NCAA Basketball: Coaches navigating the new world of college basketball

How are coaches dealing with the portal?

I first asked them about the exponential explosion of players that have transferred over the past 10 years and the impact that has had both on their programs and the sport as a whole. The first thing that jumped out to me is, almost unanimously they said there were two reasons for the explosion, the rule that players can now transfer once without the penalty of having to sit out a season and the implementation of Name, Image and Likeness opportunities.

Players from all across a roster, from stars to players at the end of the bench are now looking to see what else is out there.

In fact, more than one coach used the term “new normal” when referring to the reasons for the increase. Andy Kennedy says,

"“This is the new landscape and we all have to adjust, with change comes some consternation, comes some stress about how we’re going to make that transformation, I think in time this will be the new normal.”"

Bill Herrion the longtime coach at New Hampshire agrees, he told me, “The way of recruiting in the past, going to AAU tournaments, you go to high school events, you get on kids in high school, those days are over.”

This led me to ask about the transfer portal in terms of roster building and if that has changed the way they approach it.

The head coach at Southern Utah, Todd Simon says it absolutely has impacted how he looks at his roster. He told me, “You’re in a constant state where you got to recruit everything at all times, you can’t project out. We stopped projecting beyond next year four years ago.”

Under Bruce Pearl, Auburn has been one of the more successful programs in the country over the last few seasons, and he said that the portal has influenced his roster-building but not in an overarching way. He said,

"“Last year we signed four transfers and one high school player, he happened to be the best player in college basketball in Jabari Smith. This year we kind of went the other way with it. We signed three high school players and one transfer, Johnni Broome from Morehead State. We’re probably going to have a mixture, more 50/50.”"

The biggest theme from this discussion of the portal is two-fold, first teams can build a competitive roster through the portal by recruiting high school players. But, for some coaches that isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I talked to Bryant’s Jared Grasso and he is completely comfortable building a roster through transfers.

"“I’ve recruited this way for 12 years, when I was at Iona we recruited this way, and the last four years, for the most part, we were fairly transfer heavy, the last two years we were very transfer heavy and I think we’ve been able to attract a different kind of talent because some of the success we’ve had.”"

With the portal and all the extra opportunities out there for student-athletes today with the NIL and Collective deals and the extra year of eligibility due to Covid, the summer has turned into a form of free agency in college basketball and was curious whether coaches thought something like that was a good thing for the sport.

Herrion says,

"“Personally I don’t, I know the days of this are over, I don’t even know if you’re going to coach kids for four years in college anymore. I don’t like it, it’s very very hard to have any continuity in your program. It’s almost like you’re coaching in Junior College, you’re going to have guys for two years, they’re probably going into the portal and you have to keep flipping your roster over.”"

The flip side of that is Georgia Tech head coach Josh Pastner who disagreed with the term “free agency”, saying,

"“Free agency in professional sports there’s a contract where you know when they are going to be a restricted free agent or an unrestricted free agent, so you know when that’s coming. In the portal, you don’t know when somebody could enter the portal. It could be after their freshman year or sophomore year or junior year, there’s not a time period on that.”"

Grant McCasland of North Texas says he is unsure of whether this portal explosion is good or bad for college basketball. He told me:

"“whether that is due to the change in sit-out rules, NIL opportunities or the extra Covid year, or a combination of them all, the portal and all the players in it have changed the landscape of college basketball. While coaches may disagree on it has a positive impact on the sport, they agree that the landscape is changing and changing fast and adaptation is a must if you want to remain competitive in this fluid changing terrain.”"

For some that are easier than others, it will be interesting to watch the portal as the Covid year of eligibility disappears. Will McCasland be right and we will see the portal normalize a bit or will NIL possibilities have more influence on the decisions of student-athletes than some think?