Illinois forward Omar Payne entering transfer portal

Illinois is losing a talented forward, as Omar Payne is entering the transfer portal. On Saturday afternoon, On3’s Matt Zenitz announced Payne was leaving the Illini after transferring to Illinois last season following two seasons at Florida.

“Illinois basketball forward Omar Payne has entered the transfer portal, @On3sports has learned,” tweeted Zenitz. “Former top-50 recruit who started his college career at Florida.”

Moreover, Payne is a former four-star recruit out of Montverde Academy in Florida, according to On3 Consensus, a complete and equally weighted industry-generated average. Payne spent two seasons at in his home state of Florida before leaving all he’s known to join the Fighting Illini.

Additionally, Payne has an NIL value of $21,000, according to On3 NIL Valuation. Payne is ranked No. 152 overall among all college basketball athletes when it comes to NIL value. Also, his per post value is $181 on Instagram, while slightly less at $106 on Twitter.

After averaging 3.8 points in both of his first two seasons at Florida, Omar Payne left the Gators for more opportunities. However, Illinois couldn’t provide them, as his minutes and points per game both fell in Champaign. Now, Payne will look to change his path, entering the transfer portal once again this offseason.

More on Omar Payne, 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.