When Rick Pitino took the St. John’s gig, intimidating big man Joel Soriano was the lone player on the inherited roster whom Pitino chose to bring back. Pitino, respectfully, let the rest of the roster know he was heading in another direction, and St. John’s talent-laden roster flooded the portal. David Jones left for Memphis where he’s turned into one of the top scorers in the country, Posh Alexander charted to Butler, Dylan Addae-Wusu popped over to Seton Hall and AJ Storr zoomed to Wisconsin where he has elevated into an All-League guy.
Pitino chose to dip into the portal for 11 transfers.
It’s been anything but smooth.
St. John’s blew a 19-point lead in the 68-62 loss to Seton Hall on Sunday. The Johnnies’ NCAA Tournament hopes are on life support.
“We are so unathletic that we can’t guard anybody without fouling,” Pitino told reporters in the postgame press conference. “For me, I’ve always enjoyed the first year, and I’m not gonna lie to you: This is the most unenjoyable experience of my lifetime. This has been so disappointing.
“After I spent the summer with them, I knew it was gonna be a difficult year. I knew it. I’m hoping we could finish over .500 for the season.”
A transfer-heavy approach isn’t working for Pitino, but he is far from alone.
Ten notable teams throughout college basketball filled their respective rosters with seven or more transfers from the 2023 cycle. All eight of the high-major teams on that list are on pace to miss the NCAA tournament.
Arkansas went big-game hunting in the portal, per usual. Eric Musselman brought in seven transfers and was lauded as a top-15 team nationally in the preseason. The Hogs are 12-13 with a boatload of issues. The rotation changes daily. Musselman has been searching for answers all year long and none have appeared. It’s been an abject disaster.
More than half of the roster is filled with transfers from the 2023 cycle at NC State, Arizona State, Memphis and UCF. None are remotely close to the Big Dance bubble.
Kansas State’s Jerome Tang, Mizzou’s Dennis Gates and Iowa State’s T.J. Otzelberger used some help in the portal to build NCAA Tournament-caliber teams in Year 1, but they might be the outlier, not the norm. This iffy year for St. John’s and a losing record for Penn State’s Mike Rhoades is closer to normal. Just ask Lamont Paris, Matt McMahon, Todd Golden or Mike White how much fun it was to be a first-year coach in the SEC last year.
The struggles of other transfer-heavy teams make the outliers this year even more impressive.
Just two of the 10 big-name teams with more than seven transfers will likely make the NCAA Tournament and one is in the Mountain West and the other is dominating the Southland.
Will Wade took seven transfers and has McNeese State humming. The Cowboys are 23-3 and have more than enough high-major talent to give anybody and everybody a problem in the Big Dance. Utah State coach Danny Sprinkle brought in seven transfers after leaving Montana State, and the Aggies are 21-5 and sit atop the Mountain West standings.
Records of teams with more than seven transfers from the 2023 cycle:
- 12-13 Arkansas (seven transfers)
- 16-9 NC State (seven transfers)
- 18-8 Memphis (nine transfers)
- 13-11 UCF (seven transfers)
- 8-17 West Virginia (seven transfers)
- 12-14 Penn State (nine transfers)
- 13-13 Arizona State (seven transfers)
- 21-5 Utah State (seven transfers)
- 23-3 McNeese State (seven transfers)
- 14-12 St. John’s (11 transfers)
Maybe moderation in the portal is the key to all of this. The transfer portal is vital to flipping a roster or elevating to the next tier, but a heavy dose of retention is vital to win big. Houston, UConn, Purdue, Tennessee, Auburn, Alabama, Iowa State, Arizona, Illinois, North Carolina, Creighton, Duke and New Mexico are all succeeding because they retained stars and found the right pieces in the portal to elevate.
Transfer-heavy teams like McNeese State and Utah State are the outlier. Butler is another outlier. Thad Matta’s group stayed under the seven-transfer threshold, but they aren’t on the Big Dance bubble without contributions from all of their six transfers.
The all-portal approach hasn’t worked for most teams this year. There has to be some semblance of balance.
First-year, Texas Tech coach Grant McCasland had to hit the portal hard, but he was also able to retain key rotation lynchpins like Pop Isaacs and Kerwin Walton from the previous regime. Nebraska revamped its rotation in the portal, but retaining Keisei Tominaga, CJ Wilcher and Juwan Gary has been enormous.
RELATED — Transfer portal primer 2024: The needs of every top college basketball program
The 2024 transfer portal window opens in less than a month, and teams are going to load up on transfers. There could be double-digit teams with seven or more transfers on the roster next year, too. Popular preseason teams like St. John’s, Memphis and Arkansas are cautionary tales of the hidden downside of that sometimes-unavoidable gameplan.
The Daily Dish is a daily college basketball column by a rotating cast of 247Sports writers on the biggest stories of the day in the sport and will run through the NCAA Tournament championship in April.
