The Transfer Portal and Roster Management
Coaches are getting creative - and strategic - in their approach to their recruiting
One of the big trends throughout college sports in 2023-2024 has been the marked changes in the way coaches are recruiting and forming their rosters. Some staffs have instituted fairly minor tweaks to account for the Transfer Portal, and the sudden riches it can provide. For others, they’ve changed virtually everything when it comes to how they approach roster management (and roster creation).
The first big example of the power of the Transfer Portal was Coach Kim Mulkey and the women’s basketball program she took over at LSU. She hit the Transfer Portal hard and reeled in the start of what would be a major haul of talent from other programs. That was August of 2022. Eight months later, that group won LSU’s first ever national championship.
That’s a quick turnaround.
And a lot of coaches sat up and took notice.
Fast forward to 2024, and coaches continue to analyze how to adjust recruiting due to the impact of the Portal. One of those coaches is a fellow Division I basketball coach, John Calipari, who is preparing for his first season at Arkansas after leaving Kentucky.
Calipari’s creative approach to roster management in the Transfer Portal could involve a much smaller roster, per this ESPN article and comments he made on the Ways to Win podcast.
"You may think I'm crazy, but I told my staff I only want to have eight or nine guys. They're leaving anyway, and why would I develop a kid for someone else? Why would I do that?"
According to NCAA rules, a team can have up to 13 scholarship players. While most teams rarely utilize every scholarship player on the roster, the idea of using fewer scholarships because of the turnover that the bulk of Division I teams have endured in recent years could signal a major shift within the sport.
Calipari already has added seven players to his first Arkansas roster, a group that includes former Kentucky commit Boogie Fland, who is a five-star prospect, and former Florida Atlantic star Johnell Davis.
But Calipari said he wants to use the other roster spots for walk-ons and rely on those non-scholarship players and graduate assistants to help the team prepare for its opponents next season. He noted that women's college basketball teams often use non-staffers to help them in practice.
"I want those [graduate assistants] to have played in Europe or just got done playing and can still play," he said. "We can use them in practice. The women's programs have five guys that they call 'managers,' but that's who they scrimmage against. Maybe I do it that way. We have some walk-ons, we have some [graduate assistants], we have eight or nine guys and that's it. And if there is a 10th guy, he knows he's the 10th guy."
So, what does that mean for you?
You may be a Division I coach, you may not be. You may not use the Transfer Portal much right now, or it could be your new best friend.
Whatever your view towards the Transfer Portal, it’s here to stay. And since it is, here are some of the early proven approaches that we’ve seen working for our clients and other coaches we’ve talked to this year:
You need to decide what percentage of your roster will be reserved for transfers. The reason this is #1 is because this sets the foundation for every other decision that comes after it when it comes to building (or not building) your roster through the Transfer Portal. What have you ‘budgeted’ in the way of roster spots and/or scholarship dollars towards traditional roster construction by recruiting high school athletes you hope to have for four or five years, and what have you budgeted for reserving the same for transfers? Big question you need to answer as you form your philosophical foundation for this aspect of your recruiting year.
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