The Transfer Portal is one of the most vexing things in college sports.
It allows player movement and helps athletes maximize their money, but does it actually help the game or the players long-term? That is the question a lot of fans are asking. When you spend years developing a talent, only for another school to call their agent and promise more cash, all that sweat equity is gone in an instant.
You have guys like Matt Jones who are all-in on the new model of college athletics, and then you have the coaches, the ones actually living it, who almost universally hate it. And now, the NCAA is making some serious changes to mirror what they did in football, but arguably making it much worse.
Starting now, the portal will only be open for 15 days following the NCAA Men's Championship for the men, and 15 days following the NCAA Women's Championship for the women.
Kenny Brooks is not a fan. And frankly, he shouldn't be.
Kenny Brooks wishes the NCAA would have left good enough alone
When asked about the new changes, Kentucky women’s coach Kenny Brooks didn’t hold back.
“I don’t know if there is a right answer. I really don’t," Brooks said. "It’s moving pieces, and every time they ask us coaches, we always have what the problem is going to be for that solution, and to me, it’s going to leave a lot of people in limbo for a very long time.”
That "limbo" is the part fans don't see. It creates an awkward, dead period between your season ending and the portal opening where coaches are paralyzed.
"From your last game until the last game of the NCAA tournament, what do you do during then?" Brooks asked. "Do you work the kids out? Do you talk to them? Do you ask them if they’re coming back? Do you ask them if they’re leaving? If they say they’re leaving, do you work them out still? Or do you tell them that you know you can’t?"
The era of "speed dating" recruiting
Brooks predicts that once that 15-day window finally cracks open, it won't be recruiting anymore; it will be a transaction.
"All of a sudden, the floodgates are going to open up... and what you’re going to start seeing, you’re going to start seeing one-day visits, come in here and just do a flyby, and you see what you like and then they’ll probably go."
He is absolutely right. With only 15 days, you can't get to know the school, the culture, the academics, or the town. You get the NIL offer, a brief handshake with the coach, and you have to sign on the dotted line. Anything more, and you risk missing your chair when the music stops.
For the elite stars, this won't matter; they have agents handling the logistics. But for everyone else? It turns college selection into speed dating.
The "dirty little secret" of tampering
Then there is the elephant in the room: Tampering.
The NCAA thinks keeping the portal closed until after the championship stops distractions. In reality, it just rewards the rule-breakers. Teams that are eliminated before March aren't going to sit on their hands until April. They are going to be making calls, sending DMs, and talking to "handlers" through back channels.
By the time the portal officially opens, the deals will already be done.
Plus, unlike the football window, this is happening while school is still in session. You are asking "student-athletes" to make life-altering decisions, visit multiple campuses, and negotiate contracts in a two-week window while they are supposed to be in class?
Brooks concluded with the only truth we know for sure: “It’s tough, but I don’t know what the solution is."
No one does. But shrinking the window to a panic-filled 15 days probably isn't it.