For those celebrating their 2026 transfer portal classes — congratulations, you have won absolutely nothing. The transfer portal remains one of the most polarizing topics in college basketball, and after years of experience with it, predicting how much a transfer is truly worth — or whether they will fit at a new program — is still virtually impossible. That is the current state of college basketball. Some will complain about it, but if you ask me, it makes the sport more fun.
There is so much uncertainty surrounding how teams will look, how returning players will mesh with new additions, and what a roster will ultimately become. April has turned into its own season — the season of hypotheticals.
And “hypotheticals” is exactly the right word. The problem is that hypotheticals breed unreasonable expectations, and unreasonable expectations breed disappointment. The 2024 transfer portal is a prime example of why college basketball fans should pump the brakes in April. No matter how exciting a class looks on paper, the results are never guaranteed.
A.J. Storr is one of the first names that belongs in the transfer bust conversation. After averaging 16.8 points per game at Wisconsin during the 2023-24 season, Storr entered the portal as the fourth-ranked transfer on 247Sports and took his talents to Kansas amid considerable hype. The result? A first-round exit for the Jayhawks and a whopping 5.8 points per game from Storr. The experiment failed spectacularly.
Schools are also guilty of throwing enormous sums of money at transfers, with investments that never come close to paying off. Kansas State is a cautionary tale here. After watching Coleman Hawkins help lead Illinois to an Elite Eight run — a season in which he earned All-Big Ten honors — Jerome Tang decided Hawkins was worth a $2 million NIL package. The outcome was a 10.7 PPG season from Hawkins and a Kansas State team that failed to make the NCAA Tournament altogether. Nobody won. Hawkins, the 21st-ranked transfer in the 2024 portal, went from Elite Eight contributor to cautionary statistic in a single offseason.
Then there are the players who transfer to a bigger stage and barely get the chance to prove themselves. Aidan Mahaney fits that mold. After averaging 13.9 points per game in both his freshman and sophomore seasons at Saint Mary’s, Mahaney was the 22nd-ranked transfer in the portal and landed at UConn — where he did not even average 13.9 minutes per game, logging just 12.4 per night.
Johnell Davis, Kanaan Carlyle, Cade Tyson, Jonas Aidoo, Myles Rice, Aaron Bradshaw, and many others were all ranked inside the top 40 on 247Sports, only to disappoint their new fanbases. This is the dark side of the transfer portal era — and it is a side that does not get nearly enough attention during the excitement of April.
The portal does not always work out. More often than not, it does not. So before you convince yourself that your team’s incoming transfer class is going to change everything — remember the cautionary tales above, and enjoy the hypotheticals for what they are.
