Let the college basketball free agency market commence.
With the college basketball season winding down, we now look toward the offseason. An offseason not dominated by workouts or coaches meetings, but by a slew of transfers. Unhappy with their current situation for whatever reason –whether it be playing time, a coaching change, a family situation or something else – numerous players will be relocating for next season.
Whether the reason be acceptable or not, transferring in college basketball is a huge problem.
The majority of transfers will have to sit out a year per NCAA regulations. The only way around this is for them to graduate from their current university and transfer to another college and major in a subject their old university did not offer.
There will plenty of players who fall into column A and plenty who fall into column B.
The most disturbing part about transferring in college basketball is it happens at such an alarming rate. According to espn.com, 10.5 percent of college basketball players transferred during last season.
Now, if you figure there are 351 teams with 12 scholarships apiece and most likely a couple of walk-ons, every team has 13 players on their roster, give or take.
If you multiply those 13 players by 351 teams, there are a grand total of around 4,563 college athletes playing Division-I basketball. Now take that 4,563 and multiply it by .105 to constitute for a 10.5 percent transfer rate.
After running those numbers, we come up with about 479 college basketball players who transferred last year.
That is enough players to fill almost 37 full rosters, and that is over three times the size of the Mountain West.
In an article on trib.com, Wyoming head coach Larry Shyatt called the transfer conundrum an epidemic and that is exactly what this is. Too many college kids are transferring. What happened to being committed to one university? There is nothing wrong with a little loyalty.
The university is paying for your education, and you owe it to them to hold up your end of the bargain and finish your college career there.
Now, there are a few exceptions. If you have family issues and you want to transfer to a school closer to home or if the coach who recruits you gets fired, you might have a valid reason to transfer.
But too many of these players are transferring because they are unhappy with their playing time or want to move to a team with a better opportunity to make it to the dance.
Many teams’ success is built around the transfer.
For example, Oregon had a Houston transfer, a UNLV graduate transfer and a Detroit graduate transfer all playing valuable minutes for their team this past season. Two of them even started.
It is an immediate fix. These players will be around the program for a year or two and move on.
On the other end of the spectrum, you have a team like North Dakota State. A team dominated by seniors who have been on the team all four years and have developed chemistry. Three of the seniors scored at least 1000 points in their Bison career. Their chemistry showed in this year’s NCAA tournament as they were able to knock off a more talented and higher-seeded Oklahoma team.
Transfers have become the nature of college basketball. Scholarships are a one-year contract and teams just hope the player returns the next year.
Wyoming has built a winning culture based around high school seniors who have been on the team for some time now. Shyatt has brought in athletes that are class acts and fans should recognize these kids are not falling victim to the disease of transferitis that is sweeping the nation.
