Nikita Konstantynovskyi, 6-10 Transfer Portal Center, Visits Chris Beard and Ole Miss Tuesday

OXFORD, Miss. — Ole Miss men’s basketball hosted high-impact transfer Nikita Konstantynovskyi, a rising senior center from Monmouth, Tuesday. 

With the men’s basketball transfer portal closing a little over a week ago on May 1st, Chris Beard’s second transfer portal with the Rebels appears to be a huge success. With the additions of Dre Davis, Davon Barnes, Sean Pedulla, Mikeal Brown-Jones, and Malik Dia, the Rebels are squarely in contention for a preseason Top 25 spot in next season’s polls. These preseason hype projections do not even include star guard, Matthew Murrell, who has not yet decided if he will be back on campus or play professionally. 

So in addition to already having a great offseason, Coach Beard is now hosting Konstantynovskyi, a 6-foot-10, 235-pound center from Kiev, Ukraine.

🇺🇦 Nikita Konstantynovskyi just entered the portal as a grad transfer

The 6-ft-10 big man avg’d 9.3 PPG & 8.1 RPG in 23.5 MPG for Monmouth with high-level rebounding numbers (51st OR% and 45th DR% in all of D1)

🎞️ His 22 & 20 double double vs Stony Brookpic.twitter.com/ZNTeH2kSJm https://t.co/X4YMWrCNUk

— CBB Europe (@CBB_Europe) April 17, 2024

This is Konstantynovskyi’s second time in the transfer portal in the past two seasons. He began his career playing JUCO for Northeastern Oklahoma A&M College after attending school in Ukraine. After finishing his JUCO seasons, he made the jump locally to the University of Tulsa. With the Golden Hurricanes, Nikita played limited minutes in his two seasons. Because of his lack of playing time, Konstantynovskyi decided to transfer to Monmouth University in the CAA.

This past season with Monmouth, Konstantynovskyi had his best year since junior college where he was the Hawks’ third-leading scorer and top rebounder. Nikita averaged 9.3 PTS, 8.1 REBS, and 0.6 BPG in his first and only season with the Hawks. 

The junior center is a good scorer who likes to play with his back to the basket, and he excels at scoring inside the paint. He scored 83% of all his baskets this past season inside the paint on 56% shooting. His enormous amount of baskets in the paint put him in the 94th percentile among all players in college basketball. He is also a very efficient scorer underneath the hoops and specifically excels at scoring off second-chance points. Konstantynovskyi averages around three second-chance points per game which is good enough to be in the 95th percentile among all players. 

The Monmouth transfer is also pretty athletic for his 6-foot-10 stature. He is very good at getting open on off-ball cuts and back-door cuts specifically. Konstantynovskyi has shown he has soft hands and is very good at catching quick passes from guards as he is found open around the rim. 

While Nikita is a good scorer, his best asset is his rebounding ability. Rebounding is something Ole Miss struggled with this past season; however, Konstantynovskyi’s bread and butter is rebounding the basketball. With Monmouth, Konstantynovskyi logged six double-doubles, including a 22 and 20 game, and finished in the top 90th percentile in offensive and defensive boards. He averaged around three offensive boards per game at a 13.3% clip last season and totaled 5.2 defensive boards per game. His defensive rebounding percentage of 25.1% is up there with some of the best players in the country like Zach Edey and Johni Broome. 

If Coach Beard is able to land Konstantynovskyi after his visit today to Oxford, Ole Miss would be adding much-needed depth to its center position. As it currently stands, Malik Dia, Brown-Jones, or John Bol would slide into the center spot next season with the departures of Moussa Cisse and Jamarion Sharp. Dia and Brown-Jones are both 4s and have the ability to slide into the 5-spot when Ole Miss wants to go small; however, the main center responsibility would fall on McDonald’s All-American John Bol. With the potential addition of Konstantynovskyi, the Rebels would add a much-needed veteran presence underneath the basketball, and give Bol time to develop as he will be a raw prospect coming into camp next fall.

Outside of Ole Miss, Konstantynovskyi has been contacted by Indiana, Xavier, Stanford, Arizona St, San Francisco, Temple, and many other mid-majors from across the country. Today was not Konstantynovskyi’s first introduction to Ole Miss as he had a zoom meeting with Coach Beard back in late April. The Rebels have a very good track record of getting the guys that come to Oxford to commit relatively quickly, so stay tuned for hopefully a potential commitment article on the horizon!

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