Transfer tricks? Nah.

Good morning! And welcome to A Friday edition of the Daily without one of Tristan’s list. I’m filling in for a few weeks for the guy. But hey, there’s still good stuff in here!

Let's get to it.

1. Recipe for success in transfer era

Bad news for everyone out there who daydreamed during match class. Especially for those of you went into coaching.

The good news? Building a winning roster in the transfer portal era isn’t only about math.

Perhaps you’ve already read Evan Miyakawa’s recent article about building a roster during today’s portal era. And maybe you skimmed it, memorized the bullet points — bring in talented players, return at least 50% of your minutes from the previous season and get players who’ll be there at least two seasons — and thought to yourself, “Yeah, we’re already trying to do this.”

Those three points highlight what programs have always tried to do. Have a mix of talented players, spread them out across multiple classes, and hope they don’t jump to the NBA right away.

That said, Evan’s article is worth reading for the specifics around each bullet point and the examples used to illustrate that success. For example, recent one seeds and their composition.

For 2024-25, each conference has a handful of teams that meet these thresholds. The Big 12 has five: Houston, BYU, Cincinnati, Iowa State and Kansas (just barely). Three of those (Houston, Iowa State and Kansas) are viewed by analysts as the league’s top teams. (Baylor and Arizona are the other two.)

Talent is frequently the component that overrides those three core ideas. After all, if the returning players aren’t as good as another team’s new roster, why bank on the returning players? (Thus, the endless arguments for the preseason.)

That’s all the upside.

The potential downside of lack of continuity also is spelled out in Evan’s article. And in today’s transfer portal era, there are several teams that fit that profile.

But the thing is … one of those 16 teams shown above will have success this season. Yet instead of an outlier, it’ll be viewed as a possible template for other programs in need of a revamp.

And this is all obviously the broad strokes and doesn’t take into account how all these pieces mesh together. What if the returning minutes don’t include a NPOY? Or the whole backcourt? How do you account for chemistry?

OK, maybe math is a small part.

2. How Kansas State grew its NIL chest

While we’re on the topic of transfers and roster building…

When Kansas State landed Dug McDaniel and Brendan Hausen earlier this spring, it showed the Cats were committed to an impactful backcourt. When it added Achor Achor, it was a signal that they’d shell out for an versatile up-transfer. And with Ugonna Onyenso, well, that was a defensive game-changer.

But once Coleman Hawkins committed to Kansas State last week for a reported $2 million + NIL deal, it showed K-State could hang with any of the upper tier programs in the Big 12.

So how’d K-State ramp up its NIL game?

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