Baylor's Scott Drew Talks NIL & Being 'Hard on Himself' When Players Transfer
Baylor Bears men's basketball coach Scott Drew has built one of the best college basketball programs in the nation during his 19-year career in Waco.
Prior to being named head coach in 2003, Baylor had just four NCAA tournament appearances in its history. Since then, he's taken the Bears to 10 tournaments and even won the program's first-ever men's basketball national title in the 2020-21 season. And along the way, he's earned the respect and trust of those within the program and the players he interacts with, whether they end up playing for him or not.
As his veteran experience continues to grow, Drew has understood the rights that players deserve, especially with NIL and the transfer portal being prominent in the college sports landscape over the past year. But he also feels that there are some inconsistencies integrated into both.
He talked about this and more during a Wednesday appearance Mad Dog Sports Radio.
Drew wants his players to have NIL opportunities. However, he feels that clarity regarding the rules of the collegiate money-making bonanza is lacking and that there needs to be "guard rails" for these rules.
“If you ask coaches about NIL, coaches all believe in NIL and we all want players to have an opportunity to make money off their name, image and likeness,” Drew said. “Where I think what we all want, and the NCAA is working on and we've gotten some of that from the NIL committee, is guard rails. And with that, what and how can you earn money? And is it based on your NIL or not, and just paying people for players? That's something that I don't think it was intended for. And I think we'll get more and more in that direction. We just want to make sure that we all have the same guidelines, rules that we can follow. Coaches are really good when you know what you have to do and how you have to do it.”
Players' rights extend to the transfer portal, which has almost become a college-like free agency pool where players can choose to come and go wherever they please with seemingly no consequence.
While Drew said he and his staff personally don't have many of their players transferred - something that can be attributed to the professional and elite-level expectation he's created for the program - he still feels like he's let Baylor down in the rare occasion that a player decides to attend elsewhere. Drew's words clearly show how much the Baylor family means to him.
“I think we all agree on the same thing," Drew said. "If someone's going to transfer, that's as long as we have the dates in which they're going to transfer, me as a head coach, personally, we don't have a lot of transfers. When we do, I feel like I haven't done my job because we bring them in to be successful and if they don't graduate with a Baylor degree and they don't have that Baylor family for life feeling, then I'm hard on myself about that because I want everyone to come here and love it be successful and have this be their family for life."
For Drew, the portal situation becomes complicated when players switch teams every year. He compared this trend to the NBA, where players don't have the option to enter free agency every offseason, though outright demanding a trade is a whole different story.
“But if they do leave, I think we all agree on the one-time (rule)," Drew said. "I mean LeBron (James) doesn't have free agency every year. And coaches can't leave every year. When you sign a contract, you got a buyout. When the buyout’s bigger, it's harder to leave. And when you leave, you still gotta pay the buyout, so it's not like you can just leave. Now, again if a coach leaves, you want players to have opportunities, but within whatever regulations are set up and one-time transfer, if that's what it is, great. But two- and three-time transfers, again, I don't think you have any coaches that leave three or four straight years.”
The program's most recent transfers have come from longtime Bear Matthew Mayer and forward Dain Dainja, who both elected to enter the portal and transfer to Illinois this offseason.
And even though the reality that not every single player that comes through Waco will stay, Drew's pride in his ability to maintain cohesiveness within tight-knit core of players won't fade anytime soon.
You can follow Zach Dimmitt on Twitter at @ZachDimmitt7
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