Former Alabama Forward James Rojas Announces New School
Former Alabama basketball player James Rojas announced on social media that he will be transferring to Wichita State after entering the transfer portal last week.
After playing JUCO his first couple seasons, Rojas originally committed to transfer to Buffalo for his junior season, but followed Nate Oats and his staff from there to Alabama after he was hired as the Crimson Tide's head coach before the 2019-20 season. He ended up redshirting after suffering an ACL tear before the start of that season, saving himself a year of eligibility.
In his first season playing at Alabama in 2020-21, he played in 30 games and averaged 2.9 points on 35% field goal shooting and 2.6 rebounds while helping the team make it to the Sweet 16. After missing nearly the first half of the games last season, he played in 17 games, including making three starts, where he averaged 5.4 points on 45% field goal shooting and 2.5 rebounds while helping Alabama make it back to the NCAA Tournament. Rojas is able to transfer and play college basketball for a sixth year due to him redshirting and COVID-19 giving athletes an extra year of eligibility.
Before coming to Alabama, Rojas played basketball at Hutchinson Community College in Kansas for two years, where he averaged 19 points and 6.8 rebounds in his second year. Location is likely a big reason that he chose to go back to Kansas and play for Wichita State, as he said in his Instagram post, "I am going to go back to Kansas and play at Wichita State for my last year of eligibility so my son, his mother and I can be around our extended family, and have our support system around us."
Wichita State went 15-13 last season, including 6-9 in conference play and lost in the first round of the American Athletic Conference Tournament.
Rojas was one of the many players that Alabama has seen enter the transfer portal this offseason, with the others being Juwan Gary, Jusaun Holt, Keon Ambrose-Hylton, Britton Johnson, Jaden Quinerly and Alex Tchikou.
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