INDIANAPOLIS — Rick Pitino is sounding the alarm — the transfer portal alarm.
Get ready for free agency the day after Selection Sunday, when the portal opens and players switch schools like everyone else changes clothes.
It’s coming.
“You’re going to see what I’m talking about the day after Selection Sunday, you’re going to see it,” the Hall of Fame coach predicted prior to St. John’s 82-59 win over Butler on Wednesday. “It’s going to get to the point, somebody’s going to take them [the NCAA] to court that they want to transfer mid-semester to play.
“I didn’t play Peyton Siva or Russ Smith as freshmen [at Louisville]. I think Peyton played a few minutes. We developed them into a national championship team, so the thing that’s disturbed me so much is what’s going on and I don’t like this talk, even amongst my [coaching staff], about, ‘OK, let’s look at this player from this school or this school right now because I hear they’re going in the portal.’ I just hate that.”
The landscape of college basketball changed in the spring of 2021, when the NCAA began allowing undergraduate players to transfer once without having to sit out a season.
Initially, players who wanted to transfer a second time had to sit out a year unless they were graduates.
Then, in December, a federal judge overrode the NCAA rule for the current year amid several states suing the NCAA, alleging the rule was in violation of federal antitrust law.
It remains uncertain what will happen next season in regards to multiple transfers who aren’t graduates, but the general thinking is that players will not have to sit out at all.
St. John’s figures to be active in the transfer portal, as starters Daniss Jenkins, Joel Soriano, Jordan Dingle and Chris Ledlum are out of eligibility.
The hope is Pitino can keep his young core of sophomores RJ Luis and Zuby Ejiofor and freshmen Brady Dunlap and Simeon Wilcher together, and build around them.
But there are no guarantees.
If a certain school values a player more than his current school, that could lead to an unexpected departure in the Name, Image & Likeness (NIL) era.
The new normal is that continuity is rare.
College rosters will have vastly different looks season to season.
“You know why when I say, this is the unhappiest I’ve been in a season, you know why?” Pitino said. “It wasn’t because of that [Seton Hall] game, I was very calm at that press conference. It’s because of the state of college basketball.
“It’s not the game I’ve loved for 50 years, 48 years, whatever it may be.”
He later added: “I hated the fact that every single good player in the MAAC got poached to go to a different place. It’s just very disappointing for me, and a lot of the coaches [Mike Krzyzewski, Roy Williams, Jim Boeheim and Jay Wright] have gotten out because of that, not necessarily NIL. I’ve been throwing things out, like make them employees, make them sign contracts, just trying to come up with something, but I listened to the president of the NCAA the other day.
“And he said can you put something in to stop people from transferring twice? His response was, no, coaches leave whenever they want. But coaches have contracts, and coaches have to pay $3 million, $4 million, $20 million if they want to leave. I just think it’s very, very difficult to do what I’ve done for 35, 40 years, make players better, build them up, have them back.”