Jasper Floyd, a 2021 Wharton High graduate, has used the transfer portal as well as anyone in college basketball, thriving and improving at every stop along an improbable journey.
That journey, Floyd hopes, culminates this fall in a professional basketball career, either in the NBA or overseas. But the long and winding road of the past five years has him prepared for whatever life has in store.
His college career reached its zenith April 5 in Las Vegas, when Floyd helped spark a furious overtime comeback as West Virginia defeated Oklahoma 89-82 to win the second annual College Basketball Crown. The tournament is a five-day event in which eight teams that didn’t qualify for the NCAA tournament compete for NIL prize money.
With his team trailing 82-76 in overtime, Floyd drilled a 3-pointer from the corner to trigger a 13-0 Mountaineer run to end the game. Another deep 3 from Floyd put WVU in front for good. Always known as a tenacious defender capable of shutting down any high-scoring backcourt opponent, Floyd showed off his offensive skills with a pair of big jumpers that delivered his greatest college moment.
A bad break
Floyd’s path to Morgantown began with a multi-talented athlete who earned national recognition for his fast times in middle school and as a Junior Olympian running the half-mile. He also excelled as a two-way player in football in rec league Pop Warner play for the New Tampa Wildcats.
“I wouldn’t say basketball was an afterthought at that point, but I told him, ‘Please don’t do it for me,’ because I coached basketball,” said Floyd’s father, Darwin, a veteran basketball coach and scout. “But playing those other sports gave him a baseline of how hard he needed to work to get better at whatever sport he played.”
Darwin Floyd was coaching some of the top basketball talent in the country at the Taag Academy in Wesley Chapel and at the AAU level, but Jasper was determined to make it on his own.
“He told me, ‘I don’t want it because of you. Don’t give me any favors. If you can give me a workout, fine. If you get me a tryout, fine. But don’t make somebody take me just because I’m your son.’ That’s a great disposition.”
By the time Floyd arrived at Wharton, he wanted to specialize in basketball. But as competitive as he was — and still is — he was so talented in football that he was promoted to the varsity during his freshman season.
Then came a hiccup just before basketball season: Floyd broke his hand in the last week of the football season and missed the entire hoops schedule.
Longtime Wharton basketball coach Tommy Tonelli knew Floyd from his summer camps. But the impression Floyd made while sidelined told Tonelli he had a special talent entering his program.
“I could tell then he was a great kid because he never missed a day of practice,” said Tonelli, who retired after the 2022 season following 23 years as the Wildcats’ coach. “Even with his hand in a cast he was helping with the drills and doing what he could to help the team get better. During games he was sitting with the coaches, helping with the towels and water. That’s the type of kid he was.”
Floyd, who attended Hunter’s Green Elementary and Benito Middle School, started his sophomore year on the junior varsity until Tonelli promoted him to varsity midway through the season. Floyd wasn’t satisfied with his limited playing time.
“Jasper would cry after the games because he wasn’t playing much,” Darwin Floyd said. “So I said, ‘How many minutes do you think you should be playing each game?’ He says at least 16 or 18 minutes, more than half the game.
“So if he only played four minutes that game, that night right after the game we would go to the court at Hunter’s Green, in the dark, and I would put the clock on, whether it was raining or not, and I told him you owed me those other 14 minutes you wanted to play. And he would shoot in the dark, do his ball handling in the dark, go over game scenarios.
“So I forced him to put his fears to work. And he also had the benefit of working out with my older guys that I coached from all over the world, student-athletes who were being recruited by colleges, and that accelerated his development.”
Floyd laughed heartily when reminded of his father’s tough basketball love.
“He’s done so many different crazy things with me,” Floyd said, still laughing. “I started to forget some of the challenges he’s put on me. I’m just blessed to have the people around me who want to see me succeed. From the moment I said I wanted to play basketball at the highest level, all they’ve done is pour into me and help me try to become who I want to become. Sometimes that’s what it takes.”
Floyd never looked back, starting as a junior defensive specialist who contributed about seven points a game.
“Every year he got better in all phases, even since he’s been in college,” Tonelli said. “He could score, he could defend. He was very good at making the right pass, making the right play, stealing the ball. Whatever was needed to help us win that night.”
That was never more apparent than in Floyd’s senior season, when he captained a team that finished 28-3, losing by two points in the regional final — one victory shy of the state final four. Floyd averaged 10 points, five rebounds and five assists.
However, high school defensive specialists rarely garner looks from college recruiters. Needing to also improve his grades, Floyd played for his father at the Taag Academy in Wesley Chapel.
“I didn’t give him any special treatment,” Darwin Floyd said. “And he saw guys graduating from Taag playing in D-I, so he saw Taag wasn’t a bad path.”
Transfer portal shuffle
When the COVID-19 pandemic shut down college sports in March 2020, Floyd was left to figure out his next move while continuing to work on his game.
“That was the beginning of the transfer portal in college sports,” Darwin Floyd said. “One of my close friends, Greg Heiar, leaves East Tennessee State and gets the head coaching job at Northwest Florida State College in Niceville. I text him and tell him I have a player for you.”
Floyd had offers from other junior colleges in Georgia and California, but his father had the proper words of wisdom.
“I told him he could go to those other schools and have personal success,” Darwin Floyd said. “But this was a championship-level coach who would give him a better trajectory of being a college player and a pro.”
Jasper Floyd told Heiar he would come to the school only if he would be judged on his playing ability and not Heiar’s friendship with his father. By the third day of summer practices, Heiar offered Floyd a full scholarship.
Floyd’s defensive tenacity and hustle earned him valuable playing time as Northwest Florida State won the NJCAA Division I national championship with a 31-5 record.
Floyd averaged about four points a game, but numbers never defined his true court value. So when Heiar moved to New Mexico State after winning the junior college championship, he offered Floyd a scholarship. But Floyd, who by now was a solid 6-foot-3, 190-pound man who knew his ability and worth, felt Heiar would still view him as a defensive specialist. He felt he was better than that.
Some were surprised when Floyd returned home to play at Hillsborough College. Hawks coach Dominique Coleman was known as a scorer during his playing career, and he helped Floyd develop his all-around game. Floyd averaged 15 points, seven rebounds and five assists, including a season-high 35 points at State College of Florida, Manatee-Sarasota.
“That allowed Jasper to show more of his talent,” Darwin Floyd said. “Now he’s getting decent looks. The kid knows he’s going to be able to play at the Division I level.”
Several schools showed interest, but Floyd wanted to play at a school with a chance to win. That was Fairfield University in Connecticut.
During the 2023-24 season, Floyd made 35 starts while averaging 9.5 points, 5.9 rebounds, 4.1 assists and 2.3 steals per game. He set Fairfield’s single-season steals record with 87 and helped the Stags advance to the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference title game and their highest win total (24) in 13 years. A victory there would have earned a NCAA tournament berth.
“I was definitely more of the defensive guy there,” Floyd said. “We had three all-conference players with me, so we were elite at the guard position. They were really good shooters, really good scorers, and I didn’t feel like I needed to do all that much scoring as I was able to facilitate to them. But you always need that table-setter to even it all out.”
Floyd transferred to North Texas for the 2024-25 season. His game continued to evolve. He started all 36 games, averaging nine points, four assists and three rebounds. His 141 assists and 48 steals led the Mean Green.
“He had a great season at North Texas,” Tonelli said. “They played here against USF, and he scored 18 points and hit what turned out to be the game-winning shot.”
Highlights included a season-high 23 points against Evansville and a season-high seven assists in a National Invitation Tournament win against Furman. Floyd made the winning jump shot against Arkansas State in the second round of the NIT and averaged 15.7 points per game in the tournament.
By then, word had gotten around about Floyd’s strong defensive play and can-do attitude, and major programs such as Florida State, Minnesota, Vanderbilt and Oklahoma State expressed interest. But loyalty and honesty meant as much to Floyd as winning, and he followed his coach at North Texas, Ross Hodge, who accepted the head coaching position at West Virginia in March 2025.
“I felt like it was the best opportunity for me,” Floyd said. “There was a comfort factor. I knew what he was about. And I think the Big 12 is the best conference in the country, so that was always a dream of mine.
“Also, a lot of these programs, they don’t tell the truth to the kids. I knew I could be transparent with them and they would be transparent with me and that was the right decision.”
Hodge made it clear he wanted Floyd at West Virginia.
“Jasper has been a winner at every level of competition,” Hodge said when Floyd officially committed to the Mountaineers last April. “He has incredible intangibles and is a great leader. He makes others around him better on and off the floor.”
Floyd immediately lived up to the billing, scoring 25 points with four assists and five steals in the Mountaineers’ season-opening 70-54 victory against Mount St. Mary’s to give Hodge his first victory at WVU last November.
“Jasper has a unique ability to understand what his team needs in each moment,” Hodge told the Dominion Post in Morgantown. “His calming presence, especially early in the game when we were kind of having a hard time finding baskets, he senses that. He can do that or he can go into facilitate mode. His even-keeled nature allows him to come up big in big moments.”
That continued throughout the season, with Floyd averaging seven points, 3.8 rebounds and 3.2 assists while shooting 47% from the field.
And then came those two big 3-pointers helping the Mountaineers win the College Basketball Crown as the clock ticked down in overtime.
Pressure? Not to Floyd.
“There probably is a little bit of pressure. But I’ve been so blessed that I don’t regard that as pressure,” said Floyd, whose favorite NBA player was Kobe Bryant. “I’m just doing whatever I can to help my team win. If it means taking the big shot when needed I’ll do it.”
He said his defense-first mentality stemmed from his days as a cornerback in football.
“My thinking was if the other person can’t score on me there’s no way I can lose the game,” Floyd said. “I know that’s not something everybody wants to do. But most people don’t want to do that.”
Taking the Long Route
With his college athletic career over, Floyd will graduate from West Virginia with a master’s degree in sport management in May. As he awaits his next basketball move, those close to him know he has the mindset and skills to play professionally, even if his offensive numbers don’t jump off the stat sheet.
“Jasper doesn’t mind taking the long route,” Darwin Floyd said. “He’s not going to get drafted, so he’ll work his way toward a couple of draft camps and a couple of NBA workouts. He will have to go to the G League and show he has the ability and consistently be able to perform at the level that’s required. That’s the story of his life anyway.”
Should no NBA opportunities arise, Floyd said he has two offers to continue his career overseas.
“Jasper’s not doing this for money,” his father said. “He’s doing this so the next Jasper who is 5, 6, 7, 8 years old can look at him and realize, you too can do this. None of the fanfare or stardom matters to him. Kids love him. He’s committed to people.”
Tonelli knew that from the beginning.
“Jasper is all about the team and all about winning,” Tonelli said. “He’s one of the most coachable, unselfish, hard-working, team-oriented guys I’ve ever coached. He has a great basketball IQ. His dad did a great job working with him when he was young.
“If you had a team full of Jasper Floyds you’d be a lucky man.”