Audio By Carbonatix
Women’s college basketball star Khamil Pierre is not going to leave Vanderbilt and enter the transfer portal. Despite what was reported on Tuesday morning, the rising junior will continue her career on West End.
The sequence of events surrounding her initial intent to leave creates a lot of confusion about what exactly went down in Nashville.
Pierre, a four-star prospect in the women’s college basketball recruiting Class of 2023, was considered one of the top-100 recruits overall. She chose to play at Vanderbilt over 29 other offers. It was a huge get for Shea Ralph in her second year as head coach and it paid off in a big way.
The Commodores reached the NCAA Tournament as a No. 7 seed this season. They won 22 games during the regular season behind 23.3 points per game from freshman point guard Mikayla Blakes and 20.4 points per game from Pierre on 49.8% shooting. The latter also averaged a team-high 9.6 boards. She also recorded 17 double-doubles as a sophomore, which ranked 13th in all of Division I.
Needless to say, Vanderbilt does not have as much success as it did without Khamil Pierre.
What more can we say? 🤷♀️@KhamilPierre has skills.#AnchorDown pic.twitter.com/IxfMrKPbSj
— Vanderbilt WBB (@VandyWBB) January 14, 2025
Thus, it was extremely disappointing to hear that she planned to enter the transfer portal. The news was first reported by Edwin Arocho around 9:00 a.m. CST on Tuesday morning.
Approximately 10 hours later, it was reported by Alaina Morris of Vandy247 that Khamil Pierre plans to return to the program for the 2025-26 season. She is not going anywhere.
Arocho immediately retracted his initial report.
Earlier today, I posted that Khamil Pierre was intending on entering the transfer portal, due to information from a collection of (credible) sources. I pride myself on accuracy & was happy that either a) she changed her mind or b) my sources were not spot-on this time, because I think what she’s doing at Vandy is incredible & would love to see her continue building a legacy there. Credibility and accuracy mean everything to me. Moving forward, I will be double, triple & quadruple checking before I post, knowing how much of a reach my platform has. I’ve never gotten one wrong before, so if this I my first, I’ll take that on the chin. I appreciate every single one of you! My account has ALWAYS been a place to find credible & accurate information and it will continue being that way, forever and always. Thank you all 😊
That post has since been deleted as this is not a place to spread misinformation or create chaos & confusion (there’s already enough of that 😅). It’s never about “being the first to report.” It’s not abo it engagement & “doing numbers” or “getting clicks.” All things WBB is what I do & I do it very well. There’s no place for misinformation on here, especially when it pertains to a student-athlete who already has enough going on. My sources were incorrect, but I take responsibility because while they will remain anon, I posted it on MY platform. So I take ownership. Thanks again guys & let’s keep rockin’!
I have reached out to Khamil personally.
— Edwin Arocho
Ole Miss head coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin was not happy with the entire situation.
Sad this was even news. Shame on whomever posted it! Don’t care if you’re right, just wanna be first 😡
— @YolettMcCuin / X
So what happened? Good question.
Maybe Pierre told someone in her camp that she was considering the transfer portal because she had a more lucrative offer to play elsewhere from a team that tried to poach her. Maybe that person leaked the information to Arocho. It doesn’t seem as though that was the case.
Pierre had not yet met with the staff at Vanderbilt at the time Arocho posted his initial, since-deleted report. The 6-foot-2 forward had not made a decision. The process was still in the very early stages.
I am not going to say that Arocho was flat-out wrong because I do not know who told him what. There is a chance, though slim, that a credible source told him Khamil Pierre was going to transfer. He supposedly reported what he heard from a credible source. I will give him the benefit of the doubt.
However, if this credible source does in fact exist, the credible source jumped the gun. Arocho blew it and made things very awkward in the world of women’s college hoops.