Louisville forward Jaelyn Withers plans to enter NCAA Transfer Portal

Louisville forward Jaelyn Withers plans to enter the Transfer Portal, according to On3’s Joe Tipton. He averaged 8.9 points and 5.3 rebounds as a junior for the Cardinals this season.

His best season was actually his freshman year back in 2021, where he averaged 10 points a game and started every game he played in for a competitive UL team that narrowly missed the NCAA Tournament. Then, Withers took a massive step in the wrong direction during the 2022 season but bounced back with a decent year in 2023.

Now, the lanky junior will hit the portal. Given his length, athleticism and overall versatility as a floor-spacing forward, Withers will surely have plenty suitors and has up to two years of eligibility remaining wherever he chooses to play.

Withers is a Cleveland, Ohio native who played high school basketball for Cleveland Heights. He was a four-star prospect and the No. 111 overall player in the 2019 recruiting class, according to the On3 Industry Rankings, a weighted average of the top recruiting services’ ratings of each player.

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.