Memphis basketball’s roster next season will feature one less familiar face.

Tigers forward Damarien “Dink” Yates — who was named Tennessee Class 3A Mr. Basketball in 2023 while at Fayette-Ware High — entered the NCAA transfer portal on Monday, he confirmed on X on Tuesday, a day after multiple outlets reported the news.

Yates, a 6-foot-5 forward, averaged 1.2 points and 0.8 rebounds in 3.6 minutes per game this past season as the Tigers finished 29-6 overall, won AAC regular-season and AAC Tournament titles and earned a No. 5 seed in the NCAA Tournament.

“First and foremost, I want to thank The University of Memphis, Coach Penny Hardaway, my teammates, and the entire Tiger Nation for their unwavering support through my time here,” Yates wrote in the post to X. “Wearing that Memphis jersey has been an incredible experience, and I will always be grateful for the love and memories made. After much thought and consideration, I have decided to enter the transfer portal to explore new opportunities for the next chapter of my basketball career.”

Tigers guard Baraka Okojie enters transfer portal

Yates transferred to Memphis last July after spending a season at National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) Vincennes University in Indiana. He was awarded a scholarship during the season after initially joining the program as a walk-on.

Though Yates wasn’t projected to play meaningful minutes for a Tigers team loaded with veterans, the Somerville native logged six-plus minutes in three games — wins against Rice and Florida Atlantic and a loss to Arkansas State.

In Memphis’ 84-72 home win over Rice on Feb. 26, Yates finished with a season-high six points, two rebounds and a steal.

Yates is the fourth member of Memphis’ 2024-25 team to enter the transfer portal, after guards Jared Harris, Baraka Okojie and PJ Carter did so last week.

Even prior to these departures, though, coach Penny Hardaway had a sizable roster rebuild on his hands.

Memphis guard Jared Harris enters transfer portal

Tyrese Hunter, Colby Rogers, Nicholas Jourdain and Moussa Cisse all exhausted their collegiate eligibility, while Dain Dainja’s eligibility status is still unclear.

Dainja, an All-AAC first-team center, is in the process of submitting a waiver to the NCAA in an attempt to be granted an additional season of eligibility, a source with knowledge of the situation recently told The Daily Memphian. Dainja redshirted as a true freshman at Baylor in 2020-21 while ineligible for competition and suffered a foot injury during a team practice, and he only played three games in 2021-22 before transferring to Illinois midseason and sitting out the remainder of that season.

Though the 2020-21 season was the one in which the NCAA approved a waiver that provided every eligible player on a Division I roster with an additional season due to the campaign being impacted by COVID-19, Dainja — ineligible for competition back then — did not qualify for this. His ineligibility also disqualified him from receiving a medical redshirt for his foot injury.

Meanwhile, PJ Haggerty, Dante Harris and Bouna Kebe all have eligibility remaining and can return to the Tigers but have not yet publicly announced their decisions.

Memphis currently has commitments in the 2025 class from Overtime Elite guard Daniel Vieira-Tuck and Eastern Florida State College (junior college) guard Felipe Patino.

Even if Haggerty, Dainja, Kebe and Dante Harris all returned to join newcomers Vieira-Tuck and Patino, the Tigers would still be left with seven of their 13 total scholarships remaining.