Angel Rodriguez To Officially Transfer To Miami

Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports

Following a month of speculation as to where he would land, Angel Rodriguez announced he would transfer to Miami on Thursday. The point guard took a tour of the campus Wednesday before announcing, although the Hurricanes were expected to be the frontrunners to land the star the day he announced his intentions to transfer from K-State.

Miami is coming off an unexpectedly strong season, and was the regular season champion of the ACC. However, pursuing Miami’s success is not the stated reason for his departure from Manhattan. Rodriguez attended high school in Miami and had a strong desire to transfer following a freshman year in which he was constantly hounded by the media for failing to make consistently good basketball decisions.

New head coach Bruce Weber was successful in convincing Rodriguez to return for his sophomore year, where he averaged 11.4 points and 5.2 assists while helping K-State to a share of the regular season conference championship and a fourth round seed only to experience an expected first round upset to La Salle. Yet Rodriguez maintained his desire to move closer to his family in Puerto Rico, making a university in southern Florida a natural fit (and truly, any university would gladly take a player looking to receive All-American honors as an upperclassman).

Rodriguez has applied for a hardship waiver from the NCAA according to the Miami Herald. If granted, he would be able to immediately join the team rather than sitting out a year. From the Jug’s standpoint, it’s difficult to see such an athlete leave the team, but we still wish him the best of luck wherever life takes him.