Next year’s Idaho State team will look much different from this season’s — but the Bengals will get one player back.
Rising senior forward Brayden Parker is planning to return for his final season of eligibility, per multiple sources with knowledge of the situation, giving ISU one piece of continuity for 2023-24.
Parker and his wife, Sadie, have a baby on the way, so Parker was contemplating whether to return. In the end, Parker decided to play a fifth and final season for ISU.
That’s good news for the Bengals for several reasons: A third-team all-conference selection this season, Parker averaged 11.6 points (second on the team) and 4.6 rebounds (first on the team), unlocking the Bengals’ offense with a combination of low-post work and an improved 3-point shot.
This season, Parker shot a career-best 31% from beyond the arc. In ISU’s win over Sacramento State back in January, he hit a career-high five triples, which was part of his 22-point, 13-rebound effort.
Parker was instrumental throughout the season, Idaho State’s best in two years — and in a non-COVID world, the program’s highest win total since 2018. The Bengals ended Eastern Washington’s 18-game winning streak, at the time the nation’s longest, and they earned a first-round bye at last week’s Big Sky Tournament. There, ISU exited with a quarterfinal loss to Montana.
Several Bengals enter the transfer portal
Parker may be returning, but several of his teammates will not be. Those names include third-year guard Tommy Ball, transfer guard Ronnie Stapp and transfer forward Ed Chang, all of whom have entered the transfer portal, according to multiple sources familiar with the situation.
Idaho State forward Ed Chang (far right) celebrates a play on the bench during the Bengals' game against BYU earlier this season.
ISU Athletics
None project to be particularly costly losses for ISU, since all three played relatively sparingly, but in his first and only season in Pocatello, Chang did give the Bengals some meaningful minutes on occasion. In 12 games, he averaged 2.1 points on 29% shooting, his best game a 13-point output in a loss to Montana State in January. With this transfer, Chang will look to move on to his fifth school. He played his freshman season at San Diego State, then transferred to Salt Lake Community College, then to Missouri, then to Idaho State. He’ll be a grad transfer now.
Ball and Stapp, the latter a transfer from Fullerton College in California, appeared in just three games apiece.
This doesn’t necessarily mean all three players will leave — players can withdraw their name from the portal and return to their school — but in most cases, players move on to a different school.
ISU will now bid farewell to eight total players from this year’s team: Chang, Ball and Stapp, plus outgoing seniors Austin Smellie, Brock Mackenzie, Jay Nagle, Jared Rodriguez, Kolby Lee.
{div class=”asset-tagline text-muted”}Greg Woods is a sports reporter at the Idaho State Journal. Follow him on Twitter at GregWWoods.{/div}
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The Idaho State Journal invites you to take part in the community conversation. But those who don't play nice may be uninvited. Don't post comments that are off topic, defamatory, libelous, obscene, racist, abusive, threatening or an invasion of privacy. We may remove any comment for any reason or no reason. We encourage you to report abuse, but the decision to delete is ours. Commenters have no expectation of privacy and may be held accountable for their comments. Comments are opinions of the author only, and do not reflect the opinions or views of Idaho State Journal.