Villanova Transfers: How Ex-Wildcats Performed in 2024-25

With the 2024-25 NCAA Men’s Basketball regular season concluded, it’s time to take stock of how transfers away from the Villanova Wildcats performed.

During the offseason, the Wildcats lost four players to the transfer portal: TJ Bamba, who departed for Oregon, Lance Ware (UT Arlington), Brendan Hausen (Kansas State) and Trey Patterson (Rice). Of those four, only Bamba and the Ducks made the NCAA Tournament. Ware and Patterson both went down a level in a bid for more playing time, looking to end their collegiate careers on a high note, while Hausen joined a KSU squad that narrowly missed the Big Dance last season, then continued to stagnate under third year head coach Jerome Tang.

Bamba leads the Ducks in assists (2.9) and steals (1.7) per game this season, and ranks third on the team in points per game (10.4), a key facilitator in Oregon’s well-balanced lineup. 

Ware averaged close to a double-double and led the Mavericks in four of five major statistical categories: points (13.4), rebounds (9.6), steals (1.3) and blocks (1.5) as well as minutes (32.4). Despite his heroics, UT Arlington finished seventh in the Western Athletic Conference with an uninspiring 13-18 record.

Patterson missed much of the season with an undisclosed injury, playing just ten games for the Owls, while Hausen (who retains a year of eligibility finished as Kansas State’s third-leading scorer with an average of 10.9 points per game.

Ukrainian guard Max Shulga, meanwhile, who committed to Villanova before backing out and returning to VCU, led a Rams team that went 28-6 and made the NCAA Tournament in points (15.1), assists (4.0) and steals (1.8) per game, posing a fascinating question of what might’ve happened had he landed on the Main Line.