Duke guard Michael Savarino officially enters NCAA Transfer Portal

Mike Krzyzewski isn’t the only member of his family leaving Duke. His grandson entered the transfer portal on Tuesday.

Michael Savarino, a walk-on guard the last two years, is in the portal, On3’s Matt Zenitz has learned. He played in 13 games over two years for the Blue Devils, including 11 games this past season as they made a run to the Final Four.

Savarino played in about two minutes per contest during his two years in Durham, but now is entering the portal as his grandfather enters retirement. His final appearance of the season came in the ACC Tournament championship against Virginia Tech, and he scored three points as Duke fell to the Hokies 82-67.

Duke’s season came to an end against North Carolina in the Final Four, and next year will usher in a new era. Jon Scheyer is taking over as head coach, and he’s already done work revamping the roster. The Blue Devils currently have the No. 1 recruiting class in the country this year, according to the On3 Consensus Team Rankings, including three five-stars.

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.