Let’s Portal
Fighting nostalgia to improve the current college basketball landscape.
Nostalgia is real; we have a cognitive bias to remember things from the past as better than the present. Every day, people to decry the current college basketball landscape. The resounding opinion is college basketball has never been worse. Everyone complains about NIL and transfers, reminiscing about the days when players played at one school for four years and everyone played for free (allegedly) or the glory of the alma mater. Of course, for all the longing for bygone eras, when was the last time seniors scored every point of the Final Four, as UCLA’s did this weekend?
The opening weekend of the 2026 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament was the most-watched opening weekend ever, which continued through the second weekend. Somehow, popular opinion suggests this is the end, but everyone keeps watching college basketball. Michigan won the national championship with a team filled with transfers, but they, like UCLA women, were a veteran team. The transfer portal creates more veteran, talented teams, which ultimately creates better basketball compared to the most talented teams being filled with freshmen.
I imagine UCLA and Michigan fans are fine with the transfer portal. UCLA started three transfers, and four of its top six players were transfers. Meanwhile, Michigan started five transfers. Would the men’s tournament have been better without Bennett Stirtz leading Iowa to one of the biggest upsets in one of the best-played games of the first weekend instead of remaining at Northwest Missouri State (or Drake)? Would South Carolina have returned to the championship game without Ta’Niya Latson, a transfer from Florida State? Do these transfers make for a worse era of basketball? NCAA men’s basketball saw some of the most efficient offenses in NCAA men’s basketball history this year, suggesting the frequency of transfers has not reduced the quality of the play.
The current system is not perfect, regardless of the viewers and apparent popularity. Some changes should be made, most notably to the influx of 23-year-old international professional players due to NIL. However, most view only one side of the argument. They view the negatives or perceived negatives, whether the amount of money paid to 18-year-olds, the constant roster turnover, and more. However, most ignore the positives, including the upward mobility of players who develop, the improved basketball play, the offensive and defensive sophistication due to veteran players, and the financial benefits for players who now profit from the billions generated by their performances. The positives far outweigh the negatives, although continuing down this path without any adjustments is not sustainable.
A major problem is men’s basketball has roughly 360 teams, and people want to believe their team — that is every team — has a chance to win the championship. We know this is untrue and has never been true. Only 37 universities have won one of the 86 NCAA Division I men’s basketball championships, including Texas Western (UTEP) and Oklahoma A&M (Oklahoma State), which have changed their names, and CCNY, which now competes in NCAA Division III. Fifteen have won multiple championships. More current NCAA Division I universities have never appeared in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament (43) than have won a championship. Our bias for the past is nostalgia, nothing more.
The biggest problem with the current free-for-all is attachment, entitlement, and ownership. Coaches feel entitled to four seasons from players because of their work to discover, evaluate, recruit, and sign players entitles them to the players’ entire college career, if they choose; they never mention the ones they push out to sign newer, better players. They believe their coaching develops the players who enter as low-major players but depart for high-major programs, and they feel cheated they do not reap the rewards. The players gain, and coaches feel they are entitled to share in that gain. They feel cheated when they do not benefit personally, ignoring, of course, their salary. They do their job — recruit and coach players — but feel entitled to more because the players now benefit financially.
Fans dislike the movement because they want the best for their alma mater. They grow attached to players, and they want the attachment to last for years, not a season. Of course, they are happy to see disappointing or unpopular players — those to whom they lack an attachment — depart, and they often show no concern for players stripped of their scholarships simply because they did not live up to the vision of the player the coaches created in their heads. Again, UCLA and Michigan fans are not complaining about transfers. Alumni from low or mid-majors that sign a high-major talent want to retain the player to push beyond their current level, maybe sneaking into a Sweet 16. They feel entitled to this experience.
However, what is the best overall system for players and teams?
Damian Lillard played at Weber State. We never saw him play in the NCAA Tournament. Is that the best system? Should a player such as Lillard play at a school for four years based on his talent when he was scouted and offered scholarships at 17 or 18 years old? Why shouldn’t players who develop or mature late be afforded greater opportunities to play at higher levels if they choose? Should Stirtz have stayed at an NCAA D2 just because he signed there out of high school, even as his coach departed for D1 jobs? Why are four years of a player’s career, potentially the final four years, determined by evaluations at a single point in time?
Imagine if Major League Baseball teams assigned draft picks to a single level for four seasons. A first-round pick might be pushed to AAA based on potential, but fail because he is not ready, whereas another player may be viewed as raw and put in rookie ball, only to conquer the level within the first season and be stuck dominating lesser competition for years. Who does that serve? Would fans enjoy watching the potential star struggle, while the other dominates a lower level?
The objective of a competition is to have the best players and teams compete against each other. The problem with the NCAA Tournament is the public’s favorite stories are the upsets. We watch for the Cinderellas, not the dominant or championship teams. Everyone loves when C.J. McCollum and Lehigh beat Duke, and few would want such an upset to disappear because McCollum transferred to Ohio State after his Patriot League Player of the Year freshman season.
Players transferring up to play for better teams against better competition is an overall good, and players transferring down to receive playing time is also an overall good. Otherwise, players are trapped at a specific level based on evaluations of their high-school performances and their decisions they made while in high school. Teenagers make bad decisions, and evaluating talent is difficult; mistakes happen. Why punish these mistakes?
The problem is when talent flows to fewer and fewer schools, increasing the disparity between the top and everyone else. Everyone wants to be one of the select few, which is not possible, and the current top is based largely on football success and tradition, which also seems unfair. The path to ascend from a low- to mid-major to the upper echelon, as UNLV, Gonzaga, Butler, and others have managed at times, appears to be fading away, although this is due as much or more to NIL than just the transfer portal.
Gonzaga built its program initially by redshirting freshmen, enabling 4th and 5th year players to possess physical advantages over more talented, but younger teams. Once they started to win and advance in the tournament consistently, they recruited better players who did not redshirt. However, they generally retained more players than other high-level programs that had more one-and-done players. They may not have matched Duke or Kentucky in recruiting rankings, but they recruited enough elite players to mix with high-level veterans.
Today, such a progression would be more difficult. A low-major program who finds an overlooked talent likely will lose the player after he outperforms the level for a year or two. The low-majors no longer can combat talent disadvantages with maturity and experience. Now, big-budget teams mix elite freshmen with the best, near-elite veterans who proved themselves at mid-majors, such as Yaxel Lendeborg (Michigan) from UAB.
The problem moving forward centers on the combination of attachment and entitlement issues — coaches and fans believing they are owed more — with the consolidation of talent, while allowing everyone to believe they have a chance. What maintains the emotional and financial interest of low-major fans when their best players continually gravitate to the bigger-budget programs? Is qualifying for the tournament only to lose by double digits to the 12th best team from a Power 4 conference sufficient?
There are several ways to embrace the current system, while providing more or better avenues for upward mobility.
Transfer/Development Fees
Much of the angst is the feelings of betrayal, and the resignation to one’s role as a stepping-stone program. Coaches feel like there is no sense finding the hidden gem or developing a player because the player will leave for more money, and the coach and program do not benefit unless they win big in the one season with the player.
One could argue the coach’s job, for which they are well-paid, is to recruit and develop the best possible players, regardless of whether or not they will transfer, but that will not ameliorate their feelings. Money, however, may make them feel better. Low-major teams and coaches may be more accepting of the current player movement if they received 10% of the NIL fee as a development fee, as developing players could transform low-majors into mid- or high-majors.
Many have highlighted European transfer fees. Transfer fees are when one club buys the player’s contract from another team, therefore transferring the right to the contracted player. Agents get involved in this process and derive much of their compensation by negotiating these deals. NCAA players do not have contracts, which is one reason the current system is as it is. They are not employees. There is no fee for transfers because there is no contract.
Development fees, which go by several names, are payments to a player’s developmental club when the player signs an initial professional contract with another club. A club develops a talented 16-year-old who signs a professional contract with a bigger club, and the bigger club compensates the youth club for development. The fee is based on years, competitive level, and more, and much less than professional transfer fees.
Development fees could be seen as a pathway to ascending from a seller to a buyer. A program signs four freshmen, develops them, and encourages their transfers to a Power 4 program. They sign for an average of $300K, netting their original program $120K to spend on new players, improving facilities, increasing travel, and more. Repeat once or twice and a program has a budget to sign and pay better and better players.
KK Mega Superbet, the club owned by super agent Miško Ražnatović sports agency BeoBasket, employed this model to build their club. They signed young players with the intention of developing and selling talented players to bigger European clubs or to enter them into the NBA Draft, as NBA teams pay up to $500,000 to buy out an international player’s contract. Now, they collect the agent fees for NIL deals when their players sign with Power 4 programs such as Illinois.
Develop a few top players within a low-major program and collect their development fees when they transfer, and the program ascends the hierarchy. This creates hope, and an avenue for low-major programs to support the current system, while attempting to become one of the high-major programs with money to spend and compete.
More Divisions
There is a clear delineation between NCAA Division I, II, and III, and each sponsors its own championships. However, the budgets of many low-major D1s are closer to the budgets of top D2 programs than to Power 4 programs. The P4 programs appear to be diverging from other D1s. It might be time to embrace a split. The P4 programs could form the Super Division and fully embrace professionalism, whereas everyone else could remain D1 and compete amongst each other with greater parity and some new rules (avoiding athletic debt, true NIL, limits on donor payments to specific players) to moderate (but not eliminate) spending.
A SuperLeague with 20-40 teams could create its own system and schedule and leave NCAA Division 1 to the remaining 300+ programs. Those 20-40 programs would be similar in stature and budgets, whereas the 300 D1 programs similarly would be aligned more closely in terms of budgets and goals. As with any group, some budgets would be higher and some would be lower, but the objective would be to reduce the spread from top to bottom. The NFL has greater competitive balance than MLB because of the hard salary cap that prevents the richest owners from unlimited spending, unlike MLB that allows the Dodgers to spend and spend. Dividing D1 into the SuperLeague with D1 as a second level might create the best competitive balance, while insuring athletes continue to profit and maintaining opportunities for athletes in all sports. It certainly appears this has been the goal for the SEC and Big10 for several years.
youtu.be/CDQqjnkThnI?si=5mTmG-Mc0ZywT9qb&t=46
Promotion/Relegation
Conferences were based originally on geography and sameness of schools: The Pac10 Conference was 10 large public tier-1 research universities located in the West, whereas the WCC included Catholic schools along the West Coast. The conferences were logical, for the most part.
Now, television contracts and greedy presidents have created monster conferences with little to no geographical or academic sense. Teams crisscross the country traveling to games, which conflicts with the NCAA’s statements about the welfare of student-athletes. A team from California playing a 9 PM EST tipoff in New Jersey on a Wednesday night is not designed for the welfare of student-athletes.
Conferences with 12 or 16 teams are unbalanced, and teams do not play a normal home-and-away schedule. A return to geographical, balanced conferences with promotion/relegation would provide a way for teams to ascend competitively.
This would start with a return to the old geographically-based conferences with loose affiliations between regional high-, mid-, and low-major conferences. There are more mid- and low-major conferences than high-majors, so some hierarchy would be necessary. Television money is dispersed largely by conferences, which is the reason for the current conference realignments and desire to be in the Big10 or SEC. Conference affiliations also are assigned for institutions, not sports, but there is no reason this must continue. Why not allow Gonzaga to play in the Pac12 for basketball and WCC for everything else?
Imagine on the West Coast, Pac12 is designated the high-major conference, WCC is mid-major 1 for basketball, Big West is mid-major 2 for basketball, and Big Sky is the low-major. Every year, the last place team in each conference is relegated, and the regular-season champion is promoted. Let’s say Washington State finishes last and is relegated from Pac12 to WCC; Gonzaga wins and is promoted to Pac12. Pepperdine finishes last and is relegated; UCSB wins and is promoted. CSUN is relegated, and University of Northern Arizona is promoted.
Teams play balanced schedules; everyone plays the other conference teams in home and away. No funny tiebreakers. Low-majors compete for promotion based on individual sports not athletic departments, which brings greater visibility and revenue, not just the conference tournament where a championship leads to a 16-seed in the NCAA Tournament. Mid-major championship teams earning promotion may be able to retain players with the revenue and competition as opposed to losing the players and starting over each season.
Summary
The current system is better than previous versions, but nostalgia for the college sports of one’s childhood largely hides this fact. Players profiting is undoubtedly a positive. Players performing well and moving to better programs is a positive for the players’ development, and the brand of basketball. The current system, however, is not perfect, and continuing with no changes or adaptations could lead to ruin, as the low-major and mid-major programs could feel no benefit as they function more like junior colleges than NCAA D1 partners. Creating pathways for these programs to benefit financially and/or to ascend to higher levels would give hope to the smaller schools, maintaining interest and re-motivating the fanbase. Imagine a program like Miami (OH) rewarded for its regular-season dominance this season with a promotion to the Big10 or Big East, enabling them to retain their coach and players because of the increased financial resources. There are ways to improve upon the current system without succumbing to nostalgia.