The NCAA transfer portal windows for college basketball would be shortened to 15 days and would open after the Final Four each year under a measure proposed by the Division I men’s and women’s basketball oversight committee.
The Division I Cabinet is scheduled to review the proposal in January. If approved, the legislation would take effect in April.
Under these proposals, the Division I women’s basketball notification-of-transfer window would be open from April 6-20, while the D-I men’s window would be open from April 7-21.
“It’s a good call,” said South Carolina women’s basketball coach Dawn Staley, who has led the Gamecocks to three national championships among seven Final Four appearance since taking over the program in 2008. “I mean, people know where they’re going. It’s an open market, even when you’re in the season. People are making calls, people are making decisions for the next opening of the transfer portal, today in real time.
“I mean, it’s weird, but that’s the world we live in. Since we’ve been in the Final Four the last couple of years, we haven’t been able to just capitalize in it, because we’re playing so long into the season, we can’t have them on campus during the times that people are having transfer portalees on campus.”
The transfer windows currently open after the second round of the Division I tournaments, and they stay open for 30 days.
“I think that’s a double-edged sword,” first-year Auburn men’s basketball coach Steven Pearl said, “because obviously you want to have the student-athlete in mind, because you have a lot of young men and women that obviously don’t make the NCAA tournament, and they want to be able to find a new home as quickly as possible.
“But I also understand the other side, because we were in the Sweet 16 last year in Atlanta, and we were doing Zoom calls with (Keyshawn Hall), like every day. And ultimately, it’s why we got him, because he really appreciated the amount of time and love that we poured into him while we were about to play the biggest games of our lives.”
The oversight committees also proposed a change regarding when student-athletes can request to enter the transfer portal after a coaching change.
Under this proposal, there would be a five-day period for a new staff to meet their current players after a head coaching hire is announced. When those five days are up, student-athletes would have a 15-day window to notify their school about entering the transfer portal.
“If you have a transfer portal that’s open during the NCAA tournament, you are going to force administrations to make rush decisions on coaching carousel decisions,” UCLA women’s basketball coach Cori Close said. “Because everyone’s going to try to have to have their coach hired by the time that the portal opens. So there’s a lot of people that are going to rush through that, and it’s just going to increase the amount of tampering that’s going to be encouraged to take place during the most important time that we want to showcase the best of the best in our game.”
If a new head coach isn’t hired within 30 days of the previous coach’s departure, that 15-day window would start beginning on the 31st day.
However, if a coaching change is made after Jan. 1, student-athletes would have to wait until the notification of transfer window opens in April.