There is nothing bigger for an N.C. State basketball fan than a win over Duke.
Unless it’s a win over North Carolina.
Or, in this era, a big name transfer fielding a phone call from a Wolfpack assistant coach.
At Pack Pride, a web site devoted to coverage and discussion of the university’s athletic program, readership of the various articles published, and discussion among members on the message boards, increased significantly during the past couple of springs as a result of activity involving “the transfer portal.”
“The biggest thing I can compare it to … you go back to wins over UNC, wins over Duke, those recaps and the board traffic explode,” Cory Smith, editor of Pack Pride, told The Sporting News.
“When N.C. State is going after a transfer portal guy, because of the absolute necessity of learning about that guy and getting that information – it’s not like regular recruiting, where you can learn about a guy over the course of a couple weeks or months. You have to know that guy right now. So that board traffic balloons almost immediately.”
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This is how it should be in college basketball’s new era.
Think about what dominates the conversation in the 21st century world of sports. In March, when people who follow college hoops were working on their brackets, it was be tough even for an event as popular as the NCAA Tournament to be heard above the discussion about the contract negotiations for such NFL stars as Lamar Jackson, Javon Hargrave and Orlando Brown, or whether/when a trade involving Aaron Rodgers would be consummated.
NFL free agency opens the day after the NCAA’s Selection Sunday, almost a calculated attempt to demonstrate the league dictates the entire sporting calendar.
July once was a period dominated by baseball and its All-Star festivities, but now it’s become dedicated to discussion of NBA free agency. Last summer, it was the Knicks investing in Jalen Brunson and the Suns deciding what to do with center Deandre Ayton. This year might not be as compelling but, you know, if some team is interested, maybe in a gambling mood, Kyrie Irving is scheduled to be a free agent. That’s a soap opera in itself.
In world soccer, there is the summer transfer window, with fans this year wondering whether midfielder Jude Bellingham might leave Germany’s Borussia Dortmund and become the next $100 million transfer.
These sports chose to take advantage of the reality of player freedom by turning free agency into an opportunity for free (for the leagues, anyway) publicity. The buzz around player movement has helped all of these sports grow in popularity and wealth.
So what does college basketball do, faced with the same circumstance?
Same as ever: gripe.
Over the years, there have been gripes about the recruiting calendar, about scheduling, about mid-major access to the NCAA Tournament, about the transfer portal. And by that we mean the actual portal, not the colloquial term that conflates immediate eligibility with the portal itself. The transfer portal was introduced merely so athletes didn’t have to beg their coaches — or wage a public relations campaign — for the right to leave and gain an athletic scholarship at another school.
Among the prominent complaints from some prominent college basketball voices is immediate eligibility for transfers unfairly disadvantages mid-major schools, that too many of best players at that level search for opportunities to play at higher-profile programs in higher-profile leagues. That’s what we were promised when immediate eligibility first was discussed as a possibility several years back.
And what’s happened?
In 2022, Saint Peter’s became the first No. 15 seed ever to reach the NCAA Elite Eight. In 2023, Princeton won twice and joined the Peacocks as the first 15 seeds to advance to the Sweet 16 in consecutive years. Fairleigh Dickinson became the second 16 seed ever to defeat a No. 1 in the NCAAs. Mid-major Florida Atlantic advanced to the Final Four, becoming the sixth mid-major to advance that far in the NCAA Tournament since 2006. Kennesaw State scared the X out of Xavier in the first round. The Mid-American Conference staged one of its most intriguing competitions ever, with its four top teams (Toledo, Kent State, Akron and Ball State) all winning double-digit league games, 20 games overall and the four of them advancing to the league tournament semifinals.
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Over the past three seasons, there have been nine double-digit seeds from one-bid leagues that advanced in the NCAA Tournament. There were 11 from 2010-12, and 12 from 2000-02. And remember that many of the programs that did the mid-major damage a decade or two ago — Butler, Wichita State, Creighton, Tulsa — subsequently were absorbed by traditional multi-bid conferences.
Instead of the incessant complaints about “the transfer portal” and “NIL,” what those in and around college basketball ought to be doing right now is discussing and publicizing the movement that’s occurring, because it’s interesting and because it will have a massive impact on how the 2023-24 season develops.
This transfer era has been derisively labeled “free agency” by coaches in the sport, but free agency is about roster construction — always a popular topic among fans. The sport needs to follow the leads of the NBA and others and embrace a change that keeps the sport in the offseason headlines.
Connecticut’s 2023 NCAA championship almost certainly would not have developed without the contributions of first-year transfers Tristen Newton (East Carolina), Joey Calcaterra (San Diego) and Nahiem Alleyne (Virginia Tech), who scored a combined 51 points in Final Four games. The Final Four included 13 transfers among 25 rotation players, including nine who were playing their first seasons with their new teams.
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In N.C. State’s return to the NCAA Tournament after a five-year absence, three starters (top guard Jarkel Joiner, powerful big man DJ Burns and forward Jack Clark) were in their first seasons with the Pack, and guard Casey Morsell was in his second after arriving from Virginia. Clark since has transferred again, possibly because of impending competition for his starting job, and such players as DJ Horne of Arizona State and Jayden Taylor of Butler have chosen to join NC State.
“Normally, this time of year, it’s kind of a dead period,” Smith told TSN. “You’re kind of waiting to see what’s going to happen as far as coaches, things like that. When I first started, several years ago, you get to the recruiting period — the live period — and that’s when things start picking back up as far as basketball is concerned.
“Some people will say, ‘I’ve lost interest in the game overall.’ But you know they’re going to come back by the time the season starts. Whereas others are looking it like, ‘Hey, I love this,’ because you still get that kind of release of college basketball. If you really want to know what your team is going to look like next year, you better stay tuned.”
We’ve fallen hard for March Madness over the past four decades.
There’s a place for April Anarchy in our hearts.