On Saturday afternoon, TJ Otzelberger and the Iowa State Cyclones made a splash addition through the transfer portal with the WAC Player of the Year headed to Ames, Iowa.
Junior guard Dominick Nelson elected to join the Cyclones through the portal after spending the past season with Utah Valley, where he dominated the Western Athletic Conference.
Last season with the Wolverines, Nelson posted 14.4 points, 5.2 rebounds, and 1.7 assists per game on 43.6% shooting from the field. He also connected on 25.3% of his shots from three-point range and 68.8% from the free throw line.
Coming out of Liberty Heights Athletic Institute in the Class of 2022, Nelson was listed as an unranked prospect by most major recruiting services. Just three years later, however, the former JUCO product was listed as a four-star prospect by the 247Sports index and ranked 236th among players available in the transfer portal.
The transfer portal officially opened on Monday, March 24, 2025. According to NCAA data, 1,296 FBS basketball players entered the transfer portal in the 2023-24 school year, with 864 (66.7%) undergraduates and 432 (33.3%) graduate transfers. Of the entrants, 70% reported that they enrolled in another school, 6% withdrew their names from the portal, and 23% are still active, transferred to a non-NCAA school, or left their sport.
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