This is long but give it a read. Especially the part about NIL and Seton Hall.
By JP Pelzman
Here is part 2 of my three-part conversation with veteran Asbury Park Press and Gannett New Jersey writer and columnist Jerry Carino. The focus here is on how the transfer portal and NIL are changing the landscape, and how the latter will affect Seton Hall specifically.
JPP: How has the transfer portal been a game-changer and what do you think happens next with it?
JC: The one-time, free transfer is here to stay for sure. What bears watching is how lenient will they be with the rules"? Meaning, if you go in late to the portal or you transfer a second time will you still be eligible right away?
That is going to be the next frontier with the transfer rules. How lenient will they be, and really, they shouldn’t be lenient at all, they need to not have waivers. The NCAA got into the business of judging people’s needs for hardship waivers and it was a mess because people were lying and some people who really needed them weren’t getting them. And some people who were lying were getting them.
It was a mess for the NCAA and it was exploited badly. So, the free transfer takes that out of the NCAA’s hands, but the next thing is, the people who try to transfer for a second time, or go in late to the portal, who don’t follow the rules to get the free transfer but still want the free transfer. And the NCAA has to hold the line against these things. There have to be some rules. It's already Wild West enough. So that will be fascinating to see if they can stop the tide from rolling in at this point.
The second thing is when you combine the free transfer with the NIL, which is basically like a negotiation for money, what you’ve just done is you’ve professionalized a lot of college basketball and created kind of a free-for-all situation, and you’re seeing that now.
Now what they can do is set up some new guardrails. They can cap the amount of money and they can set a market-rate rule, which was the original idea. You can’t pay somebody $800,000 to sign an autograph. There has to be a market rate. But can they enforce these things?
They're going to try, but I'm somewhat skeptical because the NCAA has not been good at enforcement. You're going to have a lot of issues and we’ve seen that already.
Does (Miami's) Nigel Pack have to play because some big-money booster is paying him $800,000 and wants to see a return on his investment? What if he’s getting outplayed by a guy making nothing? This has the potential to be a chemistry disaster.
Here's another point about the portal. Players and fans identify with one another, and when people are constantly changing teams, there’s less of a connection.
I sensed that the Rutgers fans this past season really felt a kinship and a strong identity with this team because Geo Baker, Ron Harper and Caleb McConnell had put in a combined 13 years. They had grown up at Rutgers. They also had Paul Mulcahy, who was in his third year. They were Rutgers men.
Seton Hall did not have that this past year. Yes, they had Jared Rhoden and Myles Cale, who were homegrown guys, but they also had a lot of transfers. The kinship isn’t the same when people are constantly changing teams and that’s part of the charm of college basketball, that these young men grow up before your eyes. It's no big deal if you have a transfer here and there, a Quincy McKnight or a Derrick Gordon, but when half your team is transfers every year, in and out, in and out, I feel it lessens the bond between fans and alumni and their team, their college team. I feel like it might wear down that passion over time.
JPP: Well said. And to use the best example, look at Teddy Allen. He entered the portal. If he doesn’t go pro and comes back, he could play for four Division 1 teams. I mean, where does it end?
JC: And one other thing. That year in residence, as it used to be called, was a great way for players to get their feet under themselves academically, accumulating credits, marching toward graduation. That year was big for them. That year is gone. Now you're going to have a lot of people transferring multiple times. More than a few credits won’t transfer.
Graduation rates are almost certainly going to drop.
JPP: And I know it’s not as important, but people like Quincy McKnight needed that sit out year.
We both know the football powerhouses always talk about breaking away from the NCAA. Do you think we might see the NCAA not be viable in a few years?
JC: I hope it's viable. The NCAA does two things. It does one of them really well and one of them really badly. What they do really well is they run the tournaments. And it’s not just the basketball tournament, although that’s obviously a very big deal and very well-run. They run 90 championships for intercollegiate sports in Divisions 1, 2 and 3. They run them well and someone’s got to do that. These tournaments aren’t just going to organically happen. Someone's got to foot the bill and run them. And the men’s college basketball tournament pays for all the other tournaments.
That is an important function, and my fear is if the NCAA dissolves, who is going to run these things? And also, are these other Olympic spots going to fall by the wayside, which would be a shame, because they impact a lot of people’s lives. It's not just football and basketball, although they pay the freight, so you really hope it doesn’t happen.
What the NCAA is bad at is enforcement. They're just bad at handling controversy. I think they're bad at doing that because the member schools don’t want it. I mean these big schools are the NCAA, and these big, juggernaut athletic programs want a weak enforcement division and that's what they've got. So what are they going to do, break off and have and a weak enforcement division, or no enforcement division? That’s basically what they have now.
Sometimes I feel like the only thing holding this together is the NCAA tournament and it’s with Scotch tape.
