Michigan center Malick Kordel enters NCAA transfer portal

Michigan Wolverines basketball reserve center Malick Kordel has entered the NCAA transfer portal. Kordel is the second U-M player to enter the portal since the team won the national championship Monday night, joining guard/forward Winters Grady.

The 7-foot-2, 275-pounder just finished his freshman season at Michigan and has three years of eligibility remaining.

The Oberhausen, Germany, native appeared in 14 games as a reserve, playing in garbage time. He averaged 1.2 points and 1.5 rebounds per contest. Kordel shot 8-of-14 from the field, including 0-of-1 from three-point range, and 1-of-5 at the free throw line.

A work in progress, Kordel was never in serious consideration for significant playing time as a freshman at Michigan. Even when the bigs in the rotation were in foul trouble, the Wolverines decided to go small instead of inserting Kordel into the game.

Kordel is still new to basketball, taking up the sport in 2020. Previously, he starred as a handball player.

“I went out and shot some hoops when COVID hit,” Kordel said on the ‘Defend The Block’ podcast with host Brian Boesch. “Handball is an indoor sport like basketball, but there aren’t a lot of courts. So, I had to find something where I could move a little bit. I got a little chubby over COVID, so I had to find something. I was at over 300 pounds.

“Everybody was telling me when I was playing outside that I have potential. Even though I started at 17, 18, I still have the potential to get to a higher league and to make it to the professionals.

“I liked the competition. It was way bigger competition than in handball. That’s what I always wanted, but in my region there weren’t really big handball clubs that I could join and have bigger competitions, so that was perfect for me.”

In 22 games with the Fraport Skyliners Juniors in ProB (third division) in Germany, Kordel averaged 11.7 points, 8.2 rebounds and 1.7 blocks per game, while shooting 71.7 percent from the field last season. That was his breakout season, putting him on the map and making college basketball a reality for him.

Kordel picked Michigan over Iowa, Xavier, Villanova and Butler last offseason.