Four schools in four years. Playing college basketball into your mid-20s. Maybe even your late-20s. Coming back to school after an excursion in the pros.
All that seems crazy … because it is.
In fact, 64% of Mid-Major Madness fans believe limiting transfers is a good idea. This question stemmed from President Donald Trump signing an executive order earlier this month aimed at limiting players to transferring once without having to sit out and completing their careers within a five-year span from when they begin. Should a school enter an agreement, particularly an NIL agreement, with a player that violates this mandate, the school could risk losing federal funding.
Several notable personalities in the college basketball sphere have addressed the issues surrounding the transfer portal and NIL in recent weeks and months. Many of them have pointed out that the current system and set-up are broken.
Arkansas head coach John Calipari (former UMass, Memphis, and Kentucky head man) has been especially outspoken and advocated for allowing players to transfer only once without having to sit out. If they change schools again, then they’d have to sit out.
He raised concerns over players finishing their degrees if they are on the move each year. He said the root of constant transferring is extortion. Players are seeking to make the most money possible each season, he reasoned.
“If we cure the transfer rule, 70% of our problems go away,” Calipari said. “We can deal with all the other stuff.”
He also touched on the economics of the current system for some players. He posed the hypothetical of a player coming to college from a poor background, making a substantial amount of money in college, getting acclimated to that type of lifestyle and then entering the workforce to earn entry-level pay.
“You know what’s worse than being poor?” he asked. “Coming across some money and then being poor again.”
He also posed the question of what this setup does for a person’s mental health.
On top of all that, legal issues arise. Non-athletes are able to transfer schools without penalties, as Hall-of-Fame coach Mike Krzyzewski (Army legend) noted.
“Not on the limit of transfer, unless you do that with a normal student,” he said, according to Yahoo Sports. “I think the age limit thing is something we should be looking at, and I don’t know what the age is, but there have to be some type of guardrails.”
Additionally, coaches are allowed to change jobs without penalties even though they are under contract. Ben McCollum went from Northwest Missouri State to Drake and then Iowa in a span of three years without having to sit out a season. Why can’t a player be able to move his way up the ladder like that?
McCollum was not trying to complete a college degree. Employees in all professions are allowed to move at such a rapid pace.
College athletes are unique. They are their own entity in the university structure. And their not employees, but they are more than just students.
The transfer portal was created by the NCAA in 2018. It changed in 2021 when the NCAA allowed one-time transfers to switch schools once without having to sit out. A 2024 revision granted players the ability to transfer as many times as they choose and maintain immediate eligibility.
The portal initially opened during the NCAA Tournament. That caused a lot of issues with some teams still playing while others began working towards their rosters for next season. Now, it opens at midnight after the national championship game. Still not ideal.
Michigan head coach (Florida Atlantic GOAT) Dusty May told Rich Eisen some of his assistant coaches were already scrolling the portal in the locker room after winning the national championship. UConn head man Dan Hurley (formerly of Rhode Island and Wagner) asked the media at 12:01 a.m. after the title game if anyone from his Huskies had entered the portal yet.
We’re not crying for these two giants in the game, but that timing should not be the norm. They just coached in the biggest game of the season and turned their attention to the portal before they could even celebrate the title.
So, how do we put the toothpaste back in the tube? Is that possible?
ESPN analyst Jay Bilas discussed the craziness of the current era in college sports with Eisen. He discussed how the NCAA had not paid players in its existence until just recently. The fact that college athletics has blossomed into a multi-billion dollar industry is proof that the players have been due their cut of the pie and their rights for a long time.
“Is this any way to run a business?” Bilas said. “No, it’s not. This is the way the NCAA wants it. The smart thing to do would be for the NCAA to take away all rules that prohibit schools from paying athletes directly and signing them to contracts like they do their coaches, but they don’t want them to be employees. That’s why [the NCAA is] on Capitol Hill begging Congress for an anti-trust exemption so they can unilaterally impose work conditions on players.”
Transfer rules and NIL are all going to come to head at some point. When that is and what it will look like are anyone’s guess. The only thing that’s certain is something needs to done.
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