How The House Settlement Changes The Transfer Portal Game For Indiana Basketball

The landscape is wild enough when the transfer portal is open for basketball, but the impending House settlement has added a wrinkle of urgency for Indiana and every other school.

Indiana men’s basketball head coach Darian DeVries watches the action Saturday, March 29, 2025, during the IHSAA Class 3A boys basketball state championship game in Indianapolis. / Grace Smith/IndyStar / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Late Tuesday night, Indiana men’s basketball got its first bad news of transfer portal recruiting season.

Ryan Conwell, an Indianapolis native who averaged 16.5 points and shot 41.3% from 3-point range for Xavier in 2025, opted to go to Louisville instead of Indiana. Conwell had visited Indiana on Monday.

No school likes to lose out on a recruit, and fans like it even less given the emotional investment a subset of recruiting-rabid fans put into the enterprise. Some Indiana fans on social media were bold enough to believe Conwell would cancel his other visits after coming to Bloomington.

As with anything you sought, but don’t get, you brush off the disappointment and move on. But missing out on transfer portal recruits has an added element of disappointment in this particular cycle.

New rules are coming to college athletics – at least that’s the assumption. They’re tied to the much-mentioned, but rarely-explained, House settlement. The bare bones explanation is that participating schools will begin to pay athletes directly – a jarring change from the long-held amateurism that the NCAA tried in vain to protect in the courts.

However, the devil in the details of the House settlement is worth explaining as it relates to the current recruiting climate. So here’s a primer on the House settlement and how it’s affecting basketball recruiting, especially at a school with a good NIL commitment like Indiana has.

What Is The House Settlement?

Jun 4, 2024; Eugene, OR, USA; A NCAA logo flag at Hayward Field. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-Imagn Images / Kirby Lee-Imagn Images

The House v. NCAA lawsuit was filed by Arizona State swimmer Grant House and TCU women’s basketball player Sedona Prince in 2020. They sought name, image and likeness damages and to force the NCAA to force conferences to lift restrictions on revenue sharing from broadcast rights.

Skyrocketing payments for media rights – especially among Power Four conference schools – previously have been kept entirely by conferences and schools.

The NCAA and its member schools have been consistently losing court battles in the last decade. The transfer portal and NIL exist primarily because the NCAA lost court cases where it had attempted to prevent both becoming legal.

If the NCAA and its schools lost the House case, they would have been on the hook for $4 billion, which would be trebled by anti-trust laws to $12 billion. It would have crippled college athletics as we know it.

The NCAA and its member schools instead agreed to a $2.8 billion settlement paid to former college athletes. The settlement also dictates that 22% of power conference school revenue for revenue sharing and that scholarship caps would be removed in favor of roster limits. Most believe the athletic department spending cap will be approximately $20-million-to-$21 million per power conference school.

Federal Judge Claudia Wilken granted preliminary approval of the settlement in October 2024. Final approval of the settlement is scheduled for April 7 – this coming Monday. Wilken will preside over the hearing and decide whether to grant final approval.

Over 14,000 former Division I athletes who began their career in the 2016-17 season or afterward will get some manner of compensation from the $2.8 billion settlement. Most of the settlement will go to power conference football and basketball players who generated revenue during the prescribed period.

More germane to current basketball recruiting are the rules the House settlement created as part of the 22% revenue sharing model.

What House Means For Recruiting

There is no Title IX restriction – at least one that hasn’t been tested in court – regarding how universities allocate their revenue sharing. That is a topic that could be revisited in the future.

The assumption is that most universities will allocate the majority of their revenue sharing pool to football, the sport that produces the most revenue.

Revenue sharing will not spell the end of the NIL collectives that have bankrolled NIL in the last half-decade. Athletes will still be able to make additional revenue outside the revenue sharing pool.

However, all NIL deals worth $600 or more will be subject to a clearinghouse that will determine fair market value. The accounting firm Deloitte will determine whether NIL deals pass the fair market value test.

The problem schools and athletes have is that no one knows yet what constitutes “fair market value.” How does a Heisman trophy-level quarterback compare his fair market value to a less-heralded quarterback on the national level who might be just as well-known by fans inside his own fan base?

The fair market value component of the House settlement has created ambiguity about what the path forward will be for schools, athletes and collectives.

Schools in all four of the power conferences and schools from outside the power conference that elect to opt in will be bound to the House settlement agreement if it is approved by Wilken next week. However, up until that point, any athlete who signs before the House settlement goes into effect will not be bound by those rules.

So, in other words, if a basketball player finalizes their NIL deal before the settlement goes into effect and is paid before June 30, whatever their NIL compensation would be would not have to go through the clearinghouse to determine fair market value. That's a big deal if you're trying to maximize your value.

What That Has Meant For The Basketball Portal

Xavier Musketeers guard Ryan Conwell (7) dribbles the ball defended by Texas Longhorns guard Tramon Mark (12) in the second half at UD Arena. Conwell was one of several players who got into the transfer portal early. / Rick Osentoski-Imagn Images

The men’s and women’s basketball portal opened on March 24 for most athletes. It closes on April 22.

That means a roughly half-and-half split of the portal period – the first half being played by the current rules with no clearinghouse approval on NIL, the rest by new rules assuming the House settlement is approved.

This quirk of the schedule has encouraged basketball players to go into the portal as early as possible and for schools to get players in the fold as soon as possible.

With no one knowing the “fair market value” definition, there is urgency to get players on the roster before the settlement comes into effect.

Multiple reports have indicated that the NIL compensation players are asking for has soared as players try to avoid having their NIL deals subject to the clearinghouse. Seven-figure sums requested by athletes is not uncommon as an initial asking price – and that’s not necessarily the best of the best asking for those sums.

Indiana has been one of the best-resourced schools in terms of men’s basketball NIL. Collectives and the NIL payments they make are not subject to public records laws, but most experts thought Indiana collectives spent in the neighborhood of $5 million on the men’s basketball roster for the 2025 season, a number that could conceivably double for the 2025-26 season.

Both Indiana men’s and women’s basketball have massive holes in their roster to fill. Until Conor Enright and Tucker DeVries agreed to come to Indiana on Wednesday afternoon, Indiana’s men’s basketball team did not have any player on its roster for the 2025-26 besides incoming freshman Trent Sisley. All other eligible players already on Indiana’s roster went into the transfer portal. Malik Reneau agreed to go to Miami on Wednesday. His NIL compensation is unknown at this point.

The women’s basketball team has lost six eligible players to the portal, including leading scorer Yarden Garzon. Chloe Spreen committed on Wednesday, but there is still a lot of work to do to build a roster that would be competitive.

What Comes Next?

The House settlement hearing is scheduled for Monday. Though direct defendants that are affected by the settlement have agreed to it, there are objections expected to be raised by those affected by the settlement who didn’t have a voice in the settlement’s conception.

Because scholarship limits have been replaced with roster caps, many athletes in Olympic sports have raised the specter that participation in their sports could be slashed.

Most sports outside of football and basketball filled their rosters with partial scholarships and walk-ons, but a roster limit would likely eliminate those roster spots.

Rosters could lose up to a third of their current participants. The halves who would stay on the teams would likely benefit from potentially having a full scholarship, but other athletes would be cut unceremoniously to fit the roster cap.

In November, the Associated Press reported that Wisconsin athletic director Chris McIntosh said sports across his campus would lose 80-100 athletes for the 2025-26 season.

It is also possible schools will eliminate sports rather than fully fund scholarships to continue fielding them.

Several athletes affected by these changes are expected to formally oppose the House settlement during the hearing.

Non-power conferences have also objected to the House settlement. To pay its share of the House settlement, the NCAA plans to cut back on the annual distribution it pays to conferences, primarily from the broadcast rights to the basketball tournaments. It is estimated that 60% of the NCAA payout will come from revenue that would have gone to non-power conferences. In effect, it will be a tax taken out of their typical revenue distribution.

Conference commissioners in these leagues have objected to the drop in revenue and that the settlement money mostly goes to athletes who played at the power conference level. They contend they are paying too much for a settlement that only relates to them as being NCAA members.

There are also questions whether the $20 million cap that schools will pay to athletes that is central to the House settlement is an artificial restraint on market value.

The House settlement is widely expected to be approved, but if any of these objections sway Wilken to reject the House settlement or significantly alter its terms, college athletics will be thrust into uncertainty.

Athletes in all sports for the 2025-26 season have been signed presuming the House settlement would take effect. If it doesn’t? No one knows what comes next.

As for basketball, the race is on for athletes to maximize their worth and for schools with NIL resources to flex their muscle. As of Thursday afternoon, Verbal Commits.com had 1,827 men’s basketball players in the transfer portal. In many respects, quite a few of those players are in a race against time and jurisprudence. So are schools like Indiana in putting their rosters together.

Related stories on Indiana basketball

• TUCKER DEVRIES IS IN THE FOLD: Tucker DeVries, son of coach Darian DeVries, has committed to Indiana. CLICK HERE.

• CONOR ENRIGHT IS A HOOSIER: Former DePaul and Drake guard Conor Enright has committed to Indiana. CLICK HERE.

• CONWELL HEADS TO LOUISVILLE: Ryan Conwell spurned Indiana for Louisville. Conwell had visited Indiana, but decided to go to the Cardinals. CLICK HERE.