SWAC Basketball: Taking a look at the 2023-24 transfer portal aftermath

Greetings to all, it's CWells your tour guide around the SWAC. Happy off-season to everyone. Even though the games are over, that doesn't mean the excitement stops. The transfer portal is the gift that keeps on giving (and taking). It seems that every year there is a mass exodus of players from each team.

The first thing I want to do is stop the narrative that players leaving means something is wrong with the team/coach. Players enter the portal for multiple reasons: playing time, NIL, wanting to be close to home, etc. Understanding that player movement is a thing now makes it easier to deal with the portal. If you don't know by now, I like numbers and I like to do the science (research). So I wanted to take a look at the portal activity in the SWAC this past season to give a better idea of what teams may do this season. The portal window is open for 45 days (closes on May 1st) so that means we are deep in the portal period.

In this article, I will take a look at the number of transfers in and out of the SWAC in the 2023-24 season. I will also look at the impact the incoming transfers had on their new teams. So with that out of the way, let's get to it.

Last season there were 70 players that transferred into the SWAC. That's 5.8 players per team. For a bit of perspective that's about 4 full teams worth of players (assuming each team has 15 players). 4 teams (Florida A&M, Prairie View A&M, Southern, and Texas Southern) had 8 players transfer into their programs. Bethune-Cookman had the fewest incoming transfers with 3. Of course, when you have so many new players you have so many different levels of production. 28 (40%) of those players had a substantial role on their team. Two more players would have had big roles on their teams but they suffered injuries. As I like to say “the portal giveth and the portal taketh” so let's take a look at the other side of the portal.

I was actually a bit surprised at the outgoing numbers. 38 players left the league through the portal. That is an average of 3.1 players per team. Alcorn State lost 8 players which was a league high. While Jackson State and Texas Southern each lost one player. Interestingly two players transferred to other SWAC teams. Jeremiah Gambrell went from Prairie View to Alcorn State. Jordan O'Neal went from Alabama State to Jackson State. Both players had a tremendous impact on their new teams. 10 players (26/%) who transferred out had established roles on their teams. Looking at these numbers kind of kills the narrative is that players are running away from SWAC schools. The portal has been getting increasingly unpredictable so who knows what the future will hold for SWAC players leaving. I am eagerly awaiting the opportunity to see this upcoming season’s numbers.

The SWAC has definitely benefited from the transfer portal as the gains outweighed the losses. We will have to wait and see how the 2024-25 portal treats the SWAC. Keep it locked in here because I will have more portal and recruiting articles coming during the off-season. I'm your tour guide around the SWAC signing out make sure to exit the SWAC bus carefully.