College Basketball Transfer Portal 2024-2025

[D-West & PO-Z]

Just last year SDST played for a NC. FAU was in the final four all while UNC missed the tournament. Follow that up with Kansas worst year under Self. Duke losing most its team to the portal (after finishing 2nd in the ACC) and Kentucky fans rejoicing Cal leaving….I guess that’s a true sign the blue bloods are separating themselves even more?

Insanity.......

[Xavier]

In there defense, it certainly makes sense that those who are willing to spend the most should separate themselves. My issue is two fold: (long rant below)

1) why is that only limited to blue bloods? It actually opens the field up even more. A rich donor changes everything. IF $ was the key differentiator in success. But…

2) so far, there hasn’t been a correlation between $ spent and post season success. And I don’t think there ever will be. Unless you think NC state just spent more than UNC/Duke last year. And Oakland was more talented and had a higher NIL budget than Kentucky. Could it be the case in the future? Sure. But so far, it hasn’t had an impact.

Again, if you’re worried about the impact it has on Mid Majors, tell me the last time we had a tournament with two mid major teams battling in the final four (FAU VS SDST) for a shot to go to the NC before NIL. I’m not saying it has never happened but nothing jumps out right away?

I just don’t know where the concern is coming from outside of pure speculation. Maybe post season success isn’t how it should be measured but We just had a season where the Big East sent 3 schools to the tournament while the MWC sent 6. So two years ago we had two mid majors battling it out in the final four while last year we had a mid major conference send 6 schools to the tournament while a power conference only sent 3. Absolutely nothing supports the concern so far.

[MHettel]

In there defense, it certainly makes sense that those who are willing to spend the most should separate themselves. My issue is two fold: (long rant below)

1) why is that only limited to blue bloods? It actually opens the field up even more. A rich donor changes everything. IF $ was the key differentiator in success. But…

2) so far, there hasn’t been a correlation between $ spent and post season success. And I don’t think there ever will be. Unless you think NC state just spent more than UNC/Duke last year. And Oakland was more talented and had a higher NIL budget than Kentucky. Could it be the case in the future? Sure. But so far, it hasn’t had an impact.

Again, if you’re worried about the impact it has on Mid Majors, tell me the last time we had a tournament with two mid major teams battling in the final four (FAU VS SDST) for a shot to go to the NC before NIL. I’m not saying it has never happened but nothing jumps out right away?

I just don’t know where the concern is coming from outside of pure speculation. Maybe post season success isn’t how it should be measured but We just had a season where the Big East sent 3 schools to the tournament while the MWC sent 6. So two years ago we had two mid majors battling it out in the final four while last year we had a mid major conference send 6 schools to the tournament while a power conference only sent 3. Absolutely nothing supports the concern so far.

You sound like a Blockbuster investor that wasn’t concerned about Netflix.

We have seen some teams early adopt to the portal and build deep, experienced teams (SDSU) that were successful. They did this just before the “pack” caught on. It’s the baseball “shift”. A novel idea that works and then suddenly everyone is doing it. That’s where we are at.

And at this point we are so far beyond the idea that college kids should be able to get part time jobs to make ends meet. We have portal kids making $1m. We have NIL “budgets” that approach 5M. You don’t think the big, big money won’t step up at the proud blue blood teams and just give them the means to buy the best players every year?

This is baseball free agency in the 80s. The big market teams can just outpay everyone else.

Xavier NEVER reached any level of national prominence if NIL existed in the 80s or 90s. Larkin leaves. Hill, Grant, and Williams leave. Freaking Lenny Brown leaves. Posey, West, Sato. And we never even GET Jordan Crawford, TU, or Trevon.

And I know the easy response would be that XU could have kept those guys by using our NIL, but we wouldn’t have any NIL if it weren’t for those guys in the first place.

The $10 poker table just became $100 table. It’s too rich for many of these teams without a blue blood history or a huge, wealthy alumni base.

[XUGRAD80]

And if X had never reached any level of national prominence in basketball……would they still have fans? Sure they would. Not as many. And maybe they don’t play in front of 10,000 fans every game. Maybe they don’t play in the BEast. Maybe a lot of things along those lines. But they would still have fans. Just like NKU, Wright State, Miami, etc etc etc. Personally, I’m a fan of Xavier BB and I was long before they went to any Sweet 16 or Elite 8. Long before they were ever ranked. It’s been a fun ride and maybe this is as good as it gets. Maybe they never make a F4, let alone win a NC. That doesn’t mean that one can’t enjoy watching and rooting for them. And the same is true for each and every one of those schools that MH fears are going to be nothing but feeder schools for blue bloods.

I KNOW that UC football is NEVER going to win a national championship. It’s NEVER going to happen. 99.9% of the UC fans realize that. Yet they somehow still sell out home games. UD is the same way for their BB team. A NC is never going to happen there. Yet they get 13,000 for every game. Both programs have players transfer in and out on a regular basis. Yet as long as they remain competitive in their LEAGUE and against the teams they play during the regular season, they will continue to get fan support.

It’s not all about “March Madness” for most fans. It’s about supporting their school, team, whatever on a nightly/weekly basis and not just when the tournaments roll around. It’s not about being able to compete for a NC. It’s about much more than that.

[Xavier]

And at this point we are so far beyond the idea that college kids should be able to get part time jobs to make ends meet. We have portal kids making $1m. We have NIL “budgets” that approach 5M. You don’t think the big, big money won’t step up at the proud blue blood teams and just give them the means to buy the best players every year?

.

….why would only blue bloods be able to do that? Memphis with FedEx wouldn’t be able to do it? Or any school that has rich donor base that wants to spend the money on it?

[JTG]

What happens to the general donations to all these schools that now suddenly have $5mil (bball) and say $20mil (football) a year needed for Athletics that previously was donated elsewhere.

[D-West & PO-Z]

We've reached the point of Hett talking about blockbuster and early NIL adopters, time to start this NIL/portal loop over. See you all right back at this point in a few weeks.

[Xville]

What happens to the general donations to all these schools that now suddenly have $5mil (bball) and say $20mil (football) a year needed for Athletics that previously was donated elsewhere.

That to me is something that could be a true concern. No idea how those numbers are looking, but i do wonder if the general donation numbers are down?

[D-West & PO-Z]

What happens to the general donations to all these schools that now suddenly have $5mil (bball) and say $20mil (football) a year needed for Athletics that previously was donated elsewhere.

Are you saying it is your belief that most of the NIL funds are coming from people who used to just donate to the schools general fund but have now stopped that in order to donate to NIL?

I would say that is very unlikely.

If anything, I would say people who want to donate to NIL but need to stop donating somewhere else, are probably stopping their donations that were going directly to the athletic dept (like the AFO) in order to donate to NIL.

[bleedXblue]

What happens to the general donations to all these schools that now suddenly have $5mil (bball) and say $20mil (football) a year needed for Athletics that previously was donated elsewhere.

Great question. Here's what's going to happen. Other sports are going to get cut unless they can be self sustaining. Net tuition amount overrides the expense to operate the sports program. It s inevitable. Goodbye to most tennis, volleyball, swimming, soccer, lacrosse programs etc.