KyKy Tandy announced he was transferring from Xavier today and UNLV has already reached out, according to Jake Lieberman.
Aside from the great name, Tandy was a top 100 recruit in the 2019 recruiting class. He played two years at Xavier averaging 6.7 points per game in his career.
It is usually not a good thing when the most noteworthy accolade for a player is a two year old recruiting ranking.
But Tandy is a good shooter, as he knocked down 35.5 percent of his career threes. He also shoots at a pretty high volume, averaging 3.5 attempts per game, while playing just 16.8 minutes per game. That works out to 9.1 threes per 40 minutes played; only David Jenkins attempted that many for UNLV this season.
Tandy was not a playmaker for Xavier. He never took more than 21 percent of his shots at the rim in a season and ranked fourth on the team in assist rate. But he was a role player coming off the bench and wasn’t seemingly asked to be a creator.
UNLV obviously needs help across the roster, but taking an interest in an off ball guard like Tandy could be sign of the future for the Rebels roster.
Bryce Hamilton and David Jenkins are both non-point guard options in the back court. If both stay at UNLV, Tandy’s path to playing time might be blocked. But if one or both leave, all of sudden UNLV has a significant need for wing scoring.
As of now UNLV will be competing with Auburn, Murray State and Missouri State to land Tandy.
But here is to hoping UNLV lands a played with a name as fun as KyKy Tandy. And maybe they can pair him with TyTy Washington, the recent Creighton decommit.