Why retention trumps the transfer portal and how mid-majors can still land tournament bids

The NBA Draft withdrawal deadline is creeping closer, and rosters for next season is becoming clearer. And yet, we’ve still got questions this offseason, including about future spending in college hoops, and if there’s any end — or ceiling — in sight.

We’re also still talking about NCAA Tournament expansion because, well, (mostly) everyone is still upset about it. This will be a talking point from now until March 2027.

Let’s get to the questions.

How much of an advantage do you think it will be for teams like Virginia, who returned all their eligible players, versus those who went through high levels of turnover while making a big NIL splash in the portal? — Steven J.

I think it’s always an advantage to retain because players generally perform better in comfortable, familiar environments. It’s possible to overturn a roster and win, but the data in this era suggest roster overhauls tend to work better for coaches coming into a new job versus a coach blowing up their own roster for the next season.

I looked at the last four seasons, simply counting the NCAA Tournament teams among those that ranked in the top 50 in minutes continuity at KenPom, and the number of tourney teams among those in the bottom 50 in minutes continuity. I separated the two by high-major and mid-major.

Of the 21 teams that made it out of the bottom-50 group, 11 high-majors had first-year head coaches, and three of the mid-majors had first-year coaches. So that’s two-thirds of the teams in that bottom-50 group.

Retention matters, especially at the mid-major level. The bottom-50 group did not include a single Final Four team. The top 50 included the entire 2025 Final Four, 2024 national runner-up Purdue, all of the No. 2 seeds in 2026 (including national runner-up UConn), and both Florida Atlantic and San Diego State from the 2024 Final Four. Michigan is the current best argument for building through the portal, but even the champs ranked 114th in minutes continuity. It wasn’t all about the new guys. — CJ Moore

The NCAA’s move to expand the tournament field from 68 to 76 teams was wildly, WILDLY unpopular. Are there any historical parallels to sports executives essentially saying, “F all the fans; we know what’s best” and ramming through such a universally hated change? — John M. 

As a proud Oregon State alum, my first thought was: Does the collapse of the Pac-12 count?

Aside from conference realignment, which devastated many fans for a variety of reasons, I’m not sure there are any great comparisons to NCAA Tournament expansion. The NFL approved adding one regular-season game — bumping the schedule to 17 games — in 2021, and the NBA added the play-in tournament in 2020, during the COVID bubble season. But I’d argue those expansions didn’t really upset fans, though players were leery, because athletes worry about the extra wear and tear on their bodies.

The situation most similar to NCAA Tournament expansion is probably the pending College Football Playoff expansion, which went from four teams to 12 before the 2024 season (and might expand to 24 teams in the coming months). Increasing the field size in both sports was done to appease conference commissioners, who are clearly more powerful than NCAA president Charlie Baker, just one more example of the weird world college sports has become. — Lindsay Schnell

If you were a mid-major coach or GM, what would you do (besides robbing a bank) to give your team a fair chance for an NCAA bid in this NIL, Portal and now unfair expanded tourney era? — Hchoops

The hardest thing coaches deal with at this level is building, because elite mid-major players are usually going to be poached. But because there’s such urgency at the high-major level to get older and stay older, there are a lot of really good high school players who will get overlooked. That’s always been the case, but it might be even more so in this era than ever before.

At that level, you have to win with your evaluations and development, and then have a system you can recruit to and win with. Yes, you might lose your best players, but programs with depth continue to win. One great example is Belmont. In the previous three cycles, Belmont lost Even Brauns (Iowa), Malik Dia (Ole Miss), Ja’Kobi Gillespie (Maryland, then Tennessee), Cade Tyson (North Carolina, then Minnesota), and Isaiah Walker (Xavier).

Even with all those losses, Belmont won the Missouri Valley this past season and sent three more players to the high-major level in Drew Scharnowski (Duke), Tyler Lundblade (Tennessee) and Sam Orme (Nebraska). I recently watched several Belmont games, and I’m convinced Belmont will be good again because it retained freshmen Jabez Jenkins, Jack Smiley and Eoin Dillon. Those are three of the next stars, and I was almost surprised they didn’t enter the portal as well. They’re likely waiting for their turn to put up big numbers and eventually get big deals themselves.

There are also some mid-major portal players who slip through the cracks and remain at that level. One good example is Ty Pence, who transferred to Akron from Illinois State. Pence is a 6-6 wing who is really good in the mid-range but made only 27 3s and averaged 9.4 points this past season. You have to watch his tape to see that he’s pretty good. These decisions have to be made so quickly that there’s only so many guys you can watch, and players with bigger numbers (or who make lots of 3s) usually get chased first.

Another smart strategy: Have really good players with attributes that might keep the high-majors away. Sticking with Illinois State, the program retained two really good players: Chase Walker (an undersized big man) and Johnny Kinziger, a 5-11 combo guard. If you can find undersized players at point guard and center, they can be awesome college players, and they might be less likely to get poached. Again, it’s all about making smart evaluations and taking calculated risks. — Moore

How likely is someone to break Braden Smith’s assist record? — Anonymous

If the five-for-five eligibility change happens, I think someone will have a really good shot at breaking it; playing 35-ish more games than Smith did would be a huge advantage. Though I do think it’ll help if the hypothetical player stays at the same program for a long time. You’re always going to know the offense better and have the best feel for the game when you’ve been around a while.

But one thing that’ll make it tough, no matter if someone plays four or five seasons: Pass-first point guards like Smith are not nearly as common as they used to be. In 2026, everyone feels like they have to look for their own shot first, something you really notice when you’re watching youth players on the club circuits.

Smith is also unique because he’s so small — short and pretty thin — so he often didn’t even have the option of trying to get a shot off. He understood that with his size, his best bet was to pass to someone else. His small stature is jarring in person, especially for a power conference player. It’s hard to imagine someone that size excelling at the power conference level for four-plus years again — because I’m not even sure coaches would give him a shot initially. — Schnell

When might a pay scale be put into place in men’s and women’s college basketball? — Ed H.

Not until we get collective bargaining, which isn’t anywhere near happening, given the current opposition from universities and their leadership.

This is probably the question I’ve gotten most frequently this offseason, from casual fans to coaches. But the simple answer is, a pay scale simply isn’t remotely possible within the current college athletics framework because it’s an antitrust violation waiting to happen. Any sort of pay scale, or salary cap, or anything that inhibits an athlete’s “fair market” earning potential will be challenged in court the second someone tries to implement it — and the NCAA hasn’t exactly fared well in those legal challenges of late.

The closest we’ve come to limiting athletic spending was the House settlement, which schools had to sign on to and aimed to establish a “cap” through revenue-sharing. But I’d argue it was always naive to believe elite, uber-rich programs like Ohio State football or Kentucky basketball wouldn’t get creative in spending beyond that “cap” — and that’s exactly what has happened. Schools have simply gotten better at “washing” their money through “legitimate” NIL deals, though maybe the College Sports Commission is actually growing some teeth, given the recent Nebraska football ruling. But I’ll believe that when I see it — aka, when teams aren’t allowed to spend $5 million on top transfers, per industry chatter, or clear $20 million in team payroll.

Until then, though, the disparity between the haves and have-nots will only grow more pronounced each offseason. For instance, within the ACC alone next season, you’ll likely see a $20 million gap between the highest- and lowest-spending teams. That certainly doesn’t seem tenable for competitive balance … but there’s also no real way to combat it until schools finally lean into collective bargaining, which they’re nowhere near ready to do for financial reasons. — Brendan Marks