Arkansas guard Barry Dunning enters NCAA Transfer Portal

Arkansas freshman guard Barry Dunning officially entered the NCAA Transfer Portal, On3’s Jamie Shaw confirmed on Friday evening. During his freshman season with the Razorbacks, Dunning only played in 16 games, averaging 3.1 minutes per game.

On April 8th, Dunning tweeted the word, “HOME” above an image of him in Bud Walton Arena, making it appear that he was going to return to Arkansas. However, things have changed since then and he’s in the portal searching for a new home across the college basketball landscape.

In the 2022 recruiting cycle, Dunning was ranked as the No. 141 overall prospect in the country and a three-star recruit, according to the On3 Industry Rankings.

He played his high school basketball for McGill-Toolen Catholic High School (Mobile, Alabama), where he was a McDonald’s All-American nominee. He was also named a two-time Gatorade Player of the Year for the state of Alabama (2021 and 2022).

To keep up with the latest players on the move, check out On3’s Transfer Portal wire.

Transfer portal background information

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.