So Penn has six transfers on the roster. Good for them, by the way. It helps the hoops progam and does not IMHO detract from the educational “brand”. I would expect McCaffery to utilize this mechanism to enhance the team every year. Will this enable him over the next several years to become stronger than the current best team, Yale?
Princeton on the other hand, has zero transfers and in fact will not accept them for the basketball program.
So for Princeton the portal only operates for players to exit, but not to enter.
So the absence of a collective and no transfers in, it looks like we are fighting a losing battle to win another IL championship.
the most relevant variable imo is can say yale keep its recruits who i am high on? losing nolan groves last year at the last minute to Texas Tech shows we are vulnerable.
danny wolf is once in a generation and a half type situation. but, if you can only take hs recruits (besides simmons who is like wolf once in a 30 yr deal) then you need them to get to campus.
development, etc is a wild card as to timing and can create volatility year to year but it is fine if this holds up. if
basically or anyone who consistently takes transfers in this league like say Cornell and Penn.
princeton and yale are in largely the same boat, imo.
as i have noted numerous times on both boards over the last few yrs….i predicted doom and gloom due to the portal and the ivy league’s antiquated model relative to our previous league wide standing.
on a micro level i have been wrong thus far as yale’s recruiting has held up so far, net. but right on attrition league wide of arguably our best players.
i do think the competition at the top of the game is also improving due to the portal so the gap between the haves and have nots is growing. there were like no upsets in march last year in the 1st round. and bama pummeled yale due at least in part to much better guard play.
this is a problem. but maybe penn’s modern strategy and policy will be a bigger problem for the others also in due time. i dont know but i hear your points
it appears penn is leading here also by at the very least institutionalizing an age old process of guaranteeing internships and the like
this is forward thinking. i guess we are discussing power dynamics in the ivies not d1 writ large so within that context only.
looking at it another way…i think recruiting thus far for say yale is strong 2 classes in relative to prior trends. my opinion but i watch a lot kids in the summer and have a good comparison set. but if you dont portal in (which cld help said hs recruiting as do distracted portal focused competitors) then you have retention tail risk which is another issue.
forget the wolfs of the world ( the guy is in nets rotation in what wld be his yale senior year)…this is still a big problem
i was reading this am about the football transfer portal this year. just incredible but predictable.the numbers keep going up both $s and volumes
rev share isnt a cap bc it is unenforced and nil is the proverbial cherry on top.
I think both can be true at once. The portal/NIL environment absolutely creates headwinds for the Ivies, especially for school like Princeton that choose not to participate on the inbound side. The margin for error is increasingly thin on recruiting.
That said, I’m not convinced Princeton is automatically in a losing battle. The “no transfers” stance cuts both ways. It does make roster building less flexible, but it also offers recruits something increasingly rare: stability, continuity, and a clear development arc without fear of being replaced by a 22 year old grad transfer. That message still resonates with a certain type of player and family.
Yale’s recent success show that if you keep elite recruits and develop them, you can still win at a very high level within this model. Programs like Princeton are choosing purity over optionality. It is a values choice that reinforces the idea that if you commit to Princeton, Princeton commits to you for four years. In an age where kids (and parents) are hopping from high school team and AAU team starting in middle school it is hard for people to wrap their head around that the Ivy league experience is about more than the sport.
I would much rather have a a program that win’s the right way, with the right people, and accepts volatility as it far more admirable then “keeping up with the Jones”. Reality is there will always be a bigger bear. I prefer institutional fit, continuity, and culture over “win at all costs”.
Yale hasn’t relied on transfers with the exception of Casey Simmons, and he didn’t follow what’s become a predictable pattern of jumping from one program to another with no time off. Casey took a year out of school between his freshman year at Northwestern and joining Yale as a sophomore. I haven’t heard James Jones on the topic of transfers, so I’m uncertain if he has any policy against them. The Yale football team has had a handful of transfers many times in recent years, so I don’t think it’s an institutional policy.
And this is why some - maybe an increasing number? - are seeking congressional action either setting rules or authorizing the NCAA to do so (i.e., creating a specific antitrust exemption concerning such NCAA action). Neither alternative is a perfect approach but the chorus of coaches demanding action seems to be growing.
As long as the BIG money is coming in for the schools able to pay the players the going rate, nothing is going to change. The big money will make the big political donations. As we all are aware, money is what rules our governmental decisions. Indeed, what is happening in college sports mirrors the political landscape since Citizens United. Lots of dark money funding programs purporting to adhere to the new limits but everyone knows that isn’t happening.
