No, 40% of transfers are not uncommitted
You can mark the passage of time in the offseason by certain events: the opening of the transfer portal, the draft deadline, the release of the schedules. But you know you’re getting close when someone tweets in bad-faith about all of the transfers who have yet to find a home:
Posts like these give away the game as top-notch engagement farming. And these guys have mastered it. Several coaches and random sports people piled on to the tweet and offered their tsk-tsk to folks who dare to seek a better basketball life. The message: Don’t transfer, kids. You might never play basketball again.
The problem is the numbers are bogus. Do you really believe 40% of transfers are uncommitted with fall semester a few days away? Use your noggin.
Per my brief research using data from the indispensable verbalcommits.com, at the D-I level there were 1,957 transfers this year and as of Sunday, 365 (18.7%) did not yet have a home.
First, note that our engagement farmer lists 2,035 D-I transfers. The discrepancy is not clear because the tweeter didn’t cite any sources, but I’ll confess that I have removed people who entered the portal and returned to their original team. These are not transfers by any definition.
Also, the Verbal Commits list includes cases like Bronny James and Jaylen Wells who technically entered the portal and aren’t going be enrolling in college in a few weeks - or ever. There are other cases like Caleb Lohner who will spend his final season playing football. These fellows could have played basketball at a college if they wanted. Then there are people like Chris Ledlum and DJ Burns (the Youngstown State version), who are not eligible to play.
I don’t have time to go through all 365 cases, but to try and put a finer point on this, I decided to investigate the first 20 players in alphabetical order on the Verbal Commits list to get an idea of the scope of the issue. Please join me. (Note: I refer to players as walk-ons if Verbal Commits lists them as such on their personal page. It’s possible they may have picked up a scholarship at some point.)
1. Chi Achara, Houston Baptist. Achara is a grad transfer who posted a 74 offensive rating on 16% usage in 10 minutes per game for 6-23 HBU last season as a walk-on. Also, the Huskies changed coaches in the offseason, and one might guess that the new coach would want to turn the roster over on a team that was ranked #355 in my ratings. In almost any era, a guy like this is transferring 100 out of 100 times. I’m sure there’s someone out there saying this guy should get better and force his way back on the team, but there’s not a world in which a guy like this is staying at the same school for a grad season. So many of the guys left on the list are stories like this.
2. Jacob Adair, VMI. A freshman walk-on who played four minutes for a team that beat one D-I team last season. Per realgm.com, he posted a PER of -22.53.
3. Noah Adamczyk, Central Michigan. Adamczyk played zero minutes as a walk-on last season. But also, he’ll be playing at Northeastern Junior College this season. So we can take him off the uncommitted list.
4. Blessing Adesipe, UTSA. Adesipe redshirted last season recovering from a knee injury. Then he transferred. But guess what? He is on a roster at Angelo State, a pretty decent D-II program. Take him off the list.
5. Kosy Akametu, Santa Clara. Akametu played in 7 games last year as a sophomore before a season-ending injury. He only played 8 minutes per game, but was reasonably proficient in his limited time. Enough that you might have expected him to fight for rotation minutes this season. And guess what? He’s still on the roster at Santa Clara. He didn’t transfer after all. We can take him off the list.
6. Cade Alger, San Diego State. Alger was apparently a QB prospect out of high school. At 6-9, he ended up at San Diego State, not to become the next Dan McGwire, but to walk on to the basketball team. After three years of that, he was given a scholarship as a senior. He never played much, and as a grad student, I’m not sure how anyone can blame him for transferring. He probably didn’t have a choice. But also, maybe he’s not even serious about transferring. Play a few minutes per game for a mediocre program as a 24 year old in Cold-Weather Small Town, USA or hang out in San Diego this winter? Easy choice I think. He’s probably just in the portal on the off chance Danny Hurley wants a walk-on.
7. Braden Allen, IU Indianapolis. IU Indy (neé IUPUI) was #360, went 3-26 against D-I teams last season, and has a new coach. This guy was a walk-on who played a total of 68 minutes.
8. Max Allen II, Marist. Hey, we have someone who made major contributions to his team. Allen was second team all-MAAC last season and would seemingly be useful to a few teams. But he elected to play professional basketball - in Vietnam of all places - where he’s currently averaging 26 and 13 for the Da Nang Dragons. I’m not going to judge. He led all scorers in the world one day this summer.
9. Ray Allen III, Rhode Island. He was a walk-on who played two minutes as a freshman last season. Also the son of that Ray Allen.
10. DeSean Allen-Eikens, Cal State Northridge. Allen-Eikens had a fantastic season for the Matadors, averaging 19 points per game while starting every contest. However, this was his fifth season of action. He is in the transfer portal on the faint chances that the NCAA will grant him a medical waiver. This seems unlikely.
11. Yamari Allette, Old Dominion. Allette redshirted last season as a freshman. He came to ODU with his brother Vasean who was ODU’s leading scorer but was dismissed mid-season. Also, ODU underwent a coaching change. So this is another completely unavoidable transfer. Vasean is on TCU’s roster now, but Yamari’s future is unknown at press time.
12. Jonathan Ammori, Detroit Mercy. Walk-on who played a total of 13 minutes for the 1-31 Titans, who - surprising, I know - replaced their head coach. But he has found a home! At Michigan-Dearborn. Take him off the list.
13. Bennett Andersen, Florida. The long-time team manager and walk-on is actually on Florida’s 2024-25 roster (along with 7-9 Olivier Rioux). Take him off the list.
14. Taj Anderson, Nicholls State. Anderson played a total of 3 minutes last season. I have scoured the internet and can find no information on Mr. Anderson’s whereabouts, but whether it’s due to injury or other interests, perhaps we shouldn’t be clutching pearls about his inability to find a home for a fifth season of college hoops when his fourth season produced 3 minutes at Nicholls State.
15. Cade Arbogast, Arkansas. I know what you’re thinking. If Cade Arbogast can’t find a place to play a fifth year of college basketball, the system must be broken. Arbogast scored a total of 3 points in 18 minutes across 3 seasons at Arkansas. There must be a home for him somewhere! You’re also thinking, Arbogast is a prime example of how soft the current generation is. After playing for noted “players coach” Eric Musselman, Arbogast was like “Oh no, I could not possibly play for noted disciplinarian John Calipari. I am going to leave. Actually, leave basketball forever. I am such a coward! I would have never fought in World War II!”
16. Tristan Arneaud, Chicago State. Walk-on who scored 30 points for the Cougars last year.
17. Naj Ashley-Emory, North Carolina A&T. Played 25 minutes for 7-25 A&T as a senior.
18. Nasan Ayala, Tarleton State. Walk-on who played 39 minutes in his fourth season of college ball.
19. Raphe Ayres, Missouri State. OK, this is the first guy I’m puzzled about. He played in every game for the Bears, starting 11. His coach was fired and he’s a grad transfer. He was reportedly getting interest from other schools. But alas, he has not found a home. He got his degree, so maybe it’s his own decision.
20. Asa Barnes, Southeast Missouri State. Zero minutes as a walk-on.
So in summary, of our 20 randomly-selected players…
- 2 are not actual transfers and returning to their respective teams.
- 3 others have actually found homes
- 1 went pro and surely could have found a home
- 1 is not currently eligible
This leaves 13 of our 20 who are truly uncommitted. Of those…
- 8 were listed by Verbal Commits as walk-ons, and all except Arbogast were for low-level programs
- 4 others played no more than 40 minutes for their team
That leaves Raphe Ayres as the lone D-I talent on this list who is yet to find a team. That’s just 5% of our list. If we apply that to the 365 players supposedly without a home, that means 15-20 players with legit D-I ability are without a team at the moment. And it’s quite possible Ayres simply turned down an offer for a bench role in a lesser league given that he has a degree and is about to turn 24.
There’s a more interesting discussion to be had about how to control the amount of player movement in college basketball. But it’s silly to scare players into thinking that they might never play college basketball again if they transfer. Hardly anyone who has the ability to play D-I basketball is going to be without a team this season.
The vast majority of players listed as transfers and still looking for a team are either walk-ons, benchwarmers, grad transfers, or all three, often dealing with a coaching change. They probably didn’t have much choice in transferring, and furthermore, may not be seriously looking for a new team since they’re not really D-I talents.
Our bad-faith engagement farmers did manage to prove again that one can post about anything on the internet and people - even experts in the field - will uncritically believe it.
Update 8/31: I have confirmed that Raphe Ayres has already found employment outside of basketball, despite interest from multiple schools, so zero of the 20 “uncommitted” players we investigated are true D-I talents looking for a new home and unable to find one.
In other news, the offending twitter account is now separating D-I and D-II numbers in its stats. It's also including a “+” next to the number of committed. Which is progress, I guess, although that plus sign is doing a lot of work. (And the numbers are always strangely in multiples of five.)
