Kale Abrahamson transferring from Northwestern

A little bit of surprising news from Northwestern basketball three days after the end of the 2013-14 season: Kale Abrahamson, the sophomore guard/forward, will be transferring from the program.

When I say "surprising," I just mean "I wasn't expecting to hear this today." The first year of the Chris Collins era has already seen several players with questionable futures pick up their bags and leave -- Michael Turner, Chier Ajou -- and Abrahamson's role wasn't clear going forward.

Abrahamson started 28 games at Northwestern, but mainly due to the injuries that piled up in both his freshman and sophomore seasons. With the influx of Vic Law/Gavin Skelly at the forward spots, talented players were headed for Abrahamson's minutes.

The scrawny 6'7 kid from West Des Moines was exactly the type of player we expected Bill Carmody to recruit -- crazy thin, but a jumper that made him a fit in the Princeton Offense -- so when he picked NU over Stanford, Boston College, Creighton, Iowa, Iowa State, Wake Forest, and Northern Iowa, it seemed like a great fit.

But two things happened: his jumper wasn't all it was cracked up to be, as he shot an above-average-but-not-by-much 34.6 percent as a freshman and 35.1 percent as a sophomore. He averaged 3.8 points per game despite starting over half of Northwestern's games this year. And with Chris Collins' style of play -- higher focus on interior defense, less on gawky dudes who could drill treys -- Abrahamson was less of a match. The only scholarship player below him on the depth chart was Nate Taphorn, another Carmody recruit with the same body type who did the same thing as Abrahamson, but even less effectively.

It's not clear where Abrahamson's headed, or what Collins will do with his scholarship. But considering the way he's recruited thus far, he probably won't lose sleep over Abrahamson's departure.

Goodbye, Kale. We'll miss jokes about the vegetable you are named after, and also your singing voice: