NCAA’s Transfer portal officially opens to the sound of Cinderella’s death

Wind up your stop watches, mark your calendars, the transfer portal is officially open in NCAA athletics. If one thing is for sure, it’s going to be a wild 30 days of complete uncertainty. Go figure.

With the 2025 NCAA men’s basketball tournament just reaching the second weekend of action, teams with higher Name, Image, and Likeness valuations appear to have leveraged their financial advantages to achieve improved performances compared to previous years.

The introduction of NIL opportunities has allowed prominent programs to attract and retain top talent, which has translated into on-court success.​ As if these ‘blue bloods’ needed any further help.

For instance, the Duke Blue Devils, led by standout freshman Cooper Flagg—who holds the highest NIL valuation at $4.8 million—have demonstrated exceptional performance, advancing to the Sweet 16.

Similarly, the Arkansas Razorbacks have benefited from substantial financial support, including a $5 million annual NIL budget funded by billionaire John H. Tyson. This investment facilitated the hiring of head coach John Calipari and bolstered the team’s competitiveness, enabling them to reach the round of 32 after defeating Kansas.

Competitively, the tournament has seen a notable decline in the success of lower-seeded “Cinderella” teams. For the first time since 2017, no team seeded 13 or higher advanced past the round of 64.

This shift is largely attributed to recent changes in college sports, including looser transfer rules and the advent of athlete compensation, which have strengthened major conference teams while weakening mid-major programs. ​WSJ

Looser transfer rules have already hit San Diego State. Over the weekend starting point guard Nick Boyd declared his intentions on leaving an Aztecs program that has won over 21 games in each of the last 8 seasons, as well as reaching 5 straight NCAA tournament appearances.

It will be Boyd’s third team in as many years. The motivation? Has to be the money. As we speak, Aztec Nation is on hold with bated breath at the thought of losing any more players to the portal.

But can you blame a young man?

They say don’t hate the player—hate the game. If that’s the case, sports fans all over may begin to lose passion for one of the world’s most excitable spectacles of sport around.

Not exactly the thing the NCAA wants to hear. But unless these issues deter sports gamblers and the bottom line in that industry—nothing is likely to change.

While these NIL and transfer portal factors suggest a correlation between higher revenues and improved tournament performance, it’s important to note that success in the NCAA tournament is influenced by multiple factors, including coaching, team dynamics, and individual player development.

But when you have zero salary cap and zero transfer limits, the Cinderlla’s of the nation are relegated to be those developmental institutions where both players and coaches can use as stepping stones.

But is that really good for the sport?

Utah State is likely losing their head coach Jerrod Calhoun to West Virginia. That would be the Aggies third coach in as many years. Each did a superb job in reaching their tournament goals, with or without effective player retention. This is not the norm and shouldn’t be expected that they can sustain such success.

Whether you like it or not, this is the state of the game. Without a true leader or governing body to yield real influence towards a more equitable and level playing field both on and off the court, it’s an NIL world and we are all just living and dying in it.