The college basketball transfer portal has significantly slowed down and we now have a better picture of what teams will look like for the 2025-2026 season. Following an overall down year for the ACC, several teams went out and acquired high level talent via the portal.
While many did benefit, there simply is not enough top tier talent for everyone. Several teams learned this the hard way, either by losing key players or failing to land their top targets, and ultimately came out with the short end of the stick in terms of the portal.
Here are the 3 biggest transfer portal losers in the ACC.
Pitt Panthers
Jeff Capel simply did not do enough to get this Pitt team to a spot on paper where they look good enough to be near the top of the ACC or contending for an NCAA Tournament bid. It felt like Pitt’s name was always listed as in the mix for top level talent in the portal, but it never came to fruition.
The Panthers struggled mightily to find any consistent offense last season and I do not think they addressed that issue enough in the portal. Barry Dunning Jr. and Damarco Minor are good additions, but they cannot do it all themselves in a conference like the ACC. Pitt also lost star guard Jaland Lowe to Kentucky which shows the Panthers may be unable to keep up with top teams in the NIL era.
Stanford Cardinal
Stanford had a surprisingly impressive first year in the ACC, but they certainly have some holes to fill for next season. The Cardinal lost their top three scorers from a year ago in Maxime Raynaud and Jaylen Blakes, who are off to the professional level, and Oziyah Sellers who transferred to St. John’s.
So far in the portal Stanford has done absolutely nothing, zero additions. With very few open roster spots open, I understand if they are being picky with the portal, but it would have been better to make a move sooner rather than later with the players in the portal running thin. Kyle Smith appears to be going with a more “old school” approach of keeping and developing players, but with how much they lost from last season and the current state of the sport, you would like to see some activity in the portal.
North Carolina Tar Heels
The Tar Heels did add some impressive pieces with Henri Veesaar and Kyan Evans among others. However, they failed to make that top prospect headline-grabbing addition that you would expect from a top tier program coming off a mediocre season.
They were reportedly in the mix for several of the top players in the portal, including Andrej Stojakovic and Desmond Claude, but failed to connect. On top of that they lost key pieces to the portal, especially at the guard position which is so important in Hubert Davis’ offense, in Elliot Cadeau and Ian Jackson. While the Tar Heels did fulfill the need of getting bigger and more physical with five solid additions, you would expect at least one real game changing addition for what feels like a must win season for Hubert Davis.