The New World Order In College Basketball

Michigan made history 35 years ago when it reached the National Championship Game starting five freshmen.  The "Fab Five" made it to the Championship Game again the following year.  This season, of course, saw Michigan win its first title since 1989, and, by doing so, the Wolverines made history again.  They became the first team to win a National Championship starting five transfers.  They won't be the last.

In this new era of college basketball, transfers are a way of life.  Gone are the days when a team would have a roster that sticks together for four years, gradually getting better each season, or the coach who's able to build a team and get them to buy into his process, with the results eventually coming when those players become seniors.  Players would still transfer, but not nearly as many.  And, unless there were extenuating circumstances, they had to sit out a year if they did.

Ever since the NCAA was pressured into a rule change granting anyone who wants to transfer immediate eligibility somewhere else a few years ago, however, it's become the exact opposite.  Rare is the player who stays with a program for more than one season.  Most teams are turning over a completely new roster every year.  And the words "transfer portal" are something any college basketball fan wishes they never had to hear again.  The number of players who enter the portal each year is absurd and only get more ludicrous.  But, that's currently what the rules are, so there's very little that can be done about it.

Does something need to be done?  Of course!  But until it is, this is the hand we've been dealt.  Players treating the transfer portal like free agency and making a mockery of the "student" part of student-athlete.  We've got guys transferring every year and playing for four different schools in four years.  How's the progress on that degree going, BTW?

This problem isn't exclusive to basketball, of course.  It's one of the primary reasons why Nick Saban retired.  And Jay Wright sure doesn't seem to regret his decision to make the move from coaching to TV.  Coaches face an impossible task in the transfer portal era.  They're constantly recruiting.  Not just high school students, but the players on their current roster, as well.  They don't even get the chance to actually coach.  But they'd better win right away.  Otherwise, they know most of the roster's leaving and the cycle starts all over again.  Rinse and repeat.

Players are transferring for all sorts of reasons, too.  In the past, it was primarily because of a coaching change, playing time or wanting to be closer to home.  (Grad transfers don't count since their reason is obvious.)  Those are still considerations, but the biggest reason in the modern era is money.  Nowadays, some players transfer simply because they got offered a better NIL deal somewhere else.  Why recruit the best talent when you can just pay for it?

Is this system sustainable?  Absolutely not!  But that's not the point.  The point is it's the system that's currently in place.  And Michigan has mastered the system by taking a program that went 8-24 in 2023-24 and turning into a 37-win National Champion in two years.  By using the transfer portal to its advantage.

Final Four Most Outstanding Player Elliot Cadeau came to Michigan after two years at North Carolina.  Nimari Burnett spent three years at Michigan after transferring from Alabama...after he started his college career at Texas Tech.  Aday Mara was a bench player at UCLA for two years before becoming Michigan's starting center.  Morez Johnson Jr. also went from one Big Ten school to another, going from Illinois to Michigan (turns out, he would've been in the Final Four this season either way).  Finally, Yaxel Lendeborg was a graduate transfer from UAB.  They all ended up at Michigan--together--and the result was a National Championship.

It's worth noting, too, that Michigan, like pretty much every other school, also had players transfer out.  Tarris Reed played two years in Ann Arbor, but entered the portal when Juwan Howard was fired.  He ended up at UConn, where he had an outstanding NCAA Tournament that ended in a National Championship Game loss against his former team.  So, it all worked out for everyone.

Dusty May could've gone the traditional route.  He could've rebuilt the roster with a strong recruiting class that gradually got better as their careers progressed.  Or he could've done it the way John Calipari did so successfully at Kentucky for so long when one-and-dones were the big thing and just load up on stud freshmen, knowing he'd probably only have them for a year.  Although, in the NIL/transfer era, you still might only get a player for a year.  Knowing that, he went about building his roster with veteran players from the transfer portal.  With spectacular results.

The Wolverines aren't the only team that's heavily transfer-laden.  There are a number of other schools who did the same thing as Michigan and loaded up in the transfer portal.  So, it's not a completely novel concept.  But May will be the one to get the credit for it anyway.  Because, at Michigan, it worked, and it didn't in those other places.  So, he'll get the credit, and he'll deserve it.  And, at the same time, he gave the blueprint for success in the transfer era that other coaches will try to emulate.

Whether it's something that can be emulated will really be worth watching over the next few seasons.  Or was what happened at Michigan simply a perfect storm of the right players in the right situations stepping into the right roles?  You know there are coaches and GMs right now scouring the portal hoping that they can be the 2026-27 version of Michigan.  You also know that some of those coaches and GMs will fail miserably at the task.  They'll bring in a completely new roster made up of mostly (or entirely) transfers that has no chemistry, doesn't gel, is unhappy and ends up missing the Tournament.  You also know that some will be successful with it, even if it isn't to Michigan's degree.

Sadly, this is what college basketball has become.  Players spending one year at a school then entering the transfer portal and going somewhere else.  Coaches rebuilding their rosters from scratch every year using veterans who played somewhere else rather than recruiting incoming freshmen and developing them over four years.  It's a free-for-all.  And Michigan was the best at managing the system that's in place.  Now that other teams have seen that it can be done and how, you know they'll try and copy it.

Just as John Calipari and Kentucky set the model for the one-and-done era, Dusty May and Michigan have set the model for the transfer portal/NIL era.  I'm sure we'll eventually see a National Champion built the traditional way again, but that's not what college basketball is right now.  So, while Michigan was the first school to win a National Championship with a starting lineup consisting only of transfers, it almost certainly won't be the last.  Especially now that they've shown it can work.