According to Locked On West Virginia, West Virginia men’s basketball has reached out to an SEC athlete that played considerable minutes on a team who reached the 2025 Final Four.
West Virginia media member ‘Mountaineer Paul’ reported on an episode of the Locked On West Virginia podcast Friday night that Auburn freshman forward Jahki Howard, who entered the transfer portal earlier this week, has been contacted by the Mountaineers in the transfer portal.
Howard was a 4-star recruit in the Class of 2024, but was mainly a depth piece on a loaded Auburn program that made a run to the Final Four this season before bowing out of the postseason to eventual National Champion Florida.
Howard made 21 appearances for Auburn this past season and averaged 9.1 minutes per game. He managed 4.2 points and 1.1 rebounds per game this past year, and finished a highlight reel alley-oop play against Monmouth in non-conference action.
Howard was ranked in the Top 100 nationally in his recruiting class — he averaged 15.1 points and 5.4 rebounds per game and won the 2024 King’s Hawaiian National Slam Dunk Championship as a high school senior.
Howard was at the center of an early-season controversy in November, as he engaged in an altercation with teammate Ja’Heim Hudson on a team flight to face Houston in non-conference play. The altercation forced the plane to be diverted back to the airport, and neither player traveled to the Houston game once the flight took back off — though both players remained with the team.
“I‘m limited in what I want to say, but it was an unfortunate situation, but we are dealing with it head on and it‘s sort of an ongoing process,” Auburn Head Coach Bruce Pearl told the Field of 68 podcast at the time. “I think that’s the best way I can approach it.
