Michigan center Hunter Dickinson enters NCAA Transfer Portal

Michigan center Hunter Dickinson has entered the Transfer Portal, according to On3’s Jamie Shaw. After three All-Big Ten appearances, a Consensus All-American honor and serving as the Wolverines’ starting center and leading scorer since the moment he stepped foot on campus back in 2020, Dickinson is apparently in the portal and looking to spend his senior season elsewhere.

The 7-foot-1 big man just became the Moby Dick of the portal so far this cycle. It’s not often you see the leading scorer of a program as prestigious as Michigan become available — even rarer, an All-American and three-time All-Big Ten performer. Sure, the low-post, back-to-the-basket center has become sort of a lost art, but there’s still a place for a dominant inside presence like Dickinson in today’s game.

For starters, he’s always been efficient and prolific. Dickinson shot a smidge under 60% from inside the arc during his three seasons in Ann Arbor and scored more than 1,600 total points. Another season like the last few in 2023-24 and he’ll surpass 2,000. Dickinson also rebounds the heck out of the ball, a valuable trait in any era of hoops. Lastly, he started shooting threes this year and he remained efficient, knocking down 24 of 57 total triples, good for 42.1%. Most of those were wide open, but the mere fact defenses have to respect his stroke will make offense much smoother with him on the court.

We’re talking about a crown jewel type of player that just hit the open market. Hunter Dickinson can sit back and name his NIL price if he wants to, because every top school will be lining up to grab him.

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.