The portal is out of control

[ProudUte]

And I believe the NCAA knows this, especially in basketball.  It is NOT good for college basketball.  What can be done to fix it?  I have not researched this thoroughly, but here are a few ideas.

– Guarantee the player at least a two-year scholarship unless the kid breaks a school or team rule. (This gives the kid some protection.)

– The portal for basketball opens April 1 and closes May 31.  Kids can only enter the portal between these dates and a team has until June 30 to pick up someone on the portal.

– A player can make one change without losing a year of eligibility.  A second change would cost them a year and require them to sit out one season.

I understand young kids will make decisions that turn out to be a bad fit for them and deserve a chance to move on.  But, I don’t think it is good for the player or the schools to allow mass changes.  I also understand that some schools were not loyal to the players.  That is why I have the two-year scholarship on my list of potential changes.

I cannot speak for anyone else, but this portal-crap has made it so I am less interested in college basketball.  

This post has nothing to do with LK or coach Smith and who should or should not be fired.  I am just not happy with the portal system as it now stands.

 

[GameForAnyFuss]

Again, I think there’s a simple solution: Don’t allow players to transfer unless the coach leaves, in which case they can transfer freely anywhere without penalty.

[ProudUte]

I would not have a big problem with that, but it doesn’t allow for a kid making a bad initial choice.  So, I don’t think that it is that simple IMO.

 

[GameForAnyFuss]

Why should an allowance be made for a kid making a bad initial choice? It’s a good life lesson: Make a good choice. Don’t expect to be bailed out when you make a bad choice. Maybe that would push kids to study schools/situations harder during the recruiting process.

Where we need to have leeway is where a kid makes a good choice and then circumstances change in a way that’s outside the kid’s control.

[Trailgoat]

Very sad, if some of these kids are rolling the dice throwing away scholarhips. I am sure there is a lot more to it on both sides since most D1 athletic scholarships are performance based year to year. Either way, the portal is not helping the perception of college BB from a consumer/fan stand point.

[EagleMountainUte]

Agreed. Life is about choices with plenty of mistakes. The hard life lessons make you a better person.

[Utephoria]

I am a big fan of loyality, I am not a fan of the transfer portal and how seemlessly easy it is for these athletes to jump from team to team now. So I agree there needs to be more controls in place to deal with the portal if there is going to continue to be one in the future.

Listening to the local sports radio yesterday afternoon, they had former basketball Ute Pace Mannion on the air speaking to his son Nicco’s college experience and how he left early and landed on the Warriors. He stated that Sean Miller recruited him with promises, like every coach does, of Arizona basketball being a guard oriented system. Once Nicco committed, Miller changed the system to fit the big men on the team (inside/outside first). The Mannions were upset (Pace) and wanted Nicco to either look to the NBA or transfer to another school. 

So I believe parents play a large role in these kids tranfering from school to school because they were not promised what was told to them during recruting, coaching changes and it is so easy to transfer now.

In hindsight, the Mannions wished they would have looked at Utah a little harder because of the system Larry K ran. Rylan Jones was trying his hardest to get Nicco to come to Utah. I think it would have been difficult with Nicco and Rylan wanting to be starting point guards for the Utes at the time.   

[utefansince79]

In Rick Majerus’s Life on a Napkin, he talked about when he recruited Phil Cullen (out of Chelan, WA). 

Many of the PAC 12 schools were promising Phil lots of playing time telling him he would be the star of the team, and Rick paid a visit to his home and told him what his weaknesses were he needed to focus on, and that with hard work he may be able to earn some modest playing time.  Phil ended up signing with Utah and said he felt that Rick was the only coach that he perceived was being honest with him.

Sure these kids seem to want to always find something greener on the other side of the fence, but some of it comes down to coaches making too many promises they can’t deliver on to too many players.