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The clock may soon be striking midnight on Cinderella.
Saint Peter’s, the darling of the NCAA Tournament, is losing three of its stars to the transfer portal — Doug Edert, Daryl Banks and Matthew Lee.
The news was first reported by Matt Zenitz of the college sports outlet on3.com.
This player exodus comes less than a week after head coach Shaheen Holloway announced he was leaving the program for his alma mater, Seton Hall.
Lee and Banks were starters on the Peacocks.
Banks led Saint Peter’s in scoring this past season, with 11.3 points per game. In the team’s thrilling overtime upset over Kentucky in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, Banks drained five 3-pointers and scored 27 points.
Edert came off the bench, but as a sharpshooter with a marketable mustache became an NIL darling, inking a deal with Buffalo Wild Wings and partnering with Barstool Sports on merch as the tournament marched on.
With eased restrictions on transferring combined with NIL opportunities, college sports free agency is seeing substantially more player empowerment — and thus movement — than in the past. The Saint Peter’s players’ surprising run as the first No. 15 seed to reach an Elite Eight will make them marketable for larger national programs to possibly poach them away.
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