Friday afternoon it was announced that sophomore point guard JaQuori McLaughlin has been granted a release from his scholarship and will transfer from Oregon State. McLaughlin, who started 30 games and averaged 10.5 points and 3.3 assists per game as a freshman, struggled to reach that level in Oregon State’s first six games of the season.
Making five starts, McLaughlin was averaging 2.7 points, 3.7 assists and 2.7 rebounds per contest while shooting just 23.8 percent from the field. In addition to the on-court struggles, McLaughlin mentioned challenges away from the court in the release sent out by the school Friday.
“Being a student-athlete is a lot of work and there are some challenges that I’ve been faced with that have impacted me and kept me from being able to compete to the best of my ability in a way that would help my team win games,” McLaughlin said in the release.
With McLaughlin no longer in the fold, redshirt sophomore Kendal Manuel is the player most likely to see an increase in minutes with both Stephen Thompson Jr. and Ethan Thompson averaging more than 30 minutes per game. Manuel, who’s played 12.7 minutes per game this season, is averaging 2.8 points and 1.5 rebounds per game.
The Thompson brothers, and even leading scorer Tres Tinkle, should have even more opportunities to make plays with the basketball in their hands moving forward as a result of McLaughlin’s departure from the program.