TRANSFER PORTAL: EKU Transfer Tre King Re-enters Portal

Transfer big man, Tre King, is reportedly back in the transfer portal according to Jon Rothstein. King might be testing the transfer waters, but it would appear as though, at this point, he is not planning to return to campus to play for Patrick Ewing and the Georgetown Hoyas. We wish him the best of luck in his future endeavors.

Last Friday, the roster was finally updated—and it was bad news. King was not on the roster for Patrick Ewing, and fans of the Georgetown Hoyas were confused. It sounded like a Georgetown University decision kept him off the roster, and that there was a chance he might be able to come back in the near future, but that doesn’t seem likely given what we know about the decision to enter the transfer portal.

The earlier statements from Georgetown were vague, to say the least.

King appeared to have come back on campus for the photographs, but the situation has minimal details. It’s probably best to leave it alone at this point.

The 6’9” transfer forward, Tre King, hails from Lexington and played three years at Eastern Kentucky University. He committed to Georgetown from the transfer portal in April.

King’s absence invokes feelings of potentially discipline-related departures under Ewing by Antwan Walker, Chris Sodom, and (resolved lawsuits/complaints for) Josh LeBlanc (with Myron Gardner and Galen Alexander, as well as Jalen Harris leaving for unconfirmed personal/family reasons last year. King’s public statement and purported opportunity to come back next season/semester seemed like new wrinkles to his part of the Ewing story.

The university’s decision may have been recent as Tre King was on campus for photographs and was believed to have been spotted taking in a talk from Curtis Malone. Who can tell?

Prior to his transfer decision to come to Georgetown, King relayed to Jaime Shaw of Rivals that “Georgetown, Xavier, Virginia Tech and Marquette” were recruiting him the hardest. King had also reportedly heard from Vanderbilt, Georgia, East Carolina, Pittsburgh, and South Alabama.

The 6-9, 220-pound King averaged nearly 15 points and over 6 rebounds as a junior per game last year. Playing for Eastern Kentucky in the Ohio Valley Conference, he is considered a bit under the radar. Still, as a sophomore, King averaged 11 points and 5 rebounds.

One thing about King that made Hoyas fans a bit more excited was that he did play a game against Xavier last November, scoring 25 points and grabbing 13 rebounds in the 96-99 overtime loss to the BIG EAST team early in the 2020-21 season.

At the end of the season, EKUSports wrote of King when he was awarded All-OVC and “all-district” by the NABC:

King earned first team All-OVC honors this season after ranking ninth in the conference in scoring (14.9 points-per-game) and seventh in rebounding (6.2 rebounds-per-game). He also ranked in the top-15 in the league in steals (ninth / 1.5 steals-per-game), blocks (fifth / 1.2 blocks-per-game) and field goal percentage (15th / 49.1%).

He finished the regular season as one of only two players in the country with more than 40 steals and more than 30 blocks.

The junior had one of his most impressive performances of the season in an overtime loss at Xavier in early December...

He was voted OVC Player of the Week three times during the year.

The Lexington native finished the season 27 points shy of 1,000 for this career.

King might play power forward or small-ball center. Foul statistics for King were a bit troubling. King fouled out in 8 games last season and had 4 fouls in seven games. Like Chudier Bile last season, figuring out how to stay on floor could be the biggest transition.

Our respected colleagues at Anonymous Eagle reported on Tre King prior to his April commitment to Georgetown as a potential transfer target for Marquette:

... King averaged 14.9 points, 6.2 rebounds, and 1.2 blocks per game, but he also chipped in 1.0 assists and 1.5 steals per game as well. I don’t know about you, but I’m definitely interested in a guy who at least as the potential to assemble the near-mythical 5-by-5 stat line in a game.

King averaged 27.8 minutes per game for EKU this past season, so there is a little bit of potential for growth there. He had a teeny bit of a foul problem with 4.9 per 40 minutes, but that was a career low while posting a career high in minutes per game...

The most interesting part about King’s game might be his three-point shooting. After averaging less than an attempt per game in his first two seasons while shooting just 18%, he made a huge step forward this past year. Two attempts from long range per game on the nose out of his 12.5 overall attempts per game, and King hit 33.9% of them. That’s basically exactly what you want from a guy who is playing the 4 or the 5 for you: Not relying on it, but exactly threatening enough that defense have to take him seriously.

Here are some highlight videos:

Tre King was believed to be using his fourth year of eligibility after playing three seasons with EKU. The presumption was that, with any rising senior transferring, the new team would have to use a scholarship that would count to the limit of 13. He would potentially have a bonus year of eligibility in 2022-23.

While Georgetown may have been a bit too quiet in the transfer portal free agency frenzy for some fans’ likings, King represented a solid, measured addition that fans had hoped to be unlikely to disrupt chemistry—especially with a top-rated freshman class arriving on the Hilltop—and fill a gap at power forward. Oh well.

Of course, King will always be remembered for his participation in Casual Hoya’s 2021 NIL version of #documentyourlunch.

Best of luck, Tre.