What Seydou Traore's transfer portal entry means for Utah basketball moving forward

Utah forward Seydou Traore entered his name into the transfer portal on Tuesday, becoming the third starter from the 2025-26 squad to entertain college basketball's free agency period.

The move might've come as expected to some, considering it aligns with the current nature of college athletics, though the 6-foot-7 wing's impending departure only brought more uncertainty to the Utes' roster outlook for the second season of the Alex Jensen era.

What it essentially ensured: With three starters hitting the portal and another two leaving by way of gradutation, the Utes most likely will trot out an entirely new starting five for the 2026-27 campaign.

It's not a novelty in this day and age for a team to trot out a completely different rotation from the year prior (Michigan just won a championship after doing exactly that). And because the school is reportedly keeping in touch with Brown, and since Dawes returned to the Utes after entering the portal last offseason, it's not really a foregone conclusion that Utah will have to reconfigure its entire starting five if the door is indeed kept open for those two to come back.

Here are a couple of things we are (mostly) sure about following Traore's portal entry, though.

Utah should have money to spend

The word "should" is doing a lot of work here. Because as reasonable as it is to assume a Power 5 program has the resources to compete in the modern era of college hoops, where revenue-sharing and NIL remain king in recruiting negotiations, it's certainly not a guarantee that the Utes are operating on the same level as some of their Big 12 counterparts.

What we can surmise, though, is that Utah will have some wiggle room to work with as it peruses the open market for new talent to bring into its ranks. At least, that's to be expected when five starters and a few role players are off the books going into the thick of portal season.

How Jensen and general manager Wes Wilcox allocate those funds over the coming weeks remains to be seen, though having a whole season's worth of time to prepare for the mass chaos that comes with the portal should (there's that word again) give the Utes a better chance to get the players they want, as opposed to this time a year ago when Jensen was barely a month into the job.

Continuity will be at a premium

Continuity was a luxury Utah didn't have for Jensen's first go around, and it doesn't appear his second season will be much different in that regard.

Within the first 24 hours of the portal being open, four of the top six scorers from the 2025-26 squad had their names available on the open market. When accounting for the impending departures of Don McHenry and James Okonkwo, the only player to average more than 3 points per game still on the roster is 6-foot-9 forward Kendyl Sanders, who put up 5.2 points per contest as a freshman this past season.

While working with a relatively clean slate has its benefits, there's still plenty of upside that comes with retaining core pieces of a roster. Considering Jensen and his staff were a bit behind on the portal game this time a year ago, though, perhaps this offseason will allow them to build a more solid foundation for the future.

Utes will likely scope out wings in the portal

Utah wasn't particularly deep on the perimeter before Traore's portal entry, so it stands to reason Jensen and Wilcox will put a lot of time in scouting potential replacements in the portal over the coming weeks.

Of course, there's not going to be a shortage of guards and wings to pick from on the open market. There's already over 1,000 portal entries to this point, and based on last couple year's of player movement, more will trickle in during the 15-day window.

For now, one portal name Utah fans should monitor is Jackson Holcombe. The 6-foot-7 wing earned All-Western Athletic Conference honors at Utah Valley this past season after putting up 16 points, 7 rebounds, 3.6 assists and a league-high 2.2 steals per game for the Wolverines. He's also got ties to the area as a Timpanogos High School graduate.