The transfer portal has changed college basketball forever. It's almost like a free agency for the NCAA and it's created more of a level playing field for mid-majors to be able to compete with high-majors. It's also helped players with a way out of situations that are out of their control. Take Dexter Akanno for instance. He was originally committed to Marquette and following two seasons with the Golden Eagles, one in which he redshirted, the school parted ways with head coach Steve Wojciechowski. Dexter Akanno took matters into his own hands and used the transfer portal to land at Oregon State.
Having spent two seasons now at Oregon State flourishing in a bench role, Akanno believes that the transfer portal is a huge advantage to players looking to take control of their own futures.
“I think it's good, I think it puts some of the power back into the players hands. Whether they're just trying to get some NIL money or just find a new place to play, I think it's huge for them,” Akanno told ClutchPoints. “And I think it was huge for me and it made me make the choice that I made. For the most part, everybody that I talked to, they're usually happy with the place that they transferred to. It's basically just giving them a second chance, basically a second life.”
Before he set foot on campus at Marquette, Dexter Akanno was a star at Valencia High School in Southern California, a hotbed for high school recruiting. During his senior year, he averaged 15 points per game, 4.0 rebounds and 3.5 assists. He didn't have many offers though and he made the decision to use a prep year at Blair Academy in New Jersey. He helped the team win the Mid-Atlantic Prep League title.
Akanno ended up committing to Marquette, over offers from New Mexico State and Virginia Tech, prior to attending Blair Academy. But his experience at Marquette was anything but smooth. He opted to redshirt his freshman season while focusing on his development and then he caught COVID ahead of his second season forcing him out of the lineup to begin the year. Once he returned to the team, he was playing catch-up the rest of the season and never was able to establish a consistent rhythm.
The coaching change for the Golden Eagles was kind of the final straw in Dexter Akanno entering the transfer portal and he soon found himself at Oregon State. While his time at Marquette may have been a little bit bumpy, he's still grateful for what he was able to pick up along his journey to help him be a better college basketball player.
“Especially coming from Marquette, and even my two years so far at Oregon State, I've definitely learned a lot. It's been a great learning experience,” Akanno said. “Being able to pick the brains of great players and great coaches that I've been under, from the likes of Markus Howard, Sacar Anim, and then even guys at Oregon State like Jarod Lucas and Ethan Thompson. Just learning different nuances from the game and just about how to deal with all the things that come with playing basketball at the high level, I learned all that.”
When he arrived at Oregon State, Dexter Akanno was able to make an immediate impact. During his final year at Marquette, he played in only 12 games at only 5.3 minutes per game, He averaged less than a point on 18.2 percent shooting from the field. In his first season with the Beavers, Akanno saw his playing time nearly quadruple at 19.5 minutes per game. He averaged 4.9 points in 29 games and shot 30.3 percent from the three-point line.
This past season, he had his best year yet in his college basketball career to the tune of 7.9 points per game, 2,4 rebounds and 1.6 assists. He shot 47.2 percent from two-point range and 74.7 percent from the free-throw line. Dexter Akanno became a regular starter for Oregon State he led the team in scoring five times this past season including a season-high 20 points against Oregon on New Year's Eve.
Despite that, it's been a rough couple of seasons for Oregon State as they've finished with losing records and a first round loss in the Pac-12 Tournament in back to back years. Even so, Akanno has credits the system for being able to fit right in and the losing seasons as lessons to learn from moving forward.
“I think it's really just the type of guys that we had. My first year at Oregon State, it was a little tough,” Akanno said. “But I think it was a good learning experience, learning how to try and bounce back from those losses, learning from losses and then going into the next year taking those lessons that I learned and applying them, and then trying to teach and talk about it to the new guys that came in.”
Throughout his college basketball career thus far, Akanno has been a strong and athletic bulldog type point guard. His bread and butter is being able to get to the basket and finish strong. He's a tough cover when he gets downhill. He stands out on the defensive end of the court as well with his strength and ability to guard multiple positions.
Akanno will technically be in only his fourth season in the NCAA due to redshirting his first year at Marquette. He's still developing as a player and he has several things he's been working on. He's been spending the offseason playing at the Real Run summer league in Carson, CA designed for college players of all levels to get some summer run. Rosters are made up of D1, D2, D3, NAIA and JuCo players. It's been there the he's been able to show of some of the improved elements of his game.
“I think my three-point jumper and my midrange pull-up is going to be way better just by focusing on that and working on that this offseason,” Akanno said. “And with the way that we're playing at Oregon State, I think that we're going to continue to work on being able to play off each other, make different reads off each other, that's going to be huge. And we just got to carry that in, going into this whole summer training session and stuff like that.”
While this past season may not have ended as Dexter Akanno and Oregon Season would have hoped, there were things they could build off of. Their loss against Arizona State in the first round of the Pac-12 Tournament was a close one, 63-57. This team is two seasons removed from an Elite Eight run and although the roster has undergone some changes in that time, this group can certainly be better than they have been.
When the offseason winds down and the 2023-24 season draws near, the one thing that Akanno is focused on is the team, and what kind of success they can have.
“I'm really focused on the team. Individually, I think what success comes with the team, will come with different individual accolades and things like that,” Akanno said. “As far as team-wise, we want to finish in the top five of the Pac-12. The Pac is going to be a great conference this year. So finishing top four or five is going to be huge for us. Then get to the tournament. We saw what happened during Oregon State's last Elite Eight run. Coach Tinkle does great things when he gets under pressure like that, so that's our plan.”