Is the transfer portal ruining college basketball?

Caleb Love is entering the transfer portal. Which at first glance probably shouldn’t be a national news headline. After all, there are thousands of Division 1 basketball players alone entering the portal each year now, and he is only one of them. The thing is that Caleb is not just any player, he was the 18th ranked recruit in the class of 2020. And he is the starting point guard for the North Carolina Tar Heels. Or at least he was. Caleb was their leading scorer in 2023, and that is just a year after helping to lead them through the NCAA tournament into the national championship game. So it’s not every day that a player his caliber with such success in his current situation chooses to leave a program. But that is exactly what Caleb Love is choosing to do, and the real question is why? 

The answer is that it’s not really about Caleb at all, and more about what college basketball recently has become. The transfer portal has made it possible for essentially any player to simply start their own free agency, and look for a new college to take their talents to. And the age of NIL has only complicated this, where just one year ago Isaiah Wong threatened to transfer from Miami, because he was unhappy with his NIL deal. This is not what the NCAA had in mind when they changed either rule, but it’s the world we live in now. And regardless of what the real reasons are, at least on the surface, it doesn’t seem like that much went wrong for Caleb Love at UNC. He was the leader of a nationally competitive team, that won a lot of games, but needed to win a few more to have a shot at dancing their way back through March Madness. 

I’m sure he has his reasons just like everyone else in the transfer portal. But the problem is that he doesn’t actually need one. Whether he just got sick and tired of the food in the dining hall or wanted to attend a campus near the beach, Caleb Love has that privilege now, to transfer whenever it suits him. It may work out for him, but in all likelihood it won’t. There are 358 D1 men’s basketball teams, and only 1 of them can be the national champion. He already played in one title game, so the odds of ever getting back there in any other uniform are slim to none. The transfer portal may be an option, but it is not always the best one. Here’s to hoping that Caleb and everyone in the portal this year, finds exactly what they are looking for. But the buckets don’t always come easier on the other side. So I wouldn’t bet on that.

KNOW THE GAME. WIN THE GAME.

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