Holding Court: UNC, UVa Among ACC Teams Winning 2023 ‘Portal Wars’

UNC, UVa Among ACC Teams Winning 2023 ‘Portal Wars’

By David Glenn

 

The NCAA introduced its transfer portal in 2018, enabling interested college athletes to publicize their intention to explore potential opportunities at other schools.

In 2021, the NCAA made an even more dramatic and impactful change, altering its long-standing rules to allow first-time transfers in baseball, football, men’s ice hockey, and men’s and women’s basketball to be immediately eligible at their new schools. Previously, there was a mandatory sit-out year, during which a transfer could practice at the new school but not play in games. Other college sports already had permitted immediate eligibility for transfers.

During the 2022-23 season, major college transfers collectively had a bigger impact on the Atlantic Coast Conference than in any other season during the league’s 70-year history. Among other unprecedented developments, four of the ACC’s five NCAA Tournament teams had starting lineups loaded with major college transfers, and 40 percent of the conference’s All-ACC team consisted of major college transfers.

Last August, the NCAA adopted specific transfer windows for each sport. Although there are several exceptions, athletes who enter the portal at a time outside their sport’s annual window(s) are subject to the traditional sit-out year before being eligible at their new schools.

In men’s basketball, for example, the transfer portal accepts entries for only 60 days each year, beginning on the day after Selection Sunday (March 13 this year) and running into mid-May (May 11 this year). With about a week remaining, this year’s maiden voyage with the new transfer window has seen more than 1,600 Division I men’s basketball players — that’s an average of more than four per school — enter the portal.

Among 363 teams nationally, only Duke and UCLA have not yet had a 2022-23 player announce his intention to transfer.

In the 15-team ACC, 54 scholarship players have entered the transfer portal thus far, and 36 (exactly two-thirds) have announced their new destinations. All but the Blue Devils (zero) have had two or more such players (see immediately below) depart.

2023 ACC Departing Transfers

(Scholarship Players Only)

• Louisville — 7
• Georgia Tech — 6
• North Carolina — 6
• Notre Dame — 5
• Florida State — 4
• Miami — 4
• NC State — 4
• Syracuse — 4
• Virginia — 3
• Wake Forest — 3
• Boston College — 2
• Clemson — 2
• Pittsburgh — 2
• Virginia Tech — 2
• Duke — 0

In a 13-scholarship sport such as men’s basketball, the above category once mattered a lot. In the old days, Louisville, Georgia Tech, UNC, Notre Dame and perhaps others would have needed a super-sized and perhaps legendary recruiting class to overcome such incredibly high single-season attrition numbers.

Under current NCAA rules, though, this same category in most cases doesn’t matter much at all.

Until recently, the most direct path to college basketball success involved signing prep All-Americans and other high school superstars, riding those elite talents as long and far as possible, retaining and developing less heralded players so they played their best as juniors as seniors, and perhaps supplementing that formula with occasional junior college and/or major college transfers.

As long as the current NCAA rules remain in place, those days are over. As most of last year’s successful ACC teams showed, the new immediate eligibility rules allow for a very quick fix via wise and extensive usage of the transfer portal.

The lists below offer a much better reflection of the transfer portal’s true impact on the ACC’s upcoming 2023-24 season.

2023 ACC Departing Transfers

(Starters Only)

• Louisville — 3 (senior C Sydney Curry*/TBA, senior G El Ellis*/Arkansas, junior F Jae’Lyn Withers/UNC)
• Florida State — 2 (sophomore G Matthew Cleveland/TBA, junior G Caleb Mills/Memphis)
• Notre Dame — 2 (senior G Cormac Ryan*/UNC, freshman G JJ Starling/Syracuse)
• Syracuse — 2 (senior C Jesse Edwards*/West Virginia, senior G Joe Girard*/TBA)
• Boston College — 1 (senior F TJ Bickerstaff*/James Madison)
• North Carolina — 1 (junior G Caleb Love/Michigan)
• NC State — 1 (senior F Jack Clark*/Clemson)
• Virginia — 1 (junior C Kadin Shedrick/Texas)
• Virginia Tech — 1 (junior G Darius Maddox/George Mason)
• Clemson — 0
• Duke — 0
• Georgia Tech — 0
• Miami — 0
• Pittsburgh — 0
• Wake Forest — 0

*-because of the “free” (COVID) season of 2020-21, many 2022-23 seniors have a fifth season of eligibility remaining in 2023-24

When an end-of-bench player leaves a program, nobody flinches. Why? It’s often good for the player, who may have a more realistic chance of getting playing time elsewhere, while also being good for the school, which now has an open scholarship for someone who may have a much more positive on-court impact than the departing player.

At the same time, it’s rarely a good sign for a program when a starter — or even a star — leaves for another school. That also happens more often now than at any time in NCAA history.

It shouldn’t be a major surprise that Louisville, FSU, Notre Dame and Syracuse were the four ACC schools that lost multiple starters from last year’s teams. The Cardinals just had one of the worst seasons in program history, the Seminoles just had one of the worst seasons of the 21-year Leonard Hamilton era, and the Irish (Mike Brey-NBA assistant) and Orange (Jim Boeheim-retirement) both suffered through difficult campaigns that essentially forced their legendary, long-tenured coaches to move on.

Interestingly, and in stark contrast to almost the entirety of the league’s history, ACC schools have scooped up many of the top “departing” ACC transfers and remain in the running for several others. Prohibitive penalties for in-conference transfers no longer exist, either.

UNC has signed Notre Dame guard Cormac Ryan, a high-intensity and highly productive guard, and Louisville power forward Jae’Lyn Withers, a strong defender and 3-point shooter. Syracuse has landed Notre Dame guard JJ Starling, a double-digit scorer who made the ACC’s all-freshman team last season. Clemson has secured steady NC State forward Jack Clark and is a finalist (with LSU) for Syracuse guard Joe Girard. Miami is among the favorites for versatile FSU forward Matthew Cleveland.

Overall, while the majority of ACC programs continue to chase one or more unsigned major college transfers, Virginia, UNC, FSU and NCSU already have navigated the incoming aspect of this year’s “portal wars” quite well, as shown below.

2023 ACC Incoming Transfers

(Most Firepower Added Thus Far)

Virginia

• F Jacob Groves (1), Oklahoma (21 mpg, 7 ppg, 3 rpg, 44% FG, 71% FT, 38% threes)
• G Dante Harris (3), Georgetown (32 mpg, 12 ppg, 4 rpg, 4 apg, 38% FG, 75% FT, 28% threes)
• F Jordan Minor (1), Merrimack (33 mpg, 17 ppg, 9 rpg, 2 apg, 3 bpg, 52% FG, 59% FT)
• G Andrew Rohde (3), St. Thomas (33 mpg, 17 ppg, 4 rpg, 4 apg, 45% FG, 82% FT, 32% threes)

North Carolina

• F Harrison Ingram (2), Stanford (28 mpg, 11 ppg, 6 rpg, 4 apg, 41% FG, 32% threes)
• G Cormac Ryan (1), Notre Dame (34 mpg, 12 ppg, 4 rpg, 3 apg, 83% FT, 34% threes)
• F Jae’Lyn Withers (2), Louisville (25 mpg, 9 ppg, 5 rpg, 43% FG, 74% FT, 42% threes)
• G Paxson Wojcik (1), Brown (35 mpg, 15 ppg, 7 rpg, 3 apg, 46% FG, 69% FT, 38% threes)

Florida State

• C Jaylan Gainey (2), Brown (2022-23 redshirt at FSU; 9 ppg, 7 rpg, 70% FG, 52% FT)
• G Josh Nickelberry (1), LaSalle (25 mpg, 11 ppg, 3 rpg, 41% FG, 80% FT, 40% threes)
• G Primo Spears (2), Georgetown (37 mpg, 16 ppg, 3 rpg, 5 apg, 79% FT, 30% threes)
• F Jamir Watkins (2), VCU (24 mpg, 10 ppg, 5 rpg, 41% FG, 72% FT, 34% threes)

NC State

• F Mohamed Diarra (2), Missouri (12 mpg, 3 ppg, 3 rpg, 40% FG, 56% FT, 25% threes)
• G DJ Horne (1), Arizona State (30 mpg, 13 ppg, 3 rpg, 2 apg, 82% FT, 36% threes)
• C Ben Middlebrooks (2), Clemson (11 mpg, 3 ppg, 3 rpg, 48% FG, 77% FT)
• G MJ Rice (3), Kansas (2022 McDonald’s A-A; minimal playing time with Jayhawks)
• F Jayden Taylor (2), Butler (30 mpg, 13 ppg, 4 rpg, 41% FG, 77% FT, 33% threes)

NOTE: The first number in parentheses is the number of seasons of eligibility remaining with the player’s new team.

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David Glenn (DavidGlennShow.com, @DavidGlennShow) is an award-winning author, broadcaster, editor, entrepreneur, publisher, speaker, writer and university lecturer (now at UNC Wilmington) who has covered sports in North Carolina since 1987.

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