Last spring men's college basketball coaches hit the recruiting trail, like they do every year, to watch the next wave of high school prospects. Most descended on the Indianapolis area, where Nike was hosting its second of four EYBL sessions.
Unlike previous years, though, the biggest storylines coming out of the weekend didn't center around the under-the-radar prospect with the breakout performance, or which college coaches were watching a certain player. And 11 months later, two of those storylines still resonate: The lack of coaches in attendance, and Nijel Pack's commitment to Miami.
The two aren't unrelated. While the grassroots event still attracted hundreds of college coaches, it was also noticed that many were still on their own campuses, hosting transfer targets.
"At that time, we're recruiting 2023s. When the portal opens up, it changes a lot of things," NC State coach Kevin Keatts, who was in attendance at the Nike EYBL session, said about the spring travel. "You have to look at what's important. Do I have a chance at someone who's played somewhere [in college] or am I going to stay here and watch future recruits?"
Last spring, Pack was the top player remaining in the transfer portal, and committed to Miami over Ohio State and Purdue the weekend of the grassroots event. Shortly after his commitment went public, it was announced he had also agreed to an $800,000 NIL deal with John Ruiz and LifeWallet.
Marquette coach Shaka Smart remembers the buzz that immediately went around the coaches' sections in the facility when both pieces of news hit social media.
"That changed transfer recruiting forever," he said.
The portal behemoth
The transfer portal is now a season unto itself, one that runs concurrently with the NCAA tournament and the coaching carousel, and then extends another several weeks into April, May and sometimes even further. It's become the primary way for many teams to build, or at least finetune, their roster, with only a handful of high-major programs choosing not to sign a single transfer last offseason.
With around 1,800 players entering the transfer portal in each of the past two academic years, the emphasis on signing impact freshmen has diminished. The numbers bear that out in convincing fashion.
Of the top 100 recruits in the class of 2022, according to the Recruiting Services Consensus Index, only 17 are averaging double figures in scoring this season. Eleven of those 17 were top-25 prospects. Of the top 100 transfers in ESPN's transfer rankings last spring, a whopping 62 are averaging double figures.
The numbers are similar for 2021: Twenty-one top-100 recruits, 13 top-25 recruits, 53 of 100 transfers.
Before the one-time transfer waiver passed in 2021 and the portal numbers spiked dramatically, the stats were still not great for freshmen: