In the current college basketball landscape, it may seem like every program is fielding a new team each year through the transfer portal. While the number of transfers has skyrocketed in recent years, many mid-major programs still have a unique roster-building strategy.
“If we tried to run our program the way a power conference school that has a couple million bucks and an NIL collective [does], it wouldn’t work,” South Dakota State women’s head coach Aaron Johnston said. “We have to be really smart about who we are and attract people that want to graduate and have a good basketball experience.”
Under Johnston, the Jackrabbits have won the Summit League tournament 13 times since 2009 with rosters full of four-year players. He said he still recruits mainly within a five-hour radius of South Dakota State.
“It speaks to the level of basketball in our area,” Johnston said. “We would not be the team we are without having great, great high school players that we can recruit.”
Kent State men’s head coach Rob Senderoff said it was a challenge retaining players for four years when he started the job but has more recently been able to recruit locally and keep star players around for their full college careers. He said the program consistency he has built since 2011 has made that possible.
“I’ve got a staff full of people that played at Kent State,” Senderoff said. “We say basketball is a business, but we’re a family-owned business. That’s how we operate.”
Kent State just graduated its two leading scorers from last season, Jalen Sullinger and VonCameron Davis. Both are Ohio natives who played their entire college careers for the Golden Flashes. During their careers, Kent State won the MAC tournament in 2023 and reached the NIT quarterfinals in 2025.
“Those guys having success individually and having a chance to play professionally are the type of things you hope the next group of guys look at and say, ‘Why would I leave if I can get those things if I stay?’” Senderoff said.
Lexi Weger, a former Princeton women’s player who played for the Tigers from 2018 to 2023, said Princeton has been able to maintain success and retain players while dealing with both advantages and challenges of playing in the Ivy League — a conference with no athletic scholarships.
“You have to recruit really smart kids that have to get in on their own academic merit, which changes who you’re recruiting, but you find these kids that want the best of both worlds, athletically and academically,” Weger said.
While some mid-major schools with long-standing program consistency have avoided using the transfer portal, others like Norfolk State’s men’s team are using it at a high rate in recent years.
The Rams, led by head coach Robert Jones, won their third MEAC tournament title in five years last season. The team also saw its best player transfer away after playing just one season in Norfolk in back-to-back years. A year ago, 2024 MEAC Player of the Year Jamarii Thomas transferred to South Carolina, and 2025 MEAC Player of the Year Brian Moore Jr. recently signed with Grand Canyon.
“We understand what the landscape looks like, so we’re prepared for it before it happens,” Norfolk State associate head coach Jamal Brown said. “We know that our job now is to find players that replace those guys, and if they do well and have eligibility left, they’ll probably transfer too.”
For some teams, the right combination of returning players and transfers can create a championship roster. Akron may be an example, as the program lost its top five scorers from its 2024 MAC championship team to graduation but did not miss a step thanks to younger players stepping up and a few key transfers.
One of those transfers was Isaiah Gray, who came in as a graduate transfer from Cornell and was named an All-MAC honorable mention for his play during Akron’s second straight MAC championship season in 2025.
“This year was maybe [head coach John Groce’s] biggest challenge yet,” Gray said. “We had like nine new guys, and they had lost some championship-caliber players, so to try and go back and win with new guys wasn’t easy.”
Montana men’s head coach Travis DeCuire said he has had to adjust his recruiting strategies in this new era of the transfer portal, but he still values the four-year mentorship that the college basketball experience can provide.
The two-time Big Sky Coach of the Year said he has been approached by bigger programs about coaching jobs but has stayed at Montana to continue making long-term connections with his players.
“The highest bidders are always fielding new teams every year, and to me that’s not what college athletics is about,” DeCuire said. “It’s about programs. It’s about impacting the lives of young men between 17 and 23 years old. I still like to graduate guys and help them with their next stage of life, and you can’t do that in 10 months.”
