Mississippi State basketball guard Cam Carter enters transfer portal

The Mississippi State Bulldogs just lost a talented guard, as On3’s Matt Zenitz reports that Camryn Carter has entered the NCAA transfer portal. Carter was one of three high school recruits in Mississippi State’s 2021 class.

This past season, Carter played in 27 games for Mississippi State with four starts. He averaged 2.2 points, 0.9 assists and 0.8 rebounds in 8.5 minutes per game, shooting 39.6% from the field, 30% from three-point range, and 68.8% from the free throw line.

Mississippi State went 18-16 overall last season, going 8-10 in the regular season against SEC opponents. The Bulldogs moved on from former head coach Ben Howland following the season, bringing in Chris Jans as his replacement.

Now, Jans is looking for improvement in his first season, although he’ll have to do so as Carter becomes another talented player to enter the portal wire.

Transfer portal background information for Mississippi State

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.