Former MU guard Traci Carter picks La Salle

Traci Carter is heading home.

The former Marquette point guard who decided to transfer out of the program on Dec. 14, midway through his sophomore season, has decided to go back to his hometown of Philadelphia and continue his college career at La Salle, according to New York-based basketball writer Adam Zagoria.

In an interview last month, Carter expressed to the Journal Sentinel that his decision stemmed from wanting to be closer to home in order to be closer to his family as there had been problems back home. In order to play for the maximum amount of time, Carter will sit out until the end of the 2017-'18 season. He will then have two full seasons of eligibility remaining.

“Traci loved his visit to La Salle,” Carter's guardian, Donnie Carr, told Zagoria. “He loves the coaching staff, his future teammates and everyone in the program.

“He loves the style of play. He thinks they will have a chance to win a lot of games and he thinks the coaching staff can help him develop into a great college point guard.”

Carr, a former Philadelphia high-school star and 2,000-point scorer at La Salle, has been in Carter's life since Carter was in seventh grade and playing in the Sonny Hill Community Involvement League, where Carr was an assistant coach.

When dropping Carter off at home one day, Carr went inside to meet his grandmother and found out that Carter's grandmother and his own were friends from church, Carr told the Journal Sentinel when Carter committed to the Golden Eagles in March 2015. Considering Carter's mom was in and out of his life and he had never met his father, his grandmother asked Carr to provide a steady role model for her grandson on the court and off it.

Matt Velazquez can be reached at mvelazquez@journalsentinel.com and twitter.com/Matt_Velazquez.