Devin Royal transferring from Ohio State: 3 quick thoughts on departure
The first offseason domino has fallen for the Ohio State men’s basketball team.
When the transfer portal officially opens April 7, Devin Royal’s name will be entered after three seasons with the Buckeyes .
On March 29, a little more than a week after he had 14 points and five rebounds in a 66-64 loss to TCU in the first round of the NCAA Tournament, The Dispatch confirmed Royal’s intention to enter the portal and play his final season of college basketball somewhere else.
In three years at Ohio State , Royal averaged 10.6 points, 4.9 rebounds and one assist while playing in 96 games, including 59 starts. A reserve player as a freshman, Royal’s role steadily grew in each subsequent season.
He was the first player from 2025-26 to make his intentions known. Freshman forward Amare Bynum later announced his plans to return to Ohio State for another season.
Here are three quick thoughts on Royal’s decision to leave Ohio State:
For Devin Royal, the move to small forward was a mixed success
In an effort to make the lineup bigger and grow Royal’s overall game, the Buckeyes moved him from power to small forward for the 2025-26 season. Doing so allowed him to start alongside either Brandon Noel or Bynum, both of whom are listed at 6 feet 8, 240 pounds, with 7-foot, 240-pound center Christoph Tilly down low. It was also hoped that having Royal on the wing would help compensate for a prolific backcourt that nevertheless wasn’t the biggest with Bruce Thornton (6-2, 215 pounds) and John Mobley Jr. (6-2, 185 pounds).
Royal improved his 3-point shooting percentage as a junior, going 31 for 98 (31.6%). All of those numbers were career highs. Royal was 3 for 20 (15.0%) as a freshman and 16 for 58 (27.6%) as a sophomore, but in the process, Royal’s two-point shooting percentage dropped to a career low.
After going 131 for 222 (59.0%) from two as a sophomore, Royal was 120 for 219 (54.8%) as a junior. His free-throw rate, which KenPom.com computes as a player’s ability to get to the line, dropped to a career-low 41.3 after finishing at 53.2 as a sophomore.
His rebounding, too, dipped. Royal again led the team in rebounding average, but his average dipped from 6.9 as a sophomore to 5.7 as a junior. He also drew a career-low 4.3 fouls per 40 minutes after leading the team at 5.2 in 2024-25.
In summary: He averaged the same number of points (13.7) as he did a season earlier while his minutes per game rose and overall efficiency and rebounding all dipped.
Devin Royal was likely facing a crunch for minutes next year
Although he became the 62nd player in program history to reach 1,000 career points, Royal was facing a battle for playing time as a senior.
After moving into the starting lineup during the first half of the year, Bynum emerged as an impact player by season’s end. In Ohio State’s final 15 games, Bynum averaged 10.9 points and 5.1 rebounds. Royal, who ruled himself out of a loss at Michigan State in the final minutes before the opening tip, otherwise played in 14 of those final 15 games and averaged 12.6 points and 5.5 rebounds.
Had Bynum, who was also dealing with illness leading into that game, not played against the Spartans, he would have averaged 11.7 points and 5.5 rebounds during that stretch. Bynum also finished with a slightly higher offensive rating at KenPom.com than Royal (114.5 to 114.4), a better defensive rebounding percentage (15.8 to 14.9) and a higher two-point shooting percentage (61.6% to 54.8%).
Bynum’s ascension made a full-time move back to power forward unlikely for Royal. Plus, the Buckeyes have signed five-star forward Anthony Thompson, the first McDonald’s All-American signed out of high school by Ohio State since D’Angelo Russell in 2014.
A 6-8, 205-pound forward, Thompson will assume a significant role in the rotation next year. Between Bynum, Royal and Thompson, someone would have been on the outside looking in for major minutes.
There’s an emotional component to this
One year ago, retaining Royal alongside Thornton and Mobley was viewed as a roster priority for the Buckeyes entering the 2025-26 season. In keeping Royal, the Buckeyes hung onto Ohio’s 2023 Mr. Basketball , a central Ohio product who starred at Pickerington Central and helped lead the Tigers to a state title as a junior and state runner-up as a senior. In signing with Ohio State, Royal was allowed to take Evan Turner's honored No. 21 jersey from the rafters and wear it.
In an era of consistent roster turnover, Royal had a shot to join Thornton in the rare company of players to spend their entire collegiate career at one school. Unlike Thornton, though, Royal is a local product who grew up on the outskirts of Columbus. In each of the last two summers, Royal has held back-to-school backpack giveaways at Pickerington elementary schools. During the season, he gifted new jerseys to his alma mater.
He leaves Ohio State with 1,018 points, good for No. 58 in program history. He leaves behind the chance to be the first four-year scholarship Buckeye from Central Ohio since Andre Wesson (2016-20).
Ohio State men's basketball beat writer Adam Jardy can be reached at ajardy@dispatch.com, on Bluesky at @ cdadamjardy.bsky.social or on Twitter at @ AdamJardy .
This story was updated with new information.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: As Devin Royal transfers from Ohio State, 3 quick thoughts on the move
