For the first time in a while (probably ever, but don't fact-check me), Michigan State basketball lost three players to the transfer portal.
A year ago, Michigan State lost AJ Hoggard (Vanderbilt) and Mady Sissoko (Cal) to the portal which felt like an unprecedented amount of starting production to the transfer market for Tom Izzo and the Spartans but three guys are gone this cycle in Tre Holloman, Xavier Booker, and Gehrig Normand.
Heading into Saturday, two of them had found new homes as Booker committed to Mick Cronin and UCLA and Tre Holloman joined Will Wade at NC State.
On Saturday night, Normand decided on a new home and he'll be headed to the West Coast.
Gehrig Normand heading to Santa Clara, following Steve Nash. https://t.co/LinInwPqz5
— Graham Couch (@Graham_Couch) April 20, 2025
Normand, a sharpshooting redshirt freshman from Texas, was expected to head back home for the remainder of his college eligibility, but he opted to head out west to Santa Clara with head coach Herb Sendek who has turned the Broncos into perennial winners.
Santa Clara has had a winning record in seven straight seasons under Sendek and it's been to three NITs in the past four seasons. He has yet to make the NCAA Tournament at Santa Clara.
Normand is coming in, hoping to help change that.
As Graham Couch said above, Steve Nash's alma mater is Santa Clara so it's not impossible to be successful after playing there, but it would be cool to see Normand take over as the team's go-to scorer and live up to the potential we all saw from him out of high school.
Izzo is sad that it didn't work out with Normand in the 2023 class, but he has three years of eligibility left to prove himself at Santa Clara -- and potentially elsewhere.