PJ Haggerty Lands at Texas A&M, His Fifth School in Five Years. The Portal Era Has a Mascot.
If you wanted to put one player on the cover of a textbook about the college basketball transfer portal era, it would be PJ Haggerty. The former Kansas State guard just committed to Texas A&M, his fifth school in as many years.
The full tour: TCU, where he redshirted as a freshman in 2022-23. Tulsa, where he scored 21.2 points per game as a sophomore. Memphis, where he averaged 21.5 points and earned AAC Player of the Year. Kansas State, where he led the Big 12 in scoring last season at 23.4 points per game and was named Big 12 Transfer of the Year. And now Texas A&M, where he becomes the most expensive transfer addition in program history.
That is one school per season. Not many players in modern college basketball history can match that pace, and even fewer have done it while improving their statistical production every year.
Texas A&M Just Got the Best Available Player
The Aggies needed a scorer. Bucky McMillan, the first-year head coach who took over for Buzz Williams, lost three starters to the NBA Draft and a fourth to the transfer portal. Texas A&M needed to plug a 60-points-per-game hole in the rotation in a single offseason.
Haggerty fixes a chunk of that all by himself. He is going to be the leading scorer in the SEC. He has the kind of microwave scoring ability that wins teams a couple of games every season they should not win. He averaged close to 50% from the field and 35% from three at Kansas State, which is a solid efficiency line for a high-volume guard.
The on-court fit is good. McMillan likes to run, and Haggerty is at his best in transition. The Aggies will play four-out, one-in basketball and let Haggerty operate from the slot. He should average 20-plus points again.
The Portal Era Is Doing This to Everyone
Haggerty’s transfer history is the natural endpoint of a system where there are no penalties for moving and serious financial rewards for doing so. Every season, his market value has gone up. Every season, the school willing to pay him the most has been a different school.
This is not a moral failing on Haggerty’s part. He is taking the deal that gets him the most money and the best chance to play professionally. That is what the system is built for now. Coaches do it. Athletic directors do it. Athletes do it.
What Haggerty’s story does illustrate is the loss of program continuity. Kansas State just lost their leading scorer for the second straight summer. Memphis lost him the summer before. Tulsa lost him the summer before that. None of those programs got more than a single season out of him. None of them recruited him from high school. The portal era turns rosters into rental properties.
The NBA Draft Decision
Haggerty did go through the pre-draft process. He worked out for several NBA teams. The feedback he got, according to On3, was that he projects as a fringe second-round pick this year and could push himself into first-round consideration with another year in college. He pulled his name from the draft on May 27.
That is the calculus that drives most fifth-year transfer decisions. The portal money is real. The development opportunity at a new school is real. The NBA contract that does not actually exist yet is hypothetical.
Haggerty took the certain money. Texas A&M is reportedly paying him a NIL package in the high seven figures for one season of work, which is more money than most second-round NBA picks will see in their first year.
What Comes Next
Texas A&M opens the season ranked outside the top 25 but with realistic NCAA Tournament expectations. McMillan needs to integrate Haggerty alongside returning forward Solomon Washington and a freshman class led by five-star wing Tony Sanders.
If the chemistry comes together, Texas A&M is an upper-tier SEC team and a tournament bubble lock. Haggerty has a chance to be Big 12 Player of the Year if he continues his upward trajectory. McMillan has a chance to make his first season as a Power Conference coach a success story.
If it does not come together, Haggerty will be in the portal again in April. Sixth school in six years. The portal era will keep generating these stories until the rules change.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
