Another Evansville men's basketball starter has entered the transfer portal

EVANSVILLE, Ind. — Four of the top five leading scorers on the University of Evansville men's basketball team are gone.

Senior guard Jawaun Newton entered the NCAA transfer portal Friday morning, joining his backcourt mate Shamar Givance, who filed his paperwork last week. Both will be graduate transfers immediately eligible to play elsewhere next season.

Their departures along with the graduation of fifth-year veterans Evan Kuhlman and Noah Frederking mean only one starter will return.

It's unknown if anyone else will transfer. The Aces are left with five open scholarships.

Evansville basketball: Leading scorer Shamar Givance enters the transfer portal

Newton announced the news on social media, writing:

UE now has four players in the transfer portal, including Emmette Page, who averaged 6.7 minutes in just 14 games, along with Troy Boynton, a freshman who never put on the uniform before leaving the program midseason.

This, of course, follows a 6-24 campaign that featured program records for fewest wins and most losses. UE Athletics is currently without a director, though men's basketball head coach Todd Lickliter is still in charge of the program.

UE announced Thursday that Lickliter will host camps this summer, perhaps a sign he will return for the final year of his contract. He has not made any public comments since the season ended in St. Louis earlier this month.

UE athletics: The men's basketball program is at a crossroads. Where does it go from here?

Although perhaps that could change. Associate head coach Logan Baumann is believed to be leaving for another opportunity. He was the most vocal coach on the bench and spearheaded recruiting the past two years.

In a recent interview with the Courier & Press, UE President Christopher Pietruszkiewicz said fans, "should expect more wins than losses than we’ve had over the last couple of years and we intend to provide that to them."

Yet, it's hard to tell how next season will be any better as things currently sit.

While Newton and Givance had the opportunity to return for a fifth year, their production will be missed.

Newton, a 6-foot-3 native of El Paso, Texas, averaged 12.7 points and a team-best 5.4 rebounds, but he missed eight of the final nine games with a knee injury. When he returned for the Missouri Valley Conference tournament, he aggravated it in just seven minutes off the bench.

He ultimately played 103 games, starting 65 of them, in four years. He averaged 13 points each of the past two seasons and routinely played through contact to fuel an offense that struggled to score at times.

The Aces have now lost roughly two-thirds of their scoring and only have two recruits in the pipeline.

Chad Lindskog is the sports editor of the Courier & Press. You can contact him by email, clindskog@gannett.com, or on Twitter: @chadlindskog.

This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Evansville Purple Aces: Jawaun Newton enters NCAA transfer portal