Jonah Antonio first to transfer from UNLV this offseason

By Mike Grimala (contact)

Wednesday, March 11, 2020 | 2 a.m.

In what promises to be an eventful offseason for the UNLV basketball program, the first of many roster moves came on Tuesday as guard Jonah Antonio entered his name in the NCAA transfer portal.

Antonio confirmed to the Sun that he intends to graduate from UNLV and leave the program as a grad transfer, which will allow him to play immediately for his next school.

Antonio was the first recruit to commit to UNLV after T.J. Otzelberger was named head coach last spring. The Australia native came in with a reputation as a good shooter and his juco percentages backed that up, but he made just 31.5 percent of his 3-point attempts in one year with the Runnin’ Rebels.

More players are expected to follow Antonio out of the program. Otzelberger signed a big recruiting class of six high school players and two juco players, and as of now there are just four seniors set to graduate from the current team (Antonio, Elijah Mitrou-Long, Vitaliy Shibel and Nick Blair).

Thoughts on Antonio’s move:

Uneven season

Antonio shot 40.9 percent from 3-point range at the junior college level last year, and he did it at high volume (97-of-237), so he seemed like a good bet to come in and stretch the floor reliably in Otzelberger’s first year. Instead, Antonio broke his hand during non-conference play, missed a month and never really found his rhythm.

When the Rebels went to a four-guard lineup down the stretch, Antonio was on the outside looking in — until Mitrou-Long went down with a season-ending knee injury. When called upon to start in the Mountain West tournament, Antonio made 4-of-9 from 3-point range and went on a late hot streak that got UNLV back into the game against Boise State.

The Rebels lost the game, and now Antonio is heading elsewhere. That’s just the kind of season it turned out to be for him and the team.

Roster math

UNLV still needs four other players to leave in order to accommodate all the incoming recruits. Here’s the tally so far:

Incoming recruits

Nick Blake

Reece Brown

Edoardo Del Cadia

Nick Fleming

Isaac Lindsey

Jhaylon Martinez

Devin Tillis

Donavan Yap

Seniors graduating

Jonah Antonio

Nick Blair

Elijah Mitrou-Long

Vitaliy Sibel

Returning players

Marvin Coleman

Cheickna Dembele

Mbacke Diong

Jay Green

Bryce Hamilton

Amauri Hardy

David Jenkins

Donnie Tillman

Moses Wood

The key group is the returning players. Four names from that list will have to leave the program to make room for the incoming recruits — maybe three if one of the high school recruits goes to prep school for a year, which is possible.

There are some obvious candidates to go elsewhere. Donnie Tillman didn’t live up to the hype after transferring from Utah and was disciplined by the coaching staff multiple times, and he seemed to play the season with one foot out the door anyway. Dembele has one year of eligibility left and has no hope of seeing the court in Otzelberger’s system just based on skill set. Green didn’t play most of the year (though he provided some valuable minutes late in the year).

Nothing is certain at this point except that there is going to be a lot of activity over the next month.

Mike Grimala can be reached at 702-948-7844 or [email protected]. Follow Mike on Twitter at twitter.com/mikegrimala.