INDIANAPOLIS — Rick Pitino is sounding the alarm — the transfer portal alarm.
Get ready for free agency the day after Selection Sunday. A portal will open and the player will switch schools just like anyone else would change clothes.
It’s coming.
“The day after Sunday’s selection, you know what I’m talking about. You’ll see,” the Hall of Fame coach predicted Wednesday before St. John’s 82-59 win over Butler. “Now it’s time for the real deal, someone will take you there.” [the NCAA] He appealed to the court that he wanted to transfer mid-semester so he could play.
“I didn’t play with Peyton Siva or Russ Smith as a freshman.” [at Louisville]. I think Payton played a few minutes. We built them into a national championship team, so what’s really disturbing to me is what’s going on, and I don’t like this story in my opinion. [coaching staff], it’s about, “OK, let’s look at this school or this player from this school now because they’re going into the portal.” I just don’t like it. ”
The landscape of college basketball changed in the spring of 2021, when the NCAA allowed undergraduate athletes to transfer once without taking a season off.
Initially, players who wanted to transfer for a second time had to continue playing for one year unless they were graduates.
Then, in December, a federal judge invalidated this year’s NCAA rules as several states sued the NCAA, claiming the rules violated federal antitrust laws.
It remains unclear what next season will look like in terms of multiple non-graduate transfers, but the general idea is that players won’t have to miss out at all.
St. John’s has players in the transfer portal as starters Danis Jenkins, Joel Soriano, Jordan Dingle and Chris Ledlum are ineligible.
The hope is that Pitino can build around a young core of sophomores RJ Lewis and Zuby Ejiofor and freshmen Brady Dunlap and Simeon Wilcher.
But there are no guarantees.
If a particular school values a player more highly than his current school, it could lead to an unexpected start to the Name, Image, Similarity (NIL) era.
Continuity is rare in the new normal.
College rosters vary greatly from season to season.
“You know why I say this is the unhappiest thing I’ve had this season?” Pitino said. “It wasn’t because of that. [Seton Hall] I was very calm during the game and in that press conference. That’s because of the current state of college basketball.
“Whatever it is, this is not the game I’ve loved for 50, 48 years.”
He later added: “I hated the fact that all the good players in the MAAC were being taken elsewhere. It’s a huge shame for me and a lot of the coaches. [Mike Krzyzewski, Roy Williams, Jim Boeheim and Jay Wright] That’s why I got out, but not necessarily NIL. I’ve been thinking about making them employees, making them sign contracts, etc., and the other day I heard a story from the president of the NCAA.
“And he said, can we do something to stop people from switching twice? His answer was, ‘No, coaches quit whenever they want.’ . But the coach has a contract and he has to pay $3 million, $4 million, $20 million if he wants to quit. But I think it’s very, very difficult to do what I’ve been doing for 35, 40 years and make our players better, strengthen them and bring them back. ”
