New NCAA Transfer Rule change a step in the right direction
By Mark Barrera
Transfers in college basketball have become more common than ever before. With a new NCAA ruling, the transfer market is in for a big change moving forward.
NCAA athletes transferring is no longer a short list of graduate transfers. The list of players transferring, especially in NCAA Men’s Basketball, grows larger every year.
College coaches are no longer focusing on high school athletes, or the graduate transfers, rather they’re needing to also spend resources recruiting regular transfers.
There is no bigger college sport who experiences an impact from transfers than Men’s Basketball. Football seems to be creeping up, but they’re still a far way off from the depths of basketball.
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What plagues the transfer route, and seems to increase more each year, are coaches controlling where the players can/can’t go.
All too often we hear, “Player A has been granted permission to transfer, but is prohibited from signing with a school in the same conference.” Coaches can change jobs every year if they’d like, with no restrictions on where they can go.
Well, the NCAA has taken a step in the right direction with their latest transfer policy change.
"The Division I Council adopted a proposal this week that creates a new “notification-of-transfer” model. This new system allows a student to inform his or her current school of a desire to transfer, then requires that school to enter the student’s name into a national transfer database within two business days. Once the student-athlete’s name is in the database, other coaches are free to contact that individual."
The earlier rule essentially gave coaches the power to control where a player can transfer for. A student-athlete had to seek permission to transfer, and if the coach gave permission, he/she could restrict where the player continued their career.
Nick Saban always seems to be the poster child for this rule. Several times Saban has granted permission for players to transfer but gives them strict guidelines. For example, like not going to a school in the same conference. Instead, these coaches are forcing the players to pick programs often further away from family and friends.
The Washington Huskies head basketball coach, like many other coaches, had several players seek to transfer this off-season. Even though all were granted their release, the stipulation was they could not sign with another Pac-12 school.
Why was this practice controversial? Well, because a coach can come and go as they please. They can jump from one team to another any year, even if the new school is in the same conference. Yet this coach can turn around and block a player from specific schools.
Even with the rule change, there are still some grey areas. For example, even though a coach can no longer block a player from transferring to a specific school, the Conference still has the power to make more restrictive rules.
One key thing to remember is players still have to sit out one year. Whether this should be changed as well is another argument, one of which I’m in favor of, but players must still sit one year.
A lot of people assumed this rule change meant players could leave whenever they want, play right away, and leave again, continuing the cycle. I’m not sure where they got that assumption, but that is false. The change simply removed the requirement of players to get permission from coaches and/or administrators.
Are there good and bad parts to this change? Yes, there are. On one side the NCAA is finally preventing the stupid practice of coaches blocking where a student-athlete can go. However, the NCAA is now putting trust into the student-athlete to be professional about transferring.
The previous rule allowed coaches to be in the loop from the beginning. With the change, there is potential for coaches to have zero knowledge of a player leaving, or looking to leave before it’s too late. Trust is a two-way street, and for this to work, young men and women will need to be professional about their intentions.
There are more areas the NCAA needs to fix in the transfer world, that’s a given. But this is a step in the right direction, something the NCAA has lacked over the years. The new rule change goes into effect October 15, 2018.
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What should the NCAA do next? How about allowing players to play immediately after transferring IF it’s their first transfer. Once you transfer again, a player must sit one year. But we’ll save that discussion for another day.