Seton Hall transfer Tray Jackson commits to Michigan

Seton Hall graduate transfer Tray Jackson has committed to Michigan, he told On3.

The 6-foot-10, 215-pound power forward averaged 6.5 points and 2.2 rebounds this season for the Pirates, who finished the season sixth in the Big East with an overall record of 17-16.

Jackson has spent the last three seasons at Seton Hall, but began his college career at Missouri where he averaged 2.9 points per game as a freshman.

The Detroit native discussed his commitment to Michigan with On3.

“I chose Michigan because It’s close to home and it means a lot for me to be able to come and play in front of my family,” Jackson said to On3. “I chose Coach (Juwan) Howard because of his experience being around the game at a high level, but also the vision he has for my development on and off the court.”

The Michigan Wolverines finished the 2022-23 season with an overall record of 18-16.

Check out On3’s transfer portal player rankings here.

Tray Jackson is headed back to his home state, 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.