The Great Sorting Experiment: early evidence from the transfer portal

[cjbfbp]

Every now and then, you see a "If we could do it over after having more evidence" sports article. You know, these are the ones that say something like "if we could reseed the NCAA tournament" or "if we could redo the NBA draft from several years ago."

One of the things I like about the current liberal transfer allowance is that it gives us a chance to see "what might have happened in recruiting if people knew then what they know now?"

In terms of commitments to destination schools, the transfer portal is still in its very early stages but I'm guessing we're moving closer to 200 destination commits at this point.

I decided to take a look at the destination commitments listed on Verbal Commits so far and count the ones falling into the categories below.

Players moving from:

Move Type	Count
From Power 6 Conference to Power 6 Conference	10
From Mid-Major (defined as every conference except Power 6) to Power 6	24
From Power 6 to Mid-Major	27

Now, of course, there are far more openings among Mid-Major conference schools than among Power 6 conference schools. Nevertheless, so far there are almost as many Mid-Major players moving to Power 6 schools as there are Power-Six players moving to Mid-Major Schools and far more Mid-Major players moving to P6 schools than P6 players moving to P6 schools.

It's still early and these distributions certainly could change, but right now I'm going to make a logical guess: most of our transfers likely are going to be moving down when the dust settles. There's more than a remote possibility that all but Carr (if he decides to play another season) will move down.

 

[matt]

Interesting to see. Like you, I’m curious what this looks like in a couple months.

 

[Full Speed Ahead]

So roughly three-fourths of the P6 players that enter the portal that have found another school, have ended up at a non-P6 location. That may not be a bad deal for them though -- potentially going from riding the bench to being a starter. It'll be interesting to see what percentage of players end up not landing anywhere at all.

 

[cjbfbp]

It'll be interesting to see what percentage of players end up not landing anywhere at all.

I expect that a fair number will end up either, as you say, going nowhere, or going below DI. There are a lot of players in the portal who aren't very attractive candidates.

 

[MplsGopher]

Are all the DI college rosters shrinking? It's the same pool of total players, right? I can't imagine tons of guys are coming up from DII and outright displacing DI players, maybe a couple handfuls at most.

So ... shouldn't it just be guys rearranging seats on teams, if they all still need to fill out their rosters?

 

[Powder]

You're forgetting about new high school kids filling spots.

Mashburn isn't going down a level.

 

[ethomasp31]

Are all the DI college rosters shrinking? It's the same pool of total players, right? I can't imagine tons of guys are coming up from DII and outright displacing DI players, maybe a couple handfuls at most.

So ... shouldn't it just be guys rearranging seats on teams, if they all still need to fill out their rosters?

Because of covid players are getting an extra year.

 

[MplsGopher]

Is there an absolute limit on roster sizes, that teams aren't often hitting?

Yes, I know scholarship limits ... but obviously max roster sizes are above that?

Just grasping at straws here. Obviously great point that essentially we're going to have something like 5.5-6 classes, instead of the usual five classes, going forward over the next five years.

 

[cjbfbp]

You're forgetting about new high school kids filling spots.

Mashburn isn't going down a level.

I'm not sure these comments were directed at me (because you didn't indicate that) but of course I didn't include prep recruits; this post explicitly was about movement in the transfer portal. If you want a thread about new prep commitments, do the research and write one yourself.

I'd say Mashburn's chances of dropping to a non-Power 6 school are better than 0%. With all the players in the portal, my guess is that people aren't going to spend time watching a bunch of video until they've first looked at the stats and narrowed the field that way. Mashburn has a PER of 9.4, win shares per 40 of .037, hit 39% from 2 and 27.6% from 3, didn't get a lot of steals per minute, but has a fair assist-to-turnover ratio for a freshman (not great but not terrible). And that doesn't even get us much into defense.

 

[Powder]

cjbfbp,
Not everything in life is about you. Sorry if you didn't know that. I was responding to MplsGopher's post/question directly above my comment.

 

[nooram]

 

[cjbfbp]

cjbfbp,
Not everything in life is about you. Sorry if you didn't know that. I was responding to MplsGopher's post/question directly above my comment.

Well, one appeared to be directed at an observation I made in the top post. I wasn't sure about the other. Next time, reply to a particular individual to avoid misunderstanding.

 

[cjbfbp]

Well, that was unexpected.

 

[Goldboy]

Every now and then, you see a "If we could do it over after having more evidence" sports article. You know, these are the ones that say something like "if we could reseed the NCAA tournament" or "if we could redo the NBA draft from several years ago."

One of the things I like about the current liberal transfer allowance is that it gives us a chance to see "what might have happened in recruiting if people knew then what they know now?"

In terms of commitments to destination schools, the transfer portal is still in its very early stages but I'm guessing we're moving closer to 200 destination commits at this point.

I decided to take a look at the destination commitments listed on Verbal Commits so far and count the ones falling into the categories below.

Players moving from:

Move Type	Count
From Power 6 Conference to Power 6 Conference	10
From Mid-Major (defined as every conference except Power 6) to Power 6	24
From Power 6 to Mid-Major	27

Now, of course, there are far more openings among Mid-Major conference schools than among Power 6 conference schools. Nevertheless, so far there are almost as many Mid-Major players moving to Power 6 schools as there are Power-Six players moving to Mid-Major Schools and far more Mid-Major players moving to P6 schools than P6 players moving to P6 schools.

It's still early and these distributions certainly could change, but right now I'm going to make a logical guess: most of our transfers likely are going to be moving down when the dust settles. There's more than a remote possibility that all but Carr (if he decides to play another season) will move down.

while thats the early results there is about 1200 players in the portal it may change over time.

 

[cjbfbp]

while thats the early results there is about 1200 players in the portal it may change over time.

Yes, I know that. That's why I said "early evidence" in the title.

 

[60's Guy]

A fair percentage will stay where they are at when they entered the portal.

 

[cjbfbp]

A fair percentage will stay where they are at when they entered the portal.

You know, I decided to test that theory. I went to Verbal Commits for 2020 transfers and scanned A through L of the listings showing both the transfer and destination schools. There were 1025 D1 transfers listed for 2020 so a ballpark guess is that I scanned through at least 400+ of them. I didn't find a single player who did what you suggested.

Of course, there were a number of players who didn't have a destination school listed. I tested about five or six of those to see if they were still with their old schools this year. None of them were.

This is only a sample of course but it's enough to conclude that what you are suggesting probably is pretty rare.

 

[goldenboy]

I looked at both Verbal Commits and 24/7 transfer portal list for 2020 and both showed dozens of players with no destination. Unless the kids that decide to stay where they are at get removed from the list, it looks like everybody leaves and a good number of them never play again.

 

[cjbfbp]

Unless the kids that decide to stay where they are at get removed from the list, it looks like everybody leaves and a good number of them never play again.

I did go back to check their transfer listings for 2018 to see what they did for Matz and he was not on their list. I do believe he was listed with them originally so maybe they do remove players who remain at their schools from the list. Still, I suspect there are only a very small number who fall into the category in a given year.