There's a new season in college athletics: transfer portal season. The transfer portal closed for the basketball season on May 11.
Portal rules changed in 2021. Previously if a player wanted to transfer schools, they had to sit out a season before getting to compete. Now, players are eligible immediately leading to some team shakeups.
More than 1,600 men's Division I basketball players entered the transfer portal in 2022.
Dave Meluni is a professor in the sports management program at Syracuse University's Falk College. He said while name, image and likeness (NIL) plays a role in the transfer portal, most decisions are driven by playing time.
"It's really the playing time because they all think they're going to go professional," Meluni said. "Everybody has that dream to say, 'Hey I have a couple of good years and I develop here and I play well in the summer collegiate leagues and then maybe I have a chance to get drafted."
Meluni said he wants to see some reforms to the portal as players can enter the portal before a NCAA championship game is played. He gave an example of the Syracuse men's basketball season ending before the NCAA tournament while Florida Atlantic makes it to the Final Four.
"There might be a player at Syracuse that transfers out, their season is over," Meluni said. "Florida Atlantic is preparing for the NCAA tournament and they're still having to pay attention to the portal because they don't want to lose out on a possible Syracuse basketball player. [Florida Atlantic] is doing double the work where the Syracuse coaches now are in full recruiting mode into the portal."
Meluni also speculated on the potential number of times a player could transfer schools saying academically any student who transfers schools sometimes loses credits toward graduation that don't transfer over to their new school and thinks that logic could be applied to limit student-athlete transfers.
"I think a way you could possibly do this is you have to be on track toward the degree in X amount of years," Meluni said.
Meluni noted that athletes gaining an extra year of eligibility from COVID-19 showed what extra years can do for an athlete. He said it will be interesting to see how both players and coaches use the transfer portal in developing athletes and their programs.
