Gary Parrish
College Basketball Insider
The NCAA's new policy on transfers has one bad unintended consequence
April 21, 2015 3:51 pm ET
Every morning, afternoon and night, basically without exception these days, some transfer announces he's either coming or going, and the numbers are staggering without context.
475!
The sport of college basketball is approaching that figure this offseason.
It's a huge deal, according to some.
But, in reality, it's not a huge deal at all because it's really just an average of 1.4 players per Division I program, and the overwhelming majority of those 475 don't matter much to anybody. I mean, with all due respect, they just DO NOT MATTER.
Go look at this transfer list.
The guy ranked as the 10th-best prospect on the entire list came off the bench and averaged 7.2 points this season for a team that couldn't even make the NIT. And I bet you don't recognize more than five of the names listed below him. So ... whatever.
I just can't make myself care enough.
College basketball has lots of problems. Transfers are not one of them.
Either way, the issue of transfers is quite clearly perceived as a problem, and in a presumed effort to make it less of a problem the NCAA will no longer allow men's basketball players who transfer from one Division I institution to another to apply for a waiver and become eigible immediately (unless they're graduate transfers). That's over. And though I recognize most folks -- especially coaches -- believe this is a step in the proper direction, I'm categorically against it because it's fundamentally wrong to restrict the options of unpaid amateur athletes. I do not care how difficult a system without transfer restrictions might make the jobs of coaches. I do not care where such a system could theoretically lead. All I care about is what's fair to the so-called student-athlete, and I've never been able to grasp how anybody could intelligently argue that restricting the options of student-athletes is fair.
That said, I'm not here to argue that point today -- if only because I've done that before.
(If you're interested, you can read that 2013 column here.)
The point I'd rather make today is one I think we can all agree on, and that's how there's a pretty terrible unintended consequence to the NCAA no longer allowing waivers for transfers to play immediately, and that pretty terrible unintended consequence is this: Players who are run off by their coaches are now basically screwed.
"It's wrong," said one college coach who requested anonymity because he didn't want to speak out publicly against policy. "You're telling me I can sign a kid, keep him for a year or two, decide I misevaluated him and pull his scholarship, and then that kid has to sit a year no matter what? That's [expletive] up, man. That's just [expletive] up."
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One of college basketball's dirty little realities is that coaches run off players.
I don't want to suggest all coaches do it.
Or that it happens all the time.
But some coaches do it. And it does happen often. And it's happening right now.
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BYU announced Monday that Isaac Neilson is transferring to another school.
"I appreciate all the contributions ... Isaac made to our program," BYU coach Dave Rose said in a released statement. "We wish [him] the very best going forward."
What BYU didn't announce Monday is that Neilson had no desire to transfer.
Truth is, he was pushed out of the program.
Truth is, his scholarship, after one year, was not renewed.
"I wish there was more clarity [during the season] about what I could have done to stay," Neilson, a freshman center, told The Salt Lake Tribune on Tuesday. "They said they were doing it in my best interest, so I can go on and be the best player I can be. The whole day I was in a shock. I came down with the stomach flu or something. It wasn't a good day for me, so it was really hard to digest everything from that day. I just remember that I was like, 'Oh, wow, he is releasing me.' They kinda threw this curveball at me, and it was just like, 'Whoa, now I have to figure out a new place to transfer to.'"
According to Neilson, he was perfectly content at BYU and never wanted to move. But Rose, he said, had other plans and pulled his scholarship for athletic reasons. So now Neilson is just another name on a transfer list looking for a new place to attend college.
Under the old NCAA guidelines, Neilson could have appealed for immediate eligibility at another Division I school by essentially saying, "Hey, I didn't want to transfer. I was forced to transfer. Why should I be penalized when my coach pushed me out the door?"
But now?
Now Neilson -- and all players like Neilson -- have no real recourse.
If he transfers to another Division I program, he'll be required to sit a season.
And can't we all agree that's a fairly lousy byproduct of NCAA's new transfer rules?
In fairness, it should be noted that some schools -- but not BYU, obviously -- do actually offer multiyear scholarships to student-athletes, and that, beginning in August, the 65 autonomous schools -- i.e., the Power 5 schools -- will no longer be allowed to not renew a scholarship for athletic reasons. So that's a good development. But that won't save Neilson or anybody else right now, and it won't help the overwhelming majority of Division I players going forward, and that's why this is still a topic that should again be revisited.
Simply put, the without-context number of transfers at the Division I level isn't a big deal.
But a player being forced out and then being forced to sit out is a massive deal.
And I just find it hard to believe college basketball can't do better.
The NCAA's new transfer rule doesn't protect players who are run off. (USATSI)
Gary Parrish is a senior college basketball columnist for CBSSports.com and college basketball insider for the CBS Sports Network. The Mississippi native also hosts an award-winning radio show in Memphis. He lives in that area with his wife, two sons and two dogs.http://www.cbssports.com/collegebas...-transfers-has-one-bad-unintended-consequence
