Would-be seniors Tijan Saine Jr. and Viljami Vartiainen both announced in recent days their intention to enter their names in the transfer portal.

Vartiainen grew into one of the nation’s best 3-pointer shooters this season, his third at Weber State. The 6-foot-6 guard from Finland finished at 42.2% from deep, 20th in the country, on a career-high clip of 6.9 attempts per game. He became a more reliable scoring threat this season, averaging 12.8 points per game.

His size and shooting prowess make it likely that Vartiainen commands quite a bit of attention in the transfer market.

Vartiainen finishes his WSU career with 178 3-pointers in 92 games, good for eighth all-time; he’s 1 of 3 in WSU’s top-10 3-point makers to have played fewer than 100 games.

Saine, who transferred to WSU from Division II Western Washington, led WSU in scoring this year at 17.5 points per game. The 5-foot-10 point guard led the Big Sky in scoring in league games, averaging 21.2 points per game in regular-season and conference tournament games.

Players cannot yet enter their names into the transfer portal unless they’re graduate transfers. The transfer portal window is April 7-21; players who enter their names in that timeframe can be eligible to play next season.

The latest defections currently give Weber State at least seven open roster spots for next season, though that likely changes after the hire of a new head coach; WSU announced it would move on from four-year coach Eric Duft on March 12. Jace Whiting, Edwin Suarez Jr. and Malek Gomma (a grad transfer) and Trevor Hennig have all announced that they’ll also transfer.

Weber State also has three signed freshmen who are waiting to see how things shake out with the coach search.

Utah preps Tiger Cuff and Hunter Hansen are serving missions; Hansen, of Fremont High, is due home this month, while Cuff, of American Fork and son of former WSU player Ryan Cuff, will return in about four months. The third is 6-foot-6 point guard Kaleb Jackson out of Texas.

After an 11-22 finish, the Weber State women’s basketball team currently has two players who have announced intent to transfer. Would-be senior Makenna Shaffer-Lauer (4.7 ppg, 3.2 rpg) and redshirt freshman guard Maya Davis (2.4 ppg) are set to leave the squad.

With two graduating seniors (Lanae Billy, Antoniette Emma-Nnopu), WSU has at least two open roster spots, including the commitments of incoming freshmen Izabella Juarez and Berkley Hart. WSU had three expected contributors (Dakota Nap, Vanna Quintana, Celestine Segretain) suffer ACL tears and miss the 2025-26 season.