Portal tracker: Who’s coming and going for Boise State men’s basketball
The Boise State men’s basketball program is in for a busy couple of weeks as it attempts to retool for the 2026 season.
The college basketball transfer portal opens on Tuesday, April 7, and will remain open until April 21. The Broncos are returning zero starters from their 2025 team, meaning head coach Leon Rice and his staff will have to move quickly if they want to be competitive in their first year in the revived Pac-12 Conference.
Four Broncos have found new homes away from the Treasure Valley, making them a few of nearly 1,400 men’s players to have entered the portal this spring.
Below you can find the current status of each person leaving the program, as well as any players who commit to Boise State once the portal opens.
Arrivals
The following players will find themselves wearing Bronco uniforms next season, having entered the transfer portal and confirmed their commitment to Boise State for the 2026-27 season. The class listed next to each player’s name will be their class for the upcoming season.
Damari Wheeler-Thomas - Redshirt senior guard
Point guard Damari Wheeler-Thomas became the first player to commit to Boise State this cycle, with the program announcing that he had “agreed to terms and signed” with the Broncos on Monday afternoon.
Wheeler-Thomas arrives from North Dakota State, where he spent four years, including a redshirt season in 2024-25 to recover from a fractured tibia. In his final season with the Bison, he started all 32 games and averaged 14.5 points, 3.5 rebounds and 2.8 assists. He led the Bison to a 27-8 record — the highest win total in program history — and an NCAA Tournament berth, where they lost 92-67 to the No. 3-seeded Michigan State.
However, Wheeler-Thomas scored a team-high 16 points in the loss. He was also named to the All-Summit League Second Team last season and was awarded the Summit League Tournament MVP.
Jerquarius Stanback - Redshirt sophomore forward
Stanback adds a big athletic and defensive presence that the Broncos seemed to miss throughout parts of last season.
Arriving as a redshirt sophomore for the 2026-27 season, Stanback spent the first two years of his college career with Alabama State. After redshirting his freshman year, he was named the Southwestern Athletic Conference defensive player of the year this past season.
Listed as 6-foot-9, he started all 32 games for the Hornets in 2025-26, averaging 8.8 points, 5.8 rebounds, 1.1 steals and 2.0 blocks while shooting 52.2% from the field. Across the entirety of men’s college basketball last season, Stanback was one of just six players to average at least eight points, five rebounds, one steal and two blocks.
Jikany Deang - Junior center
Deang became the second big man to commit to Boise State, on April 18. The 6-foot-11 center is a junior college transfer and arrives in the Treasure Valley after two years with North Dakota State College of Science.
Deang started in 31 of the Wildcats’ 32 games last season as they finished with a 26-6 record. He averaged a second-best 17.6 points on the team, while shooting 46.3% from the field, 36.2% from 3-point range and 81.5% from the free throw line. He also averaged 9.2 rebounds per game.
Dovydas Butka - Junior forward
The Broncos continued to add size inside in late April with the addition of 6-foot-9 junior forward Dovydas Butka from Campbell. Butka is a Lithuanian national and will be playing for his third school in three years - he began his college career with Pepperdine before featuring for the Campbell Fighting Camels in 2025-26.
In 31 starts for Campbell last season, he averaged 13.9 points, 8.5 rebounds and 2.6 assists per game playing as both a power forward and center. He also posted 11 double-doubles and had 11 games with at least 10 rebounds
Ty Rodgers - Redshirt senior guard
Rodgers was the cherry on top of an active spring for the Broncos, confirming his commitment to the program on May 8. The 6-foot-6 guard was a key starter in Illinois’s run to the Elite Eight in 2023-24, starting all 38 games for the Fighting Illinois. However, he’s missed the entirety of the last two seasons through a combination of a redshirt season and then a torn patella tendon in his left knee that caused him to miss all of 2025-26.
While not a high-level scorer, averaging just 6.2 points per game on 52.7% shooting in his sophomore season, Rodgers has the potential to be a huge defensive addition. He has attempted just one 3-point shot in his college career — which he missed — and instead provides value as a high-motor, versatile defender.
He averaged 5.3 rebounds and 2 assists per game in his final season with Illinois.
Departures
The following players have either entered the transfer portal or plan to this spring. The class listed next to each player’s name will be their class for the upcoming season.
Drew Fielder - Senior forward
Fielder’s decision to leave the program after just one year is both surprising and perhaps not at the same time.
Fielder arrived at Boise State just last spring to play for his hometown team, having spent two years playing at Georgetown. Fielder called it an “honor” to play for the Broncos upon arrival, and having led the team in scoring (14.7 points per game), he was in a prime position to run it back one final time for his senior year.
Fielder also shot a team-best 54.7% from the field and 40.9% from three, and big men who can shoot are a hot commodity in the college game — the guys believed to be the top seven highest-paid players this past season were forwards.
Fielder committed to SEC powerhouse Alabama with one season of eligibility remaining.
Andrew Meadow - Senior forward
The Boise State coaching staff envisioned Meadow as a team leader in 2026 — and he still may well be, but somewhere else.
Meadow spent the first three years of his career at Boise State. He broke into the starting lineup his sophomore season and became one of the team’s best shooters in 2025-26, ending his junior year shooting 51% from the field and 38.6% from beyond the arc, trailing only Fielder in both stats.
Meadow and Oregon announced on Instagram over the weekend that he would be joining the Ducks to play in the Big Ten next season. Oregon, a regular NCAA Tournament team and 20-win program under Dana Altman, is coming off one of his worst seasons there, finishing 12-19.
Javan Buchanan - Fifth-year forward
Buchanan had presumably finished his college career the same night that Boise State’s season ended with a disappointing Mountain West Tournament first-round loss to San Jose State.
However, the 6-foot-7 forward has signaled his intention to enter the portal, meaning he’s hoping to obtain a waiver that allows former non-NCAA transfers an extra year of eligibility. Buchanan began his career at an NAIA school, Indiana Wesleyan, before spending two years with Boise State.
A blanket waiver was awarded for the 2025-26 season to any student-athlete who transferred from an NAIA school or junior college granting a fifth year of eligibility. That one-year waiver was created in response to a 2024 court appeal initiated by former Vanderbilt football player Diego Pavia.
No waiver is in place for the 2026-27 academic year, however, so a final year of college basketball for Buchanan will hinge on whether something similar will be enacted again for non-NCAA transfers.
Buchanan committed to Big 12 program West Virginia, which just won the College Basketball Crown event in Las Vegas. Buchanan and Boise State played in that event in its inaugural year, in 2025.
Buchanan was named the Mountain West Sixth Man of the Year in 2024-25 and was the Broncos’ second-leading scorer (12.6 points per game) last season.
RJ Keene - Sixth-year forward
Keene partook in Boise State’s Senior Day celebrations last month, but under the understanding that he was seeking a retroactive medical hardship waiver to play a sixth and final season.
Keene redshirted his freshman year but then missed his entire redshirt freshman campaign in ‘22-23 because of injury. The NCAA will consider medical hardship waivers for players who played in 30% or less of a season that was cut short by injury.
Keene confirmed with the Idaho Statesman that he had received approval for a medical hardship waiver ahead of the portal’s opening. However, that final year won’t be with the Broncos.
Keene thanked BSU fans for the “greatest 5 years of my life” in an Instagram post on March 25, bringing to a close his multi-year tenure as the Broncos’ “glue guy.” He committed to play for the ACC’s NC State on April 24.
This story was originally published April 6, 2026 at 4:00 AM.
