Alabama transfer Alex Tchikou taking visit to one of top mid-major programs

Alabama transfer prospect Alex Tchikou is currently on a visit to the St. Mary’s Gaels — one of the top mid-major programs in America, 247sports’ Travis Braham reported on Wednesday evening. The former four-star prospect out of Paris, France was rated as a top 60 overall player nationally coming out of high school, according to multiple recruiting services. According to the On3 Consensus Rankings for the 2020 class, Tchikou was also rated as the No. 93 prospect in the country for that class.

In the 2020-2021 season, he had to sit out for the Crimson Tide due to rupturing his Achilles tendon prior to the start of the year. In the 2021-2022 season, he only saw action in three games.

As a high school prospect, he had the Gaels in his final eight. The highly coveted big man has been one of the most sought-after prospects in the transfer portal this offseason. Tchikou has been contacted by Florida State, Xavier, USC, Washington, Arizona State, Georgetown, Wake Forest, Cincinnati, Cal, Ole Miss, Memphis, UCSB, Tennessee State, and Georgia Tech, among others, according to Travis Branham of 247sports.

For all the latest information and updates on where college basketball prospects are headed this offseason, keep it locked to the 2022 On3 Transfer Portal Wire.

More on the NCAA Transfer Portal

The NCAA Transfer Portal, which covers every NCAA sport at the Division I, II and III levels, is a private database with names of student-athletes who wish to transfer. It is not accessible to the public.

The process of entering the portal is done through a school’s compliance office. Once a player provides written notification of an intent to transfer, the office enters the player’s name in the database and everything is off and running. The compliance office has 48 hours to comply with the player’s request and that request cannot be refused.

Once a player’s name shows up in the portal, other schools can contact the player. Players can change their minds at any point and withdraw from the portal. However, once a player enters the portal, the current scholarship no longer has to be honored. In other words, if a player enters the portal but decides to stay, the school is not obligated to provide a scholarship anymore.

The database is a normal database, sortable by a variety of topics, including (of course) sport and name. A player’s individual entry includes basic details such as contact info, whether the player was on scholarship and whether the player is transferring as a graduate student.

A player can ask that a “do not contact” tag be placed on the report. In those instances, the players don’t want to be  contacted by schools unless they’ve initiated the communication.

The portal has been around since Oct. 15, 2018 and the new calendar cycle within the portal begins each August. For example, the 2021-22 cycle started Aug. 1. During the 2020-21 cycle, 2,626 FBS football players entered the transfer portal (including walk-ons). That comes after 1,681 entered during the 2019-20 cycle and 1,709 during the abbreviated 2018-19 cycle. In comparison, 1,833 Division I basketball players entered the portal during the 2020-21 cycle after totals of 1,020 in 2019-20 and 1,063 in 2018-19.