BYU Forward Hao Dong Enters Transfer Portal

Mar 13, 2023 - 10:38 PM

The NCAA basketball transfer portal officially opened today, and forward Hao Dong was the first BYU player to enter the portal. Dong was a walk-on for BYU this past season.

A native of Beijing, China and RSL Academy graduate, Dong committed to BYU last July. Dong played in 4 games for BYU this season and accumulated 8 total minutes. Hao prepped at Real Salt Lake Academy’s Post Grad team for a season before coming to BYU and was the team’s leading scorer. He joined RSL Academy around Thanksgiving 2021 and immediately turned heads. As part of RSL’s post grad team, they get a chance to play JUCO schools. According to his coach Shane Hayden, RSL played a top JUCO team from Western Wyoming where he scored 25 points in a narrow loss. He also put up 15 points versus Snow College. Those performances put him on the radar of college coaches who knew virtually nothing about him before.

As of now, BYU has one open scholarship with Gideon George and Rudi Williams graduating and 2021 signee Jake Wahlin returning from his mission. I expect around 2-3 scholarship players to transfer out over the coming weeks — I would be moderately surprised if it’s more than four, but players could have changes of heart in the next two months while the transfer window is open. BYU and Mark Pope will begin season-ending exit interviews with players soon, which should induce some movement.

Good luck to Hao at his next stop!