May 15, 2023
Locked on Women’s Basketball: Closing the NCAA portal door
By The Next
Missy discusses the NCAA transfer portal — 60-day window and why many student-athletes transfer
It’s time for another Locked on Women’s Basketball podcast episode. Host Missy Heidrick walks through all the news and notes of the happenings in the NCAA transfer portal now that the 60-day window is closed. Who’s on the move, who’s making moves and what it means going forward?
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Missy talks about why many student-athletes are looking to transfer:
“Number one, we see NIL’s name, image and likeness continuing to be a very big part of what happens in this process. We also know that there still are those COVID years of eligibility from the pandemic time that student-athletes are able to utilize; they have the ability, maybe it was a redshirt early or throughout their medical redshirt, they might be on a campus five to six years, that gives them eligibility, they may look to go somewhere else.
That’s why the numbers are where they are. We also know there’s those postgraduate graduate transfers. For instance, we see a lot of names from the Ivy League in the transfer portal. Well, part of that is because the Ivy League made a decision that they were not going to do postgraduate transfers. Therefore, once someone has used up their eligibility at an Ivy League institution, they are not going to be able to stay for that fifth year and continue and use that COVID year. So these Ivy League student-athletes hop to the portal and find a home to utilize that fifth year as a graduate transfer. That happens also all across the country, not just the Pacific. But that’s why we see Ivy League student-athletes as grad transfers in the portal more than probably from other leagues.”
Missy talks about the 60-day window for the NCAA transfer portal:
“We’re talking about the NCAA transfer portal. It’s been that magic 60-day window we say it’s kind of like a magic door swings open, people jump in, we see them find a home and then it closes and they’ve got time to figure out what that looks like. The 60-day window is really about the technicality a student-athlete can take as much time as they want to make that decision. We see a lot happen immediately; we see some take a few weeks.
And yet there are still hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of names and student-athletes in that transfer portal that haven’t found a home yet. We hope that for a lot of them, they are able to find the right place for them. It also not only comes to a student-athlete, but you have to think about it also; I think for a lot of coaches and say, how can I not necessarily overhaul my roster?”
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