Portal Pulse: Jonathan Beagle

The Spiders have officially made traction in the college basketball transfer portal. 

The University of Richmond men’s basketball team recently added Jonathan Beagle to its roster. Beagle, who just finished his sophomore season at the University at Albany, announced his commitment to UR on April 7.  

“I’m super happy to get to work with Coach Mooney obviously,” Beagle said. “Develop my game with the guys. Going on campus and seeing how everyone connected on campus with each other off the court, seeing how the staff and the players connected and even the players connected, that was honestly a big part of my decision.”

Beagle added that UR felt like home with how players are treated off the court. 

“And it looks like everyone gets along really, really well, so it looks like a good, healthy environment to be a part of,” he said. 

In Beagle’s first year with the Great Danes, the forward and former America East Conference Rookie of the Year averaged 12.4 points and 7.5 rebounds per game. This past season, he played in 22 of Albany’s 32 games and averaged 12.5 points with 9.5 rebounds per game. According to The Albany Student Press, Beagle missed the final 10 games due to personal reasons. 

When Beagle entered the transfer portal, he said there were some other schools in the Atlantic 10 Conference that were in the mix, but UR felt like home and checked all the boxes. 

“We’re thrilled that [Beagle] signed,” UR Head Coach Chris Mooney said. “We recruited him pretty hard and watched him. He was in the transfer portal last year for a brief time and decided to go back to Albany, so we were able to make a connection then. And then this year, we were able to kind of continue.”

Mooney added that Beagle has had an outstanding start to his collegiate career.  

“He’s a good scorer, and from different ranges,” Mooney said. “He hasn’t necessarily taken too many threes, but from 17 feet and then in the post, he’s a pretty good scorer. And then he’s a good passer. He knows how to play. In terms of how we play, I think that he fits really well, that he can dribble, pass and shoot. He’s fluid, he can move, and I think he has a chance to really complement our team.”

A shining game for Beagle this season came against Long Island University on Dec. 28. In the contest, he scored a season-high 21 points to go along with 12 rebounds and 6 assists. 

“I think the past two seasons at Albany have just been good at preparing me for coming to play at Richmond,” Beagle said. “Obviously, it’s a higher level, so playing at Albany obviously gave me a good opportunity to play as a freshman and sophomore and learn a lot and play through my mistakes.” 

Beagle is 6-foot-10 and will add some needed height to the Spiders’ lineup this upcoming season. With 7-foot graduate center Neal Quinn and 6-foot-7 graduate forward Zae Bigelow graduating, UR will need all the depth it can get when it comes to the forward and center positions in the transfer portal. 

The Spiders currently have sophomore center Mike Walz, who is 6-foot-11, and first-year forward Ryan Soulis, who is 6-foot-10. Mooney said he thinks he’ll be able to play Walz, Soulis and now Beagle all together this upcoming season, due to their moving, running and ball handling capabilities. 

“Obviously, replacing [Quinn] is gonna take a number of different guys, and I think that this particular group of three will be able to really both play together,” Mooney said. “Both can individually play center, individually can play power forward.”

In recent years, UR has hosted some pretty successful big men on its roster. In addition to Quinn, who averaged 9.5 and 12.5 points per game in his two years at UR, the Spiders had 6-foot-10 forward Grant Golden on their roster from 2016 to 2022 and 6-foot-9 forward/center T.J. Cline from 2014 to 2017. 

Golden averaged 14 points per game across his six seasons at UR and helped lead the Spiders to an Atlantic 10 Championship in 2022 and with that, the program’s first NCAA Tournament bid since 2011. Cline averaged 16.1 points per game in his three seasons as a Spider and won the A-10 Player of the Year award in 2017. 

“I came from Albany, [Quinn] came from Lafayette, T.J. Cline went from Niagara to Richmond, so those are just a couple guys that I’ll just look at their career and see what they did,” Beagle said. “Because it was kind of the same situation for me and they were very successful. So, I don’t know if I want to be like anyone or try to be like anyone. I think that I’ll just try to take little bits and pieces ‘cause they’ve had such successful careers.”  

UR is coming off a season in which the Spiders were the A-10 co-regular season champions, tied with Loyola University Chicago with a 15-3 conference record. 

Unfortunately for the Spiders, their regular season success did not translate to the A-10 Tournament at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, NY. Even with the one-seed heading into postseason play, UR lost in the quarterfinals round to Saint Joseph’s University and was sent home early. 

The Spiders did make the NIT but lost in the first round against Virginia Tech. 

Now, with key players like Quinn, Bigelow and graduate guard Jordan King all graduating, and senior guard Dji Bailey having put his name in the transfer portal, the Spiders may be without four of last year’s starters heading into this upcoming season. 

This is where new transfer additions like Beagle will come into play, as the Spiders will look to continue to add roster pieces for the 2024-2025 season to fill the gap the program is currently faced with. 

“I can’t wait to get on campus just to work with the guys and create a relationship and build up on what we got,” Beagle said. 

Contact sports editor Jimmy James at jimmy.james@richmond.edu.