March Madness during the transfer portal: the biggest talent combine ever

In some ways, the NCAA Tournament now doubles as the most important three-week scouting combine on the college hoops calendar.

They are playing for more than trips to the Final Four and a chance to cut down the nets at March Madness. It is also a chance to see and be seen by other teams.

The transfer portal opened Monday, giving college basketball players a 30-day window to switch schools. It means some of the 1,000 or so players on the 68 teams that qualified for the NCAA Tournament — including some of the 250 who are still alive in the Sweet 16 — are playing to win, but also for more money, more playing time, a chance to be seen and potentially set things up for next year.

“Anytime you can show up on a big stage and realize there are certain guys who are wired different, to take a hold of big moments, that’s almost a personality trait,” said Doug Stewart, the chief of staff for coach Kevin Young at BYU. “It’s the data that doesn’t come up in analytics and film.”

Shortly after the best single moment of the tournament so far — Derik Queen’s buzzer-beating bank shot that sent Maryland to the Sweet 16 — Queen was asked what his coach, Kevin Willard, means to him and his teammates.

“First, he did pay us the money, so we’ve got to listen to him,” Queen said

He drew laughs, but it spoke to the realities of what college sports is today. And yet, underneath the millions being made thanks to NIL are a host of concerns that generate fewer headlines.

“March Madness is a great opportunity to see great players, and for athletic departments to go back and check their budgets and see if they can afford these players,” said Len Elmore, the former player and TV analyst who is now a senior lecturer for Columbia University’s sports management program. “When you think about institutions that hire general managers for athletic departments, the line of demarcation between pros and colleges has been blurred, if not obliterated.”

Trends since 2021 indicate that around 2,000 men’s players will enter the portal this year, a quarter of whom won’t get signed by anyone.

For Stewart and others with jobs like his, scouting and trying to find perfect fits is a year-round project. Marc VandeWettering, the chief of staff for basketball operations at Wisconsin, said “you know who people are before they become available.”

“If you wait to do your research until a name pops up in the portal, you’re going to be behind and not be able to move quickly enough,” VandeWettering said.

Wisconsin’s 91-89 loss to BYU on Saturday also brought more urgency to part of the job VandeWettering and the staff were hoping to put off a few more weeks — trying to keep players on their own team who might be looking elsewhere.

“We’ve been proactive with the guys who are eligible for retention,” he said. “We’ve had some good conversations with those guys, but it takes some time to get things finalized.”

In 2021, under legal pressure, the NCAA relaxed (and eventually eliminated) the rule that forced players to sit out a year before transferring. Also that year, name, image and likeness deals were permitted, allowing players to make money playing college sports.

It rewrote the book on program building, while also framing the futures of the players in a much different light. Now, there’s another option besides staying put or going pro — finding another team to play for.

Then, there’s the problem of timing. The issue first came up last season, when the portal opened on the day after the March Madness brackets came out (it was pushed back a week this year), changing the calculus for some players (and schools) who were playing in the tournament while also looking elsewhere.

That dynamic was most conspicuously illustrated during football season, when players — Penn State backup quarterback Beau Pribula was the poster child for this — were leaving teams as the transfer portal opened in that sport right in time for the playoffs.

“We’re doing a disservice to the sport when we have the transfer portal, which is de facto free agency, in the middle of a very important playoff,” Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel said. “I’m hopeful that kids will focus. But we know there are people around them, in their ears, about what value they have and where they can go. It doesn’t lend itself to a great look for college athletics.”

It could be argued that the same three weeks that lead to a title for one program and lots of memories for others for 2025 are every bit as crucial to those that want to be on the sport’s biggest stage in 2026, ’27 and beyond.



(AP Photo Charlie Reidel)