Hawkins. He joins No. 8 Baylor after making 108 career starts at Duke. Roach was a Duke team captain each of the last two seasons. Roach averaged 14 points per game last season, 13.6 in 2022-23, 8.6 in 2021-22 and 8.7 in 2020-21.
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FILE - Duke guard Jeremy Roach drives to the basket past Baylor guard Langston Love (13) during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game, Dec. 20, 2023, in New York. (AP Photo/Adam Hunger)
The social platform X has suspended a new account on behalf of Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that posted messages in Hebrew.
The account was suspended early Monday with a brief note appended to it saying: “X suspends accounts which violate the X Rules.” It wasn’t immediately clear what the violation was. The Elon Musk-owned social media company did not respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press.
The move came after Israel openly attacked Iran for the first time this weekend. Khamenei said in a speech on Sunday that Israel’s strikes — in response to Iran’s ballistic missile attack this month — “should not be exaggerated nor downplayed,” while stopping short of calling for retaliation.
The X account opened Sunday with a message in Hebrew reading: “In the name of God, the most merciful,” a standard Islamic greeting.
Khamenei’s office has maintained multiple accounts for the 85-year-old supreme leader on X for years and has sent messages in a variety of languages in the past.
A second message corresponded to a speech Khamenei gave on Sunday and was sent on his English account as: “Zionists are making a miscalculation with respect to Iran. They don’t know Iran. They still haven’t been able to correctly understand the power, initiative, and determination of the Iranian people.” The message referred to Israel’s attack Saturday on Iran.
This isn’t the first time Khamenei has seen a suspension or removal from social media. In February, Meta removed Facebook and Instagram accounts for the supreme leader over his support of the militant group Hamas after its Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel.
Social media platforms like X and Facebook have been blocked in Iran for years, requiring Iranians to use virtual private networks to access them.
Here’s the latest:
BAGHDAD, Iraq — Iraq has submitted a memorandum of protest to the Secretary-General of the United Nations and the U.N. Security Council saying Israel violated its airspace in carrying out its attack on Iran over the weekend, the Iraqi prime minister’s office said in a statement.
The statement said that Israeli “aggressor aircraft violated Iraq’s airspace and sovereignty and used Iraqi airspace to carry out the attack on the Islamic Republic of Iran on Oct. 26.”
It added that Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani had directed Iraq’s foreign minister to discuss the matter with the United States. The two countries recently reached an agreement to begin winding down the mission of a U.S.-led coalition formed to fight the Islamic State militant group and to withdraw many of the U.S. troops who remain in the country.
On Sunday, the Iran-backed Iraqi militia Kataib Hezbollah issued a statement accusing the U.S. of coordinating with Israel to use Iraqi airspace to launch the attack on Iran and threatening retaliation against U.S. forces.
UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. Security Council scheduled an emergency meeting Monday afternoon at Iran’s request on Israel’s air strikes against the country.
Switzerland, which holds the council’s rotating presidency, announced the meeting on Sunday and said the Iranian request was supported by Russia, China and Algeria, the Arab representative on the council.
TEHRAN, Iran — Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian says his country will respond to Israel “appropriately," after Israel openly attacked Iranian military sites for the first time this weekend.
“We are not seeking war, but we will defend the rights of our nation and country and will respond appropriately to the Zionist regime’s aggression,” Pezeshkian was quoted by state TV on Sunday as saying.
Pezeshkian also said the U.S. had promised Iran to stop the war in Gaza and Lebanon if Iran restrained. “They had promised to end the war in response to our restraint, but they did not keep their word,” he said.
The Iranian president also warned tensions will escalate if Israel’s aggression continues, adding, “We know that the United States is encouraging Israel to commit these atrocities.”
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Iran announced Sunday that a civilian had been killed in Israel’s attack on the country, without offering any details on the circumstances of his death.
The state-run IRNA news agency identified the dead man as Allahverdi Rahimpour and said he lived in a suburban area of southwestern Tehran.
While offering no details on what he was doing or where he was killed, IRNA made a point to say he was not a member of Iran’s armed forces.
Iran has offered few details on the attack and the damage caused by them so far.
In this photo provided by the Israeli army, armed Israeli Air Force planes depart from an unknown location to attack Iran, Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024. (Israeli Army via AP)
In this photo provided by the Israeli army, armed Israeli Air Force planes depart from an unknown location to attack Iran, Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024. (Israeli Army via AP)
In this photo released by an official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei sits in a meeting in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)
This satellite photo from Planet Labs PBC shows damaged buildings at Iran's Khojir military base outside of Tehran, Iran, Saturday, Oct. 26, 2024. An Israeli attack on Iran damaged facilities at a secretive military base southeast of the Iranian capital that experts in the past have linked to Tehran's onetime nuclear weapons program and at another base tied to its ballistic missile program, satellite photos analyzed Sunday by The Associated Press show. The damaged structures are in the bottom center of the image. (Planet Labs PBC via AP)
In this photo released by an official website of the office of the Iranian supreme leader, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei waves to the crowd in a meeting in Tehran, Iran, Sunday, Oct. 27, 2024. (Office of the Iranian Supreme Leader via AP)
