College basketball season is right around the corner and Mercyhurst just lost star transfer Tommy Kelly to a second entry into the transfer portal. It is a truly bizarre series of events that will not get as much attention as it deserves because neither the player nor program involved are of high status within the sport.

There are just five weeks until the start of the new season!

Let’s first start by discussing Mercyhurst University. It is a 2,759-student private school in Erie, Pennsylvania that was founded in 1926. The Lakers used to compete on the Division II level. They made the jump to Division I on July 1 as members of the Northeast Conference.

To reiterate, Mercyhurst has only been a Division I program for three months. It will play its first D1 game at George Washington on Nov. 4. It will do so without its best player.

The Lakers acquired Tommy Kelly through the transfer portal over the summer. He is a graduate transfer with one year of eligibility remaining after playing four seasons at Catholic University, a Division III school. The 6-foot-0, 175-pound guard scored more than 1,000 points during his career with the Cardinals and earned all-conference honors in all four years.