Transfer big man Luke McEldon commits to Northwestern from Mount St. Mary's
Northwestern added its second player out of the transfer portal on Wednesday when 6-foot-10 forward Luke McEldon from Mount St. Mary’s committed to the program.
McEldon started 29 games last season, averaging 11.7 points and 6.2 rebounds per game. He spent the previous two seasons at Santa Clara, where he played just 14 games before transferring the first time.
He had a couple of strong non-conference showings for Mount St. Mary’s, putting up 19 points and eight rebounds in a loss to Ohio State, and 21 points and eight rebounds in a loss to Bucknell.
The 6-foot-10, 255-pound McEldon provides valuable size for a Northwestern team that saw all three scholarship players at or above 6-foot-9 transfer out of the program. The Wildcats will be bringing in 7-foot-2 freshman center Symon Ghai next season to bolster the frontcourt.
McEldon is a high-percentage scorer, and his 64.5% field-goal shooting rate led the MAAC last season, but his range is limited. He’s taken just four 3s in his college career and missed all of them; plus, he is a career 43.2% free throw shooter.
The Wildcats have made do with bigs with eye-watering free throw rates before like Tydus Verhoeven and Matt Nicholson, but getting McEldon up to a passable rate will be key for him to make the leap to the Big Ten.
McEldon is Northwestern’s second commit out of the transfer portal in this cycle, joining forward Jack Karasinski from Bellarmine. This brings Northwestern’s 2026-27 projected roster up to seven players, with eight roster spots still open. The Wildcats lost nine players to the transfer portal since the end of the season.
