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Taking stock of transfer activity
Recent study shows most players don't move up when they find a new school. Plus: It was a relatively quiet day for transfer activity, which means some wild rumors got floated in social media. Also, the latest scheduling news, and assistant coach activity to note.
Mike Miller
May 06, 2025
In partnership with
Good morning! If the NBA Playoffs keep this up, they’re going to trademark May Madness.
Let’s get to Monday’s college basketball news.
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1. Data shows players usually transfer down
There were roughly 2,500 college basketball players who entered the transfer portal this spring. What awaits them? It’s usually not transferring up.
A comprehensive study from AD Advisors and Tidmark Partners recently released a study that analyzed every transfer dating back to 2019. That’s more than 14,000 moves.
The study divided players into three tiers. Tier 1 is the ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, SEC and Big East. Tier 2 is the A-10, AAC, MWC and WCC. Tier 3 is everyone else. And the big takeaway? Most players transfer down a tier, or out of D-I. From the study:
Approximately 65% of all the Division I basketball-playing student-athletes who entered the transfer portal, regardless of the competition level their career began at, either transferred down a level or did not find a new home. At the highest competition level in this study (Tier 1), the Power 4 conferences and the Big East, 70% of student-athletes who entered the portal transferred down or did not find a new home. At the lowest competition level in this study (Tier 3), which was the majority of DI programs, 61% of student-athletes who entered the portal transferred down or did not find a new home. For those student-athletes, the only down transfer destinations are programs outside of Division I. Additionally, the most common outcome for Tier 1 student-athletes who entered the portal and remained in Tier 1 was intra-conference destinations. Further, the majority of these portal entrants still transferred to a lower-ranked team.
More of a visual learner? The study included three charts that represented the flow of transfers. Here’s a look a the flow from tier 1, which includes most of the players who get lots of the attention in the Daily. The most common outcome for a tier 1 player was transferring to a tier 3 program.
The same path follows for athletes in tier 2 and tier 3. They usually transfer down or out of D-I.
There are about 30% of tier 1 portal entrants who remain in tier 1, which is about 6% of the overall transfer. I also like this nugget: “A slight majority of 50.5% of Tier 1 student-athletes transferred to teams with a worse KenPom rating, and 45.3% transferred to teams with a better KenPom rating. Also, 4% returned to the schools hat they entered the portal from.”
It’s a fascinating study worth your time (and only about 14 pages in all), if you haven’t read it already.
Is all this down transfer movement a bad thing? Most of the transfer portal attention is on NIL and the movement from tier 1 to tier 1, like it’s professional free agency. But perhaps movement down tiers isn’t the worst thing, especially if it means more playing time. That’s for another study.
2. The market for Des Claude + transfer portal moves
It was a relatively quiet Monday when it came to actual transfer portal news.
