Georgia Bulldogs lose pair of freshmen players to NCAA Transfer Portal

The Georgia Bulldogs just lost a pair of freshmen to the NCAA Transfer Portal. According to On3’s Matt Zenitz, freshman guard Camron McDowell and freshman forward Tyrone Baker have both entered the portal.

Neither Baker or McDowell played prominent roles as a freshman. McDowell played in seven games off of the bench for Georgia, averaging one point, one assist, and 0.4 rebounds in 6.4 minutes per game. Baker played in just three games, averaging 0.7 points and 0.7 rebounds in just 3.0 minutes per game.

Baker originally chose Georgia over offers from Dayton, Western Kentucky, Virginia Tech, and East Carolina, among others. McDowell also chose to come to Georgia over an offer from Virginia Tech.

The Bulldogs are coming off of a disappointing 6-26 season, including a poor 1-17 record against SEC opponents. Georgia is looking to get back on track under new head coach Mike White, who replaces Tom Crean.

Transfer portal background information for Georgia

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.