Permanent Change to Transfer Rules - everyone gets one without sitting

[proelitedota]

Amen man, you're preaching to the choir.

This is an incredibly positive development for Duke Basketball since we're the gold standard so we can treat every other program as almost a farm system to feed us the best transfers who are still not high up on draft boards or decide to stay in the college realm for whatever reason.

Duke's roster building strategy going forward:

1. Recruit the top flight OADs who project as future NBA starters
2. Get 2-5 top tier transfers to fill out the rest of the starter and take up the remaining starting spots
3. Recruit Top 100+ recruits like Vrank and Goldwire who are fine being bench depth and spot minute players with the potential for more should an injury arise or if they organically improve tremendously

We can let the other teams do the player development for us and we can reload with All-Star college teams year after year to win championships.

The future looks bright!!

I think this rule also makes us more attractive to 4 star recruits like Coleman than before. Previously they might have been worried about a year wasted sitting if Duke didn't work out. Now if it doesn't work out they can always transfer without penality to another school with a year of Duke experience, practice, s&c, exposure under their belt. This removes the commitment concern for recruits.

I equate this transfer rule to the arrival of dating apps to the scene. More dating and less marriages. More choices, less commitments. The stuff we care about is still happening. The game is still strong.

We need to bring in 6-7 man classes a year from now on.

[weezie]

One and done.
Four and done.
One and transfer...

Half and run.

[75Crazie]

We can let the other teams do the player development for us and we can reload with All-Star college teams year after year to win championships.

The future looks bright!!

And the very best aspect of this ... no need to pay fawning obeisance to any inconvenient academic requirements, if these all-stars are just expected to stay for one year. A true win-win

[arnie]

The potential for Duke is immense. We can identify mid-majors and others as stepping stones for promising players --- and then, having them transfer to Duke, they can't transfer again. Just kidding, but I am sure there will be some interesting recruiting tactics and strategy.

Except in a few years kids will start asking for exemptions after making a bad transfer. Suspect the rules will be changed quickly to unlimited transfers.

[lotusland]

The potential for Duke is immense. We can identify mid-majors and others as stepping stones for promising players --- and then, having them transfer to Duke, they can't transfer again. Just kidding, but I am sure there will be some interesting recruiting tactics and strategy.

Yeah just wait until the Boosters get involved with transfer recruitment. Tactics will be very interesting indeed.

Side note - idk if the next generation of college alumni will continue to finance athletics to the same extent. Unless they can watch it on their phone and it doesn’t last more than 5 minutes and it’s free, they don’t seem to be interested .

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

Yeah just wait until the Boosters get involved with transfer recruitment. Tactics will be very interesting indeed.

Side note - idk if the next generation of college alumni will continue to finance athletics to the same extent. Unless they can watch it on their phone and it doesn’t last more than 5 minutes and it’s free, they don’t seem to be interested .

This is an interesting question. Certainly the entertainment dollars for the most recent college graduates are spent differently. Hadn't considered the athletics angle.

[ice-9]

Amen man, you're preaching to the choir.

This is an incredibly positive development for Duke Basketball since we're the gold standard so we can treat every other program as almost a farm system to feed us the best transfers who are still not high up on draft boards or decide to stay in the college realm for whatever reason.

Duke's roster building strategy going forward:

1. Recruit the top flight OADs who project as future NBA starters
2. Get 2-5 top tier transfers to fill out the rest of the starter and take up the remaining starting spots
3. Recruit Top 100+ recruits like Vrank and Goldwire who are fine being bench depth and spot minute players with the potential for more should an injury arise or if they organically improve tremendously

We can let the other teams do the player development for us and we can reload with All-Star college teams year after year to win championships.

The future looks bright!!

Ya know...I initially thought this was written sarcastically. I don't know when I became the old man yelling to young'uns to get off my lawn, but college basketball is becoming a totally different sport. It has been degrees of adjustment year to year, but if you step back and take a 10-year view, the sport has changed so much for Duke.

Change is constant so if you want to keep winning you have to keep adapting...sure. But is the current version enjoyable?

[kako]

Perhaps different than some others, I am all for these changes. It's tough for me to stomach how much money is made off the players, while restricting those same players financially and logistically. Any and all ways that can loosen up the proverbial purse strings gets my vote.

The successful programs will recognize the changes, embrace them, and use them to their advantage. As long as Duke does well, kids will want to come to Duke because they will get exposure. Some will be destined for the NBA, and Duke will usually be fortunate to have them for a year (like Zion). Others may not be a shoe in for the pros when they start, but by the end of the season they will want to take a shot to play in the Association (like Frank Jackson). Maybe some will need a season or two more to get more minutes/experience or bet on themselves to push their stock up, then go pro (like Kennard or Tre Jones). If they don't see enough playing time and perhaps can't compete with the talent coming in, they may transfer (AOC, Brake, JGold, Coleman) or even just decide school was never for them anyway, so why not try to make a living at it (Maggette, Steward, perhaps?). Some guys will be recruited to be role players (JGold) or practice players (Worthington). They can get degrees at Duke, but if they don't like it, they can transfer. Or (like Bates Jones) they can be a grad transfer, pick up a post-grad degree from Duke, and be a bench guy (and I'm sure bench guys will get a shot if they can play, like JRobinson). Duke will just need to balance this out to be successful by embracing the change.

Duke will still have 4 year players. They will not be a Zion. But they could be a MP3, a JRobinson, a Zoubek. Someone that actually does need 4 years, ones that blossom as upperclassmen. If Baker has the great year we've all been waiting for next year, we will all shower him with the love we want to give to the senior. We will talk about his progression, watching him grow. Baker could have transferred, but he didn't. I'm not throwing shade at those who did, just happy that he didn't. I'm rooting for him next year.

Some may mourn the changes, stating they want things the way they used to be. People are entitled to their opinions. Sure, I loved watching guys play for 4 years (5, in cases like Nate James). I loved knowing guys like Grant Hill would play for multiple years. But as college hoops grew, it took me time to recognize how much schools and the NCAA were making off the sweat labor of these kids. Now, I'm a huge proponent for guys having the freedom to make decisions for themselves that others in the machine have been doing. They should have all the rights that the coaches have - to change schools, to reneg on contracts, to go pro, to own their images, etc. The next step will be to find ways to share a piece of the pie with players. Maybe, just maybe, if the NCAA throws them a bone, some may stay longer in school.

No matter what happens, I'll still watch Duke because they are Duke... and because of the school down the street in Pantone 278.

9F

[gep]

Does this apply to in-season transfers as well? Could a player start in the fall at one school, transfer and enroll at the new school for the spring semester, and then be eligible to play at the new school in January?

Seems like the rule places an incentive to recruit one-time transfers more than high school recruits. The one-time transfers have already used up that transfer so if they transfer again they would have to sit out a year, they would be less likely to transfer out of the program. Incoming freshmen could bail at any time. Getting a rising sophomore from the portal would seem to be better than getting a non-OAD incoming freshman in that regard.

Yes... and they will be one-year experienced too.

Someone speculated that you have to enter the transfer portal, and that it would apply to the NEXT year. So, no, you can't transfer midseason and play for two different teams in the same season. This might almost entirely eliminate midseason transfers.


Yes. There was an unnamed Big-12 coach (likely Chris Beard or Scott Drew) who said flat-out that he didn't waste time on the high school recruiting. His theory was that he wasn't going to land the one-and-dones, so it didn't make sense to waste time on high schoolers when he could use the grad transfer (and then this year the regular transfer) route and get proven veterans. I strongly suspect that the smart programs are the ones who will figure out how to navigate the available one-time transfers best.

And it could be an absolute boon for us. If we can keep landing multiple one-and-done talents annually and augment that annually with transfers, we could combine elite young talent with proven experienced talent and have a huge advantage moving forward.

I expect that Coach K and staff will figure this out

The potential for Duke is immense. We can identify mid-majors and others as stepping stones for promising players --- and then, having them transfer to Duke, they can't transfer again. Just kidding, but I am sure there will be some interesting recruiting tactics and strategy.

This seems like the most probable scenario...

I don’t think this will help us retain players who are unhappy with their PT. In fact, we may lose more of our freshmen—those who came in thinking that the very fact that Duke recruited them means they are really good, but then were disappointed in their limited PT, will find the portal more appealing than in the past.. But if we can learn to take advantage of the transfer portal and actually recruit transfers, we could benefit as you say. Of course K is a master at adapting, so maybe we will be fine. But regardless I think it is a disappointing decision by the NCAA.

This is, I think, the major thinking going forward.

Amen man, you're preaching to the choir.

This is an incredibly positive development for Duke Basketball since we're the gold standard so we can treat every other program as almost a farm system to feed us the best transfers who are still not high up on draft boards or decide to stay in the college realm for whatever reason.

Duke's roster building strategy going forward:

1. Recruit the top flight OADs who project as future NBA starters
2. Get 2-5 top tier transfers to fill out the rest of the starter and take up the remaining starting spots
3. Recruit Top 100+ recruits like Vrank and Goldwire who are fine being bench depth and spot minute players with the potential for more should an injury arise or if they organically improve tremendously

We can let the other teams do the player development for us and we can reload with All-Star college teams year after year to win championships.

The future looks bright!!

If this works... wow, Duke may well be the "power" team in this new era, given essentially all basketball programs will "suffer" the same transfer maladies...

AND... continue to recruit the *best* HS recruits... OAD or otherwise.

[arnie]

To be clear, moving forward players will permanently be allowed to transfer once without sitting out a year.

Curious I haven’t heard any staggering numbers of football transfers yet. Aware of a few, but nothing like b-ball. Is the timing for football transfers different or just underreported so far?

[knicknut]

Perversely, might this mean it's better to recruit freshman transfers than HS seniors as multi-year players? That way, they've already 'burned' their free transfer and will be more likely to stick it out and work their way up the depth chart from sophomore to senior year rather than have to sit out a year to become a 4th year junior at a third school.

Edit: Sorry, I thought I skimmed the thread properly but I see sagegrouse and mo.st.dukie brought this up. Need coffee.

[thedukeman]

Perhaps different than some others, I am all for these changes. It's tough for me to stomach how much money is made off the players, while restricting those same players financially and logistically. Any and all ways that can loosen up the proverbial purse strings gets my vote.

The successful programs will recognize the changes, embrace them, and use them to their advantage. As long as Duke does well, kids will want to come to Duke because they will get exposure. Some will be destined for the NBA, and Duke will usually be fortunate to have them for a year (like Zion). Others may not be a shoe in for the pros when they start, but by the end of the season they will want to take a shot to play in the Association (like Frank Jackson). Maybe some will need a season or two more to get more minutes/experience or bet on themselves to push their stock up, then go pro (like Kennard or Tre Jones). If they don't see enough playing time and perhaps can't compete with the talent coming in, they may transfer (AOC, Brake, JGold, Coleman) or even just decide school was never for them anyway, so why not try to make a living at it (Maggette, Steward, perhaps?). Some guys will be recruited to be role players (JGold) or practice players (Worthington). They can get degrees at Duke, but if they don't like it, they can transfer. Or (like Bates Jones) they can be a grad transfer, pick up a post-grad degree from Duke, and be a bench guy (and I'm sure bench guys will get a shot if they can play, like JRobinson). Duke will just need to balance this out to be successful by embracing the change.

Duke will still have 4 year players. They will not be a Zion. But they could be a MP3, a JRobinson, a Zoubek. Someone that actually does need 4 years, ones that blossom as upperclassmen. If Baker has the great year we've all been waiting for next year, we will all shower him with the love we want to give to the senior. We will talk about his progression, watching him grow. Baker could have transferred, but he didn't. I'm not throwing shade at those who did, just happy that he didn't. I'm rooting for him next year.

Some may mourn the changes, stating they want things the way they used to be. People are entitled to their opinions. Sure, I loved watching guys play for 4 years (5, in cases like Nate James). I loved knowing guys like Grant Hill would play for multiple years. But as college hoops grew, it took me time to recognize how much schools and the NCAA were making off the sweat labor of these kids. Now, I'm a huge proponent for guys having the freedom to make decisions for themselves that others in the machine have been doing. They should have all the rights that the coaches have - to change schools, to reneg on contracts, to go pro, to own their images, etc. The next step will be to find ways to share a piece of the pie with players. Maybe, just maybe, if the NCAA throws them a bone, some may stay longer in school.

No matter what happens, I'll still watch Duke because they are Duke... and because of the school down the street in Pantone 278.

9F

Completely agree!!

[Bluedog]

Curious I haven’t heard any staggering numbers of football transfers yet. Aware of a few, but nothing like b-ball. Is the timing for football transfers different or just underreported so far?

Yes, that is interesting. Perhaps it's because football players know they have to be in school three years (so there's no rush to the pros) and also because there are 70 players that actually play, with lots of injuries and substitutions? Not sure though. I think it's clear that the ramifications for men's college basketball and football are different for the transfer rule, and don't know the underlying reasons for that. It could also be that in football you are a very small piece of the total team and the vast vast majority of players only get a couple tackles/passes a game. Most positions are very team-oriented and less about "me." Whereas in basketball, it's clear who is getting 30 touches a game vs. not. Who has the ball. Who shoots every time. Yes, that could happen as a WR as to who is getting passed to, but theoretically if you're doing your job at getting open, you should get the ball. And for a lineman or something like that, you're just part of the team and ARE able to do your role 100% of the time. So, it could be different team dynamics of football vs. basketball where football has more clearly defined roles and thus people are more okay with it. Basketball roles are more fungible and touches/shots/PT become more of a factor. That's my speculation at least.

[DavidBenAkiva]

A lot of interesting thoughts in this thread, so thanks to scottdude8 for getting this going.

My morning thoughts about the current situation is that Duke is going to have to pivot from the current approach to recruiting, but only slightly. There's a sweet spot in recruiting where Duke is bringing in the top talent and supplementing those guys with more long-term players, like Javin DeLaurier, Joey Baker, Jordan Goldwire, Wendell Moore (fingers crossed), and hopefully Jaylen Blakes. No matter what, the program needs continuity to keep the culture of the program going. The coaching staff relies on former players to help with this. But you need guys in practice on the team telling teammates "this is how we do things," both verbally and by demonstration. I don't think a revolving door of transfers is going to plug that gap.

Teams that are entirely reconstructed each year have inherent struggles. Kentucky really struggled this past year after almost completely turning over their roster from the year before. There are so many foundational issues to address, such as communication, knowing roles, knowing teammates preferences, and so on. You have to have a few guys stick around from year to year. That begs the question, which guys are going to stick?

Guys like Brakefield and Coleman, they made totally rational decisions for themselves. They thought they could get more playing time and show that they can do more somewhere else. They are probably right, at least in the short term. Maybe the solution here is to find players that 1) understand that there will be new players brought in every year or every other year at their position and they're going to have to earn playing time, and 2) be talented enough to contribute. When you factor in the academic side of things, that leaves a pretty short list of players that would fit at Duke. Good thing Duke is an attractive program.

It's kind of the same thing with transfers coming in. Theo John, unless Mark Williams transfers (please no), isn't going to get a huge amount of playing time, maybe 15 minutes or less per game. He had to know that when he made the choice. For a guy that started most of his career at Marquette, a really good program, that takes a special set of goals and interests that happened to align with what Duke was hoping to find.

In the end, I think we'll see more emphasis on finding players that are ranked outside the top 50 of their high school recruiting class. Duke has been able to hold onto those types of players for at least a couple of years with a few notable exceptions. Jordan Tucker comes to mind. Others, like Alex O'Connell, Antonio Vrankovic, Goldwire, and others stayed for at least 3 years. It's the guys in the 25-50 range or thereabouts, guys that could almost certainly start at many high major programs with legitimate NCAA Tournament chances, those are the ones I think are suspect, guys like Semi Ojeleye, Brakefield, and Coleman. They seem like great kids that could have played their way into a major role in a few years, but asking them to stick it out is asking a lot. The transfer portal will be for finding the rare player that wants a shot at playing at Duke knowing that the one-and-done/5-star recruits are going to get the most attention and playing time.

Interestingly, I think this present environment really hurts the teams that are relying on having a system that takes a few years to master, like the Princeton offense or Carolina's system. Those teams struggle with big roster turnover. Duke, I think, is poised to at least sail through the rough seas if not excel in the current environment if they can only find a few high school kids and then 1-3 transfers whose expectations meet the reality of playing at Duke.

[Truth&Justise]

I agree with many in this thread that Duke is poised to benefit from many of these changes if we can pivot our recruiting strategies to match the new landscape.

But to really blow the minds of the people bemoaning the changes: before long, after the dust has settled and we've adapted to the new landscape, something else will come along and upend things again. We'll need to hope that whoever is at the helm in a few years has absorbed K's ability to constantly adapt while maintaining high standards.

[Acymetric]

Yes, that is interesting. Perhaps it's because football players know they have to be in school three years (so there's no rush to the pros) and also because there are 70 players that actually play, with lots of injuries and substitutions? Not sure though. I think it's clear that the ramifications for men's college basketball and football are different for the transfer rule, and don't know the underlying reasons for that. It could also be that in football you are a very small piece of the total team and the vast vast majority of players only get a couple tackles/passes a game. Most positions are very team-oriented and less about "me." Whereas in basketball, it's clear who is getting 30 touches a game vs. not. Who has the ball. Who shoots every time. Yes, that could happen as a WR as to who is getting passed to, but theoretically if you're doing your job at getting open, you should get the ball. And for a lineman or something like that, you're just part of the team and ARE able to do your role 100% of the time. So, it could be different team dynamics of football vs. basketball where football has more clearly defined roles and thus people are more okay with it. Basketball roles are more fungible and touches/shots/PT become more of a factor. That's my speculation at least.

Basketball is a lot more free-wheeling. Teams do run sets and systems, but ultimately you roll the ball out and play (with a given strategy in mind while you do it). Football is a lot more rigid, and understanding/being part of the system is almost as important as how good you are. Unless you are an elite talent who can overcome those issues transferring is going to have the potential to set you back in football in a way that it doesn't in basketball.

[DevilYouKnow]

The program with the most resource and the most used to turnovers absolutely benefits the most from this change. If we adapt.

I think we'll do well, but it still sucks from a fan's perspective.

[Acymetric]

I think we'll do well, but it still sucks from a fan's perspective.

Yep. Nothing inconsistent about believing that players should be free to transfer as they please while still feeling that the constant roster turnover detracts from the enjoyment of the sport.

[Mtn.Devil.91.92.01.10.15]

Yep. Nothing inconsistent about believing that players should be free to transfer as they please while still feeling that the constant roster turnover detracts from the enjoyment of the sport.

This articulates my stance perfectly. It's ruining my enjoyment of the sport. However, my enjoyment of the sport and our team is not the most important factor. I recognize the athlete's ability to follow their own path is far more significant than my own ability to recall full rosters.

[Dukeblue91]

I would be interested to see who and or how will be the first coach or booster going shopping and trying to recruit players away from their college.
How is the ncaa going to try to control the poaching of players.