2 Vermont men's basketball freshman forwards enter transfer portal on same day

For the second time in five days, a University of Vermont men's basketball player has entered the transfer portal. And it wasn't just one Catamount name.

Not long after news broke of freshman forward Perry Smith's intentions to pursue other opportunities, classmate Jorge Ochoa also entered the transfer portal on Tuesday morning.

UVM head coach John Becker told a Burlington Free Press reporter in a text message of Ochoa's desire to leave the program. Verbal Commits first reported Smith's transfer decision on its Twitter page.

Last week, senior guard Aaron Deloney, America East's two-time sixth-man award winner, also entered the portal, according to Verbal Commits, and will look to play his extra year of eligibility elsewhere.

More:Aaron Deloney to transfer out of Vermont men's basketball

The 6-foot-9, 225-pound Smith arrived in Burlington last summer after graduating from Legacy Early College in Greenville, South Carolina, where he was a three-star recruit by ESPN ratings.

The Augusta, Georgia, native saw action in 26 games this past season with one start, averaging 1.9 points and 9.3 minutes a game. He scored a season-high 10 points in the rout of Northern Vermont-Lyndon and also added an eight-point outing in the win at Dartmouth.

But as the coaching staff reworked its lineup and settled on an eight-man rotation during league play, Smith, and others, turned into little-used reserves. After playing a dozen minutes in the defeat at UMass Lowell on Jan. 11, Smith only entered in nine of Vermont's final 16 games, totaling 26 combined minutes.

Ochoa, of Santa Fe Springs, California, saw even less time than Smith. The 6-foot-7, 225-pound Ochoa entered in 11 games (37 total minutes) and played a season-high nine minutes at Merrimack on Dec. 4.

The Catamounts went 23-11 overall and 14-2 in America East for the program's seventh straight regular-season conference crown. They also were crowned league tournament champions for the fifth time in seven seasons before losing in the first round of the NCAA Tournament to Big East champion Marquette.

Based on Vermont's current roster, head coach John Becker and his staff will now look to fill six open scholarship spots with the pending departures of Deloney, Smith and Ochoa. Matt Veretto, Nick Fiorillo, Ileri Ayo-Faleye, Sam Alamutu, Jackson Skipper, TJ Hurley and walk-on Michel Ndayishimiye are slated to return, with Seth Joba expected to arrive this summer as an incoming freshman forward.

More:March Madness: Coverage of UVM basketball teams in the 2023 NCAA Tournament

Contact Alex Abrami at aabrami@freepressmedia.com. Follow him on Twitter: @aabrami5.