How Marquette became one of college basketball's best teams despite shunning transfer portal

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Jason Svoboda

Jason Svoboda

The Bird Level
Administrator
Marquette MBB HC Smart tells CBS’ Norlander that Miami (FL) student-athlete Pack’s $800K NIL deal was a “watershed moment in transfer recruiting in our sport. It completely altered what other transfers wanted." Marquette was at the time recruiting four transfers, and practically overnight, the tone and expectations of those recruitments changed after the Pack news, Smart tells Norlander, adding that he didn’t like what he was hearing and not only stopped recruiting those four, he stopped recruiting DI transfers altogether last spring. “We made the decision: Hell no, we ain't doing that. First of all, it's illegal, but we're not prioritizing some guy that hasn't worn a uniform over Tyler Kolek and Oso Ighodaro. … You ain't getting a lot of these guys unless they're getting some sort of bag. Number one, we weren't in position to do that. Number two, we're not comfortable doing that. Number three, we didn't want to ever prioritize some random guy… over our current players." Norlander says Smart will likely use the portal again, but for now Smart says the NCAA “has really mangled these rules. The way that's been viewed by the NCAA has even changed a couple of times since then (summer of 2021). It's like an alternate universe.”

www.cbssports.com

Court Report: How Marquette became one of college basketball's best teams despite shunning transfer portal

Marquette had everyone fooled after refusing to promise NIL money to transfers. "Hell no, we ain't doing that," Shaka Smart said
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This is certainly going to widen the gap between the power 5 and the rest of the teams. With one-and-dones also, it's really sad to see what college ball has become.
 
Absolutely love the outside the box approach to this here…

It shouldn’t be considered outside the box to try and promote from within and reward guys on your current roster rather than reward players in free agency. We see this same sort of logic in professional sports specifically the NFL.

I think for mid majors this is along the right talking points and approach.
 

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