Aggressive Coaches and Ballooning Budgets: Winners and Losers of Men’s College Basketball Transfer Portal

The transfer portal has become a grind. From reaching out to players, to negotiating with agents, to budgeting NIL and revenue share money across rosters, no stone can be left unturned in this era of roster-building.

And while Tuesday’s official closing of the portal doesn’t mark the end of transactions, it does provide a natural stopping point to survey the landscape. Who came out smelling like roses? And who, or what, came out smelling like, well ... you get the idea.

Winners

Louisville

It’s fitting that the university in the city where baseball bats are manufactured took the biggest swing of any program in the transfer portal. Pat Kelsey, after putting together a top-five class and finding last year’s leading scorer in the 2025 portal, may have achieved his portal magnum opus by landing Flory Bidunga and Jackson Shelstad, arguably two top-15 players in the transfer class.

While such a blockbuster haul certainly cost a pretty penny (more on that later), it was a worthwhile move for a program looking to return to competing for championships, as it did during the 2010s. There will always be question marks about how the players fit together on the court—the pressure will be on once the games start—but it’s hard to look at the work Kelsey has done and not declare the Cardinals a winner of the portal period.

Rick Barnes

There’s a prevailing thought that Barnes’s Tennessee teams, which have advanced as far as the Elite Eight in three straight seasons, have a high floor but a limited ceiling in the NCAA tournament. Barnes’s squads tend to play a rugged style of basketball predicated on controlling the glass and playing physical defense. That’s a winning formula, and the Volunteers have often executed it at the expense of consistent three-point shooting and bankable offense, both ingredients needed to cut down the nets in March.

More: Ranking the Top 10 Transfer Portal Classes in Men’s College Basketball

So it was especially notable, then, that the prevailing theme among Barnes’s 2026 transfer portal class was both offensive shot-creation and consistent three-point shooting. Being a portal winner doesn’t guarantee anything come next March, but Barnes’s 180 makes Tennessee a fascinating team to watch in 2026–27.

Duke

Duke wasn’t as busy in the portal as the Providences and the Indianas of the world, but that’s not entirely surprising given how they’ve approached the portal in the past. What was surprising is that, not only did the Blue Devils utilize the portal to land key 2026–27 rotation members, but also that they shopped in the Gucci section to do so. Landing Wisconsin’s John Blackwell, arguably the best available guard in the portal, was a statement move.

While not nearly as flashy of a move, Scheyer also added some much-needed frontcourt depth in the form of Drew Scharnowski, a difference-maker on both ends from Belmont. After yet another late-game collapse in the NCAA tournament, Duke needs to finally punch through in the Scheyer era in 2026-27—and the fifth-year coach acted like it.

Indiana basketball fans

One can only imagine the expletives that the late Bob Knight would unleash if he knew that Indiana has made just two NCAA tournament appearances since 2016. Or, perhaps a worse transgression in his eyes, that the Hoosiers football team has enjoyed more success than the basketball team as of late.

Needless to say, it’s been tough recently for Hoosiers hoops fans, who watched the first season of the Darian DeVries era begin with seven straight wins and conclude with losses in six of their last seven games.

But DeVries has completely changed the outlook for the 2026–27 season thanks to one of the best transfer portal classes in the country. The frontcourt, a weak point of last year’s team, now looks like a strong point of next year’s team with two seven-footers in Samet Yiğitoğlu and Aiden Sherrell patrolling the paint. And Markus Burton, Indiana’s Mr. Basketball in 2023, gives the Hoosiers the difference-making point guard they lacked last season.

Fans are excited about Indiana basketball right now—and they should be.

Stefan Vaaks

Vaaks offered potential portal suitors the best of both worlds: a game that already proved worthy of hanging in power conference play and the potential to soar ever higher, given that last season was his freshman year.

There may be no better transfer portal match between player and team than Vaaks and Illinois. The Fighting Illini, fresh off of the program’s first Final Four appearance since 2005, benefited from the returns of several key players from last year’s squad, meaning the program didn’t need nearly as much in the portal as first thought.

That didn’t stop coach Brad Underwood from making one of the shrewdest moves by bringing in Vaaks. There’s no replacing last year’s star Keaton Wagler, but if anyone from the portal has a similar skillset, it is Vaaks.

At 6' 7", the Estonia native possesses similar size to Wagler, who stands at 6' 6". Vaaks can score at all three levels and is equally adept at shooting off of the catch or the dribble, both hallmarks of Wagler’s game. The Providence freshman also flashes the playmaking skills that Wagler unleashed to take the Fighting Illini offense to the next level this past year.

Vaaks could be poised for a huge season in Underwood’s spread offense.

Dan Hurley

If the defining moment of UConn’s season was one of resilience, the theme carried over to the program’s handling of the transfer portal. In one offseason, Huskies coach Dan Hurley lost the program’s most important player of the last four years in Alex Karaban, and of this past season, in Tarris Reed Jr.

To make matters even worse, center Eric Reibe, who had filled in admirably for Reed when he was injured this past season, entered the portal. That ended any chance that the center-in-waiting would replace Reed in 2026–27.

But Hurley, in just two moves, looked to a rival blue blood and conference foe to find potential replacements for his program cornerstones, in Duke’s Nik Khamenia and Seton Hall’s Najai Hines.

While both players aren’t without their warts, they'll be playing for one of the best coaches—and coaching staffs—in the country.

Bryan Hodgson

While not quite Curt Cignetti’s “Google Me” quote, Hodgson had a pretty memorable line from his introductory presser as Providence head men’s basketball coach.

“... If you ever want to question my recruiting abilities, just look at my wife Jordan,” Hodgson said, reprising a joke he had made during his prior position as South Florida coach.

Hodgson put his money where his mouth is though, as the Friars were one of the busiest teams in the portal, bringing in seven players. The class was headlined by defensive ace Miles Byrd, playmaking guard Malik Mack, three-level scorer Devin Vanterpool and promising rim protector Arrinten Page.

The Friars haven’t had a winning season in two years and have been a Big East punching bag during that span. Yet, we’ve seen examples of fast and furious rebuilds in recent seasons. Hodgson and Providence could be the next.

Mark Pope

After advancing to the Sweet 16 of last year’s NCAA tournament, Pope reeled in what looked to be on-paper one of the best portal classes in the country. Only, things didn’t play out that way in actuality, due to injuries and inconsistent performance, resulting in the program taking a step back with a loss in the second round of the NCAA tournament.

That only ratcheted up the pressure on Pope heading into portal season. When days passed and the Wildcats were reportedly rebuffed by multiple top portal players, it didn’t exactly inspire confidence in the third-year coach.

Making the portal to-do list even more difficult was the fact that Pope was tasked with replacing his top-five leading scorers from last year’s team—and two others from the roster.

To be fair, Pope eventually zeroed in on a couple of backcourt players in Alex Wilkins and Zoom Diallo, forming a nice nucleus of guards along with four-star recruit Mason Williams.

But Kentucky’s inability to address its frontcourt or bring in added depth has left this team looking thin, and has created enough angst surrounding Kentucky athletics that even Governor Andy Beshear is critical of the goings-on.

Pope still has time to gain some traction with some late commitments, but the talent pool is shrinking rapidly.

Rick Pitino’s sleep schedule

St. John's Red Storm head coach Rick Pitino reacts in the first half during a Sweet Sixteen game. — St. John’s coach Rick Pitino should have some time to sleep in soon with the portal closed. | Amber Searls-Imagn Images

Rick Pitino has been coaching basketball for a long time. Pitino, pacing the sidelines since beginning his career as an assistant in 1974, has coached through the introduction of the shot clock, the three-point shot and now, the transfer portal and NIL era.

The latter two changes probably make Pitino feel as if he’s coaching in the NBA again, given the pro-style negotiations that undoubtedly occur and player-dominated, free agency-style transactions that are made.

Pitino pulled back the curtain and revealed what a day in the life of a college basketball coach working the portal is like with an April 15 tweet.

Hint: sleep was likely not a part of the process.

What do I think of the portal? I'm sitting outside at 11:30 at night with my two coaches on a cement curb in front of the Regency on 60th st watching game film on my phone. A new prospect is looming 🤦🏻‍♂️🤦🏻‍♂️
— Rick Pitino (@RealPitino) April 15, 2026

There was Pitino and his coaches, still grinding away at game film at 11:30 at night. (We cannot account for the 8:31 a.m. timestamp on his tweet.)

Let’s hope it was a comfortable cement curb, at least.

Loyalty

Heck, not even a team’s record tattooed on a player’s skin was enough to prevent an entry into the portal.

The only kind of loyalty you see in college basketball these days are players following their old coach to their new job. Gone are the days of programs building solely through their recruiting classes like gardeners planting seeds and watering them with care over the course of four years. The four-year senior? A dying breed.

Such is the current landscape of college basketball, in which a massive NIL payday is just a phone call away. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not one to pile on the players for taking anything they can get financially, especially with a new example of the NCAA’s greed arriving nearly every week.

It’s just a shame that money has become such a big part of the equation in roster-building.

Roster budgets

In discussions with coaches, general managers, agents and others around the sport, my Sports Illustrated colleague Kevin Sweeney heard that teams in the very upper class in terms of roster budget are spending in the neighborhood of $20 million—or more—to field their teams.

The Athletic polled coaches and GMs and found that the average roster will cost around $10 to $12 million, with the best of the best players commanding $4 million annually.

Sweeney: Ranking the Top 20 Remaining Men’s Hoops Transfer Portal Targets

In other words, whatever money you had budgeted for transfer portal season, cross it out and write a bigger number.

With all those Benjamins flying around, it’s not easy for the have-nots to keep up.

Mid-major programs

Transfer portal, mid-major — Mid-major stars like Alex Wilkins (10) are prime transfer portal targets for power conference teams. | Kyle Ross-Imagn Images

Over 2,000 players entered the men’s college basketball transfer portal. USA Today reported that as of April 10, there were as many as 69 players from the mid-major Southern Conference in the portal.

That’s one conference alone. Now, imagine how many mid-major players total there were in the portal. Such a mass exodus leaves mid-major programs scrambling to try to build a roster that can compete while hoping against hope that some of their better players will be loyal enough to stick around and build some semblance of roster continuity.

It doesn’t mean that mid-major teams will never be a factor again or that Cinderella runs in the NCAA tournament are a thing of the past. What we can say is that roster building is now hard enough for the richest teams. It’s that much more difficult for the less opulent.

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