Miami forward Norchad Omier — an All-ACC selection who led the Hurricanes to their first Final Four in 2022-23 — is entering the transfer portal, according to multiple reports.
Omier, who has one season of eligibility remaining, announced earlier in April that he would enter this summer’s NBA Draft.
Omier instantly becomes one of the best available players in the transfer portal. The 6-foot-7, 230-pound senior led Miami in scoring (17 points per game) and rebounding (10 per game) this season and was named to the All-ACC Second Team.
While Omier took a step forward this season statistically, his first year in South Florida came with more team success; those 2022-23 Hurricanes — which paired Omier with Isaiah Wong, Jordan Miller and Nijel Pack — made the program’s first Final Four, before losing to eventual national champion Connecticut. But this season, with Wong and Miller off to the NBA, Miami took a significant step back; Jim Larrañaga’s team finished just 15-17 and lost its final 10 contests.
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Accordingly, seven Hurricanes have since entered the transfer portal, including fellow starter Wooga Poplar, who entered Thursday.
The exodus from Coral Gables, Fla., is especially interesting because of Miami’s early success in the NIL era. Billionaire John Ruiz, a longtime Miami supporter, made waves immediately after NIL was ratified by publicly sharing the financial details of several deals his company, LifeWallet, had consecrated with incoming Miami athletes. The most high profile of the bunch was Pack, who signed a two-year, $800,000 contract in the summer of 2022 upon transferring in from Kansas State. (Pack and Omier were part of the same transfer class.)
Since then, LifeWallet has become the target of several federal civil and criminal cases.
GO DEEPER
A Q&A with NIL-bankroller John Ruiz on his role in Miami’s Final Four run
In February 2023, the NCAA’s Division-I Committee on Infractions announced Miami women’s basketball coach Katie Meier had committed Level 2 infractions by facilitating impermissible contact between two prospects and a booster (Ruiz). Importantly, as part of the ruling — the COI’s first since NIL went into effect in the summer of 2021 — Ruiz was not forced to dissociate from Miami.
According to ESPN, Omier will enter the transfer portal with a “do not contact” designation, which typically signifies a player already knows their destination.
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(Photo: Sam Navarro / USA Today)
