CHAPEL HILL, N.C. — North Carolina forward Jalen Washington entered the NCAA transfer portal on Tuesday, sources confirmed, after spending three seasons with the Tar Heels.
The 6-foot-10 junior played in 93 games during his UNC career. He averaged career bests of 5.7 points and 4.2 rebounds per game this season, while shooting 59.4 percent from the field.
But after making 16 starts across the season’s first 20 games, Washington ceded the starting big man role in coach Hubert Davis’ system to transfer forward Ven-Allen Lubin, and was used off the bench from late January through Carolina’s first-round exit in the NCAA Tournament.
“Throughout all of the adversity that we had this year, we just stuck with it and just kept fighting,” Washington said four days ago in Milwaukee, as UNC’s roller-coaster season came to a halt in a 71-64 loss to Mississippi. “So really that’s kind of like a life lesson that we all can walk away with. Stuff’s not always going to go our way. Stuff’s going to be hard. We’re going to be down. But it’s not about how you start, it’s about how you finish.”
Moments later there, amid the quiet of season-ending defeat in the postgame locker room at Fiserv Forum, Washington was asked if he preferred to stay on with the Tar Heels and return next season for a fourth year, rather than pursuing other options in the offseason.
“I’m a Tar Heel and that’s all I can say about that,” he said in response. “I’m a North Carolina Tar Heel.”
Washington, who’s from Gary, Ind., arrived at UNC in the summer 2022 as an incoming freshman in recovery mode. When he committed to Carolina in July 2021, he was ranked as a five-star recruit and regarded as a top-20 prospect nationally. But a right-knee injury derailed his high school career, and limited the early stages of his time with the Tar Heels.
An improper surgery on a torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) required Washington to have two operations on the same knee. The second procedure forced Washington to sit out the entirety of his senior season in high school. He didn’t make his college debut at UNC until 10 games into the 2022-23 season.
This season dawned with Davis putting it plainly. “We need him to have a big year,” the head coach said in early October of Washington, while noting the big man had become bigger, stronger, more athletic and more confident as the new 2024-25 season approached — all of which certainly figured to benefit the Tar Heels, who didn’t have mainstay Armando Bacot to lean on down low anymore.
“He’s been our best rebounder, our best screener, our best big in shape running the floor,” Davis said Oct. 4. “Shoots the ball extremely well from the outside. Does a really good job in space off of rolls, off of ball screens, DHOs (dribble handoffs), being able to finish around the basket, and attacking the offensive glass. That’s what we need, and we need him to do that consistently.”
