It has been just over a year since the NCAA allowed athletes to transfer one time without penalty, leading to a massive surge in player movement. Some college basketball teams have been remade — and others completely dismantled — virtually overnight.
There were some huge transfer success stories last season: Kentucky’s unanimous national player of the year Oscar Tshiebwe, basically everyone who went to Texas Tech, North Carolina’s Brady Manek, Kansas point guard Remy Martin and ACC Player of the Year Alondes Williams. But as one mid-major assistant out West says, “Every story that you hear that’s like, ‘Man, that really helped that guy,’ there’s three or four stories that you don’t ever really hear about, that it never worked out for them.”
So as the dust settles on a second offseason of transfer mania, The Athletic decided to take stock of the impact of all this movement. We studied the statistics of the 215 transfers who went from a Division I school to a Power Six program (ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Pac-12 and SEC) last season. We also surveyed 13 coaches for their thoughts on this new de facto free agency.
Here is what we found: More than 60 percent of the players who transferred to a power conference team saw their minutes decline from their previous school; only six of 72 mid- or low-major players who transferred up averaged more points than they had the previous season; and the level the transfer came from seemed to matter more than the age of the player.
The reaction from coaches to these numbers? They weren’t surprised.
“What happens is (the players) equate themselves to that level because of all the attention that they’re getting,” Purdue coach Matt Painter said. “When in reality, those teams at a high-major level have to complete their teams and they have to have a full roster, but how are you going to get those guys? Well, you gotta sell that opportunity. If you tell them, ‘Hey, this is going to be hard for you; your minutes are gonna go down; your points are gonna go down,’ you sell the actual scenario for those guys … you never would get them.
“So what do coaches do? They whisper sweet nothings. They do what they have to do. They get them and then they get there and, once again, you’re messing with your chemistry. But what’s that coach supposed to do? He needs players.”
So how successful are players who transfer into a power-conference program?
The Athletic looked at three statistics for those 215 players last season — minutes per game, offensive rating and points per game — to see whether those numbers went up or down from the player’s previous season at his former school.
Nearly every player who goes into the portal believes he’s going to improve his situation, and you could argue that even some of the players who saw their numbers dip were still better off. But if you had polled this group of players before the season, it’s doubtful many would have predicted their averages would decline. Efficiency numbers did go up for a slight majority, but that’s largely because a lesser role often leads to higher efficiency.
One coach who worked at a high-major school that was active in the transfer market said he believes transfers from high-majors or mid-major-plus programs (conferences like the American Athletic, Mountain West or Atlantic 10) have a higher success rate. So we filtered the results by level.
The other belief among coaches is that the most desirable transfers are older players, specifically the group using the extra (COVID-19) year of eligibility. “That’s the most valuable kid in basketball,” a high-major coach said. There were 61 of those players in this pool who used the extra year last season. Here’s how they performed:
The best indicator of whether those 61 players would succeed was the level they were coming from.
When told about the high number of players whose statistics decreased, one high-major coach told The Athletic: “We know that when we’re taking them. We don’t expect them to maintain the same production they had at a lower level.”
“It could slow down,” the mid-major assistant out West says of the transfer volume. “Just because there will be a lot of kids who will be like, ‘Damn, it didn’t work out for most of these people.’”
The players may eventually catch on, but will these types of results eventually lead to fewer transfers, or will the pull of name, image and likeness dollars continue the surge? “That’s the new carrot,” another high-major coach said. “Play less, score less, but get paid more.”
The signing that triggered many coaches this spring was former Kansas State guard Nijel Pack to Miami. John Ruiz, a billionaire Miami booster, announced on Twitter that his company would pay Pack $800,000 over the next two seasons. That led to Miami guard Isaiah Wong threatening to enter his name in the transfer portal if his NIL compensation wasn’t increased, his agent told ESPN. Wong eventually backtracked, essentially saying his agent spoke out of turn, but the assumption in the college basketball world was he got a better deal.
Wong already had a deal with Ruiz’s company, LifeWallet, and his case is an example of how this thing could swing the other way.
“More guys are maybe gonna stay put because maybe they have a better NIL opportunity where they’re at,” a high-major coach said.
That doesn’t mean players aren’t going to at least test the portal to see what they can get, even if the intention is to do as Wong did and get a better NIL package at their school than what they had before.
“There’s a lot of liar’s poker out there,” one head coach said. “Lot of guys saying they’re getting stuff that they ain’t getting, trying to drive the price up. Everybody thinks they’re leaving for something better, but now there are stories of, ‘Hey, you better be careful. You might not get what you think you’re getting.’ And I’ll tell you this, and this is frustrating as a coach too: The majority of the best players in the portal already know where they’re going by the time they’re in the portal. Come on. They know.
“And the scary thing about NIL: The NCAA says you can get an agent to represent you for NIL, so what’s that agent going to do? He’s the one calling the collectives, looking for the best NIL deal. So you might not even be in the portal yet but your agent has worked out a deal somewhere for whatever amount of money and now I’m going in the portal and a week later, that’s where I’m going. I really believe a majority of those high-profile guys, they know where they’re going.”
There are more than 1,400 Division I players who have entered the portal this year. But how many actual difference-makers were available?
“Top to bottom you could make an argument that it’s not as good at the bottom-half of it, but the top 100 are pretty good,” a high-major coach said. “I think it’s going to continue to be good. It’s a cause-and-effect thing. We’re recruiting out of the portal, so kids want to go into the portal. Kids are going into the portal, so guess what, we got to recruit out of the portal because our competitors are doing it. It is tough being a high school kid right now, though, especially in the late period. In the late period, you got a choice between a guy who didn’t sign early and a guy who’s had a year or two of college experience, and most people are going with a year or two of college experience.”
There’s a whole school of thought among some coaches that it’s pointless to take the high school kid in that scenario, because if he pans out at a lower-level school, you can take another run at him in the portal in a couple of years. But for a game-changing talent, you’re still probably safer taking the elite teenager.
One high-major coach jokingly calls this year’s options “the transfer portal potty.” Others aren’t sure how many high-quality players were available. “I’m looking at it like there are a lot of guards, and they just kept coming, who I thought, ‘That guy could be a good fit as an eighth man,’” another power conference coach says. “I don’t think there’s many NBA players in the portal. If you want NBA players, you better get them through high school.”
“I think it’s really top-heavy and even then there’s very few of those guys that are probably going to really change programs,” another high-major coach said. “Last year, you could sign guys who could be all-league players out of the portal. Is that going to happen every year? No, it’s not. That’s not sustainable. That’s kind of lightning in a bottle. If you’re in a situation where you’ve got to sign a whole new team, it helps you, but over time I don’t think you can keep building your program that way.
“The other thing that’s going to be interesting in a couple years is when that extra year for COVID goes away — and with the one-time transfer — how many grad transfers will there be anymore? Think about it. Why do guys grad transfer? They redshirted or they had to sit out. Guys aren’t going to do that now, so there might not be many grad transfers now either.”
“My concern is too many kids entering the portal that had a role on a team but weren’t a featured guy,” a mid-major coach said. “So let’s say you have your role and you go in the portal, are you improving your situation? Or are you better to stay where you are, try and grow, develop and improve your role? I think there’s too many role guys trying to hop in and I don’t know why the situation is better or how it improves.”
“I think high-majors are understanding the value of high-major players,” a mid-major assistant said. “Like low-major kids are seeing that it’s hard to succeed with the athleticism at high-majors. And so you’re seeing more high-major kids going high-major to high-major, in my opinion, and it’s harder for low-majors to get guys to come back down. But I think that’s what’s made parity in college basketball is high-major kids playing at low-major levels. Some of these low-major kids who move up without the benefit of a sit-out year are going to be put in a situation they’ve never been put in before.”
“I think it’s still hard to find good players that won as well, because there’s always going to be guys that put up stats on losing teams. Somebody has to put up some numbers,” a mid-major assistant said. “We have two years left of the guys who have the extra COVID year. So I think at least for the next two years this is the way it’s gonna be. I think it will slow down going forward, just because you won’t have that extra 300 guys with an extra year of eligibility able to transfer. And then I think it could also slow down a little bit (because of the horror stories). I think the one thing that people are realizing is just because you were a good player at this place doesn’t mean you’re gonna be the same guy in another place, because the system is different. The way you’re being coached is different. The atmosphere is different. Your teammates are different. Like the acclimation period, all those things take a while.”
One benefit to the NCAA granting first-time transfers immediate eligibility is it took the guesswork out of the process. Before that, once the NCAA started granting waivers and making exceptions for some transfers, every transfer tried to get one. Some of the gymnastics to justify those requests were comical. In theory, this new rule was supposed to stop that. You’re immediately eligible the first time you transfer and, if you transfer again, you have to sit out a year.
But if you take a look at the portal, it’s filled with players who have already transferred once, and many of those players are leaving with the assumption that they’ll still get immediate eligibility. Whether they’re right could determine how crazy this gets.
“Every coach is waiting for some NCAA guidance,” a high-major coach said.
The assumption is that those players are going to be eligible because of an NPO (no-participation opportunity). This is a loophole that schools found several years ago, where players who were supposedly run off from their previous school would be given a waiver.
“The school is always on board because if they’re not on board, they’re gonna get crucified,” the same coach said. “So they have to be on board. And if it is their idea, they’re obviously on board, so really, they’re always on board.”
“I’ve done that I don’t know how many times and made up stories,” another high-major coach said. “Literally made up stories, and they’re not at all true.”
This particular coach believes every transfer should be eligible right away to simply eliminate the NCAA’s influence. “It’ll save us from making up stuff, certain schools getting a guy eligible because they make up a story better,” he said. “They lie better. It’s who told the best story. We’ve gotta get out of that. You’re wondering who’s getting taken care of and who isn’t.”
One other solution could be simply eliminating all waivers unless there’s a coaching change. That’s it. No judgments needed.
“The bottom line is if you took a kid and he ain’t good enough, it’s your fault,” a high-major coach said. “And if he went to your place, and he believed your BS, then it’s his fault. So at the end of the day, if someone transfers a second time, he needs to sit out.”
Because if players are allowed to transfer multiple times, then it truly is free agency every year.
“Coaches are all for that, but schools aren’t for that,” said the coach who believes every transfer should be eligible. “That’s an administrative thing.”
Translation: If that were the rule, then it would make it more difficult to fire coaches, and schools do not want that.
Ultimately, one coach said, the NCAA may punt the issue to the conferences because of the worry of antitrust suits.
“No conference is going to want to put their schools at a disadvantage when another conference is allowing it,” he said, “and so it’s gonna continue.”
Most coaches agree, but they’re waiting to see what the NCAA does this summer, in what could be the organization’s last chance to slow the churn of roster movement. Unless this ride that started with no brakes and no guardrails has already gathered too much speed to stop it.
“LeBron doesn’t go into free agency every year. It’d be freaking chaos,” says one high-major coach in the Southwest. “And that’s what you got in college basketball. Obviously certain schools have benefited by that, but there’s 358 schools … Even in the NBA, you got four or five of your big markets, and they have rules so the small-market teams can survive. And you have a (luxury) tax. So whatever it is, come up with it. Otherwise, why are we paying you to lead?”
