Louisville forward Matt Cross enters NCAA Transfer Portal

The Louisville Cardinals just lost a key part of their bench, as forward Matt Cross has opted to enter his name into the NCAA Transfer Portal. On3’s Jamie Shaw and Matt Zenitz both reported the news on Friday afternoon.

When Cross chooses his next destination, it will be his third school in as many years. He began his career at Miami during the 2020-2021 season, playing in 14 games and starting nine, averaging 6.9 points and 3.5 rebounds in 26.4 minutes per game. This season with Louisville, Cross started nine of the Cardinals 28 games, averaging 5.8 points and 3.9 rebounds in 19.2 minutes per game.

At Miami, Cross shot 44.9% from the field and 40% from three-point range. This season with Louisville, he took a step back by shooting 38.4% from the field and 28.4% from three.

Louisville went 13-19 this season, finishing the regular season 6-14 against ACC opponents. Now, the Cardinals are moving forward with Kenny Payne as their new head coach.

Transfer portal background information for Louisville

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.