HARRISONBURG — It didn’t take long for Savannah Felgemacher to read the proverbial writing on the wall at James Madison.

A quick glance at the JMU women’s basketball roster for the next two years was all the rising junior needed to see her playing time had a chance at decreasing. The Dukes had five players standing 6-foot-2 or taller eligible to play next season, not including the 6-foot-3 Felgemacher.

After several long and honest conversations with JMU coach Sean O’Regan, Felgemacher ultimately decided to transfer out of the school. The news became official Wednesday when Radford women’s basketball coach Mike McGuire announced Felgemacher, a 6-foot-3 forward from Church Hill, Tenn., was joining the Highlanders.

“It actually was a very hard decision because I didn’t want to leave the team, the coaches; I loved JMU as a school,” Felgemacher said in a phone interview Wednesday. “With the way next season and the next season after that is set up, I just didn’t have the trust that I would get to play as much or do as much as I would have hoped and that I had been working toward. I had a handful of talks with Coach O, just kind of putting everything out there and we were very honest with each other.

“I’m really thankful for what [O’Regan] did for me while I was there and the connection I had with JMU, the fans, my team, but I really felt like for me, to really do what I had been working on doing, there was a better fit for me out there. When push comes to shove, you really have to do what’s best for you.”

Felgemacher received interest from approximately 30 schools, she said, including some in the Big 12 and SEC. She ended up choosing Radford because of the warm reception she received from the team when they learned she was potentially interested in joining them.

The kind words stemmed from the Dukes’ 80-59 win over the Highlanders in the first round of the WNIT in March. Felgemacher recorded her third career double-double in that game, torturing Radford for 11 points and a career-best 14 rebounds.

“When I was on my visit there, they talked about [that game] a lot ... and how I played so well against them,” Felgemacher said. “They bragged that their team couldn’t keep up for me, so when they explained that to me and how the girls reacted to me even looking about coming there, they were so excited to have me. They knew I could do so much there because they knew how good I was.”

The forward averaged 3.1 points and 3.7 rebounds in 56 appearances for the Dukes over the course of two seasons. Felgemacher began to hit her stride toward the tail end of last season, averaging 5.9 rebounds in JMU’s final 14 games, including three double-digit rebound performances.

O’Regan said the team will miss Felgemacher’s hustle in that area of the game, but is confident that the players will compensate just like losing a player to graduation or an injury.

“Just like anybody graduating or anybody moving on or an injury, we’ll fill the gap just fine,” O’Regan said. “The hustle rebounding was the most visible positive she brought to our team, so as of today, that’s what we’re going to miss. But do I think we’ll be able to fill it with some other areas? Yeah, I do.”

Felgemacher will sit out the 2017-18 season under NCAA rules and have two years of eligibility remaining.