The Xaivian Lee era at Princeton appears to be over.
According to a report posted today by ESPN, the First-Team All-Ivy junior guard has entered the transfer portal. The report states that Lee will also enter the NBA Draft while simultaneously keeping his options open to transfer to another program for his final year of collegiate eligibility.
A year ago, Lee similarly tested the NBA Draft waters before returning to Princeton for his junior year.
Lee’s likely departure from Princeton, while not entirely unexpected, is the latest development in what already is shaping up to be a tumultuous offseason for the Princeton men’s basketball program.
Since the beginning of his Princeton career, Lee has displayed sensational athleticism, audacious playmaking ability and clutch shooting.
As a freshman, the Toronto native appeared in all 32 of Princeton’s contests but averaged only 4.5 points per game. Though he showed flashes of brilliance, Lee was not a major factor in Princeton’s historic run to the Sweet 16 in 2023.
But as a sophomore, Lee exploded, leading Princeton in scoring with 17.1 points per game and earning All-Ivy First Team honors.
In his junior campaign, Lee cemented his status as a superstar, registering the first two triple doubles in recorded program history, leading the Tigers in scoring for the second season in a row and earning unanimous All-Ivy First Team honors.
Beyond the gaudy statistics, Lee demonstrated an indomitable will to win while wearing the Orange and Black. During a three-day stretch in mid-January, Lee led two frantic comebacks against Dartmouth and Columbia, hitting carbon-copy, game-winning, stepback threes in both games.
However, Lee’s heroics fell short when his potential game-winning three against Yale in the semifinals of the Ivy League Tournament was off the mark.
When asked postgame about what appears to be his final shot as a Princetonian, a somber Lee could only say, “I gotta make that shot.”
The loss to Yale ended an extremely disappointing season for Princeton. Picked to finish first in the Ivy League preseason media poll, the Tigers struggled all year to find traction before limping into Ivy Madness as the fourth seed.
For reasons coach Mitch Henderson could not explain or solve, the Tigers had a penchant for falling behind by double digits in nearly every game they played. Lee frequently bailed his Tigers out of these disastrous starts, but in the end the junior’s transcendent skills were not enough to lift the Tigers to a fourth consecutive Ivy League title.
After Princeton’s frustrating season came to an early end, Orange and Black Nation braced itself for news of Lee’s future.
And then the bombshell news broke that Princeton would not retain two key assistant coaches, Brett MacConnell and Lawrence Rowley. MacConnell had recruited Lee, along with many other Princeton greats, during his 12 years on Henderson’s staff.
Were MacConnell and Rowley forced to take the fall for Princeton’s disappointing season, or was their sudden departure indicative of a deeper rift in the program? So far, little in the way of hard news has trickled out of the program.
On the heels of Lee’s departure from Princeton, other shoes are likely to drop at Jadwin Gymnasium. All eyes now will focus on whether Caden Pierce, the Ivy League Player of the Year in 2024, will return for his senior season.
Other players may leave as well, a phenomenon all too familiar to other Ivy programs. The Quakers lost Jordan Dingle, the 2023 Ivy Player of the Year, to the transfer portal at the end of the 2022-23 season, and then lost Tyler Perkins, the 2024 Ivy Rookie of the Year, to the portal at the end of the 2023-24 season. Yale also lost star center Danny Wolf to the transfer portal at the end of last season.
This year, two other Ivy stars have already announced their intention to enter the portal, including Penn sophomore guard Sam Brown and Cornell junior forward AK Okereke.
Ivy administrators in recent years have remained adamant that the Ancient Eight will not bow to pressures convulsing the world of intercollegiate sports. In January, the Ivy League announced it would opt out of any plan making direct payments to student athletes under the settlement of the House v. NCAA antitrust lawsuit and instead remain focused on “academic primacy.”
The Ivy League does allow its student-athletes to participate in Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) deals, but under stricter, more limited circumstances than any of the schools competing in the so-called power conferences.
The Ivy League also prohibits graduate students with NCAA eligibility from playing varsity sports, a position that has forced star Princeton players like Tosan Evbuomwan, Matt Allocco, Zach Martini, Keeshawn Kellman and Ryan Langborg to transfer to other schools in recent years to complete their collegiate basketball careers.
Lee’s likely departure thus represents another landmark in the continuing struggle of the Ivy League to retain top talent within the ranks of its men’s basketball programs.
It also marks a potential turning point for Mitch Henderson and Princeton men’s basketball.
Only two years removed from a historic run to the Sweet 16, the Tigers are at a crossroads, not only in terms of player recruitment and retention but in leadership and coaching.
At the end of his postgame press conference after losing to Yale at the Ivy League Tournament in March, Henderson admitted, “It wasn’t my best year.”
With the untimely departure of his most important assistant coach and now his best player, Henderson and his Tigers will face even bigger challenges.
Meanwhile, I have a suggestion that might help heal some of the wounds at Old Nassau. Why not bring back 2024 alum Matt “Mush” Allocco as an assistant coach, especially now that there are two openings on the coaching staff?
As a player, Mush was the glue that held the Tigers together during their recent Ivy title runs. His leadership skills and relatability with the players could go a long way toward helping Henderson maintain Princeton’s legacy as a jewel in the realm of college basketball.
What’s your take on the market for Xaivian Lee?
Since this article published, we’ve seen Lee select Florida, the reigning national champs, from a trio of powerhouse programs including Kansas and St. Johns.
Given his market, it now seems clear that a senior year at Princeton was never in the cards.
Player retention is not just an Ivy League issue either. Look at Baylor, the 2021 national champs, who just lost their entire roster to the transfer portal. Every single player.
College basketball has become such an uneven playing field, so fast. The status quo is not sustainable. But with each transfer to a high major (Danny Wolf and Xaivian Lee) not to mention each ascension to the pros (Harmoni Turner and Kaitlyn Chen), the national perception about Ivy League hoops is changing.
People are seeing the league’s success in recruiting and player development. That has to be part of the story too.