Kevin Keatts not interested in transfer portal complaints: ‘It’s here’

NC State head coach Kevin Keatts has been utilizing the transfer portal to a great degree over the last two offseasons as a way to revamp his roster. But even as the college sports world looks much different than it did even 12 months ago, Keatts isn’t changing his mindset when dealing with players in the portal.

“My approach is the same,” Keatts said during a recent May press conference. “I hear so much complaining about the portal and I hear so much complaining about NIL. From where I sit, it’s here so you have to adapt to it and embrace it and understand we got four really good players from the portal last year. I think we’ve done the same thing this year. I’m one of the coaches that don’t mind it. Doesn’t bother me.”

Keatts has currently landed six players in the NCAA Transfer Portal this offseason in former Stanford guard Michael O’Connell, former Missouri forward Mohamed Diarra, former Kansas forward MJ Rice, former Clemson forward Ben Middlebrooks, Butler guard Jayden Taylor and former Arizona State guard DJ Horne.

The class currently ranks in the top 10 of all transfer portal class in college basketball, according to the On3 Transfer Portal Rankings.

Keatts and NC State landed four players from the transfer portal last season in forward Jack Clark, guard Jarkel Joiner, forward Dusan Mahorcic and center D.J. Burns.

Joiner was second on the team in scoring last season at 17.0 points per game while starting all 34 games. He was also second on the Wolfpack in assists and steals on the year.

Burns started 22 of 34 games while finishing third in scoring at 12.8 points per game to go along with 4.8 rebounds and a team-high 29 blocks.

Mahorcic started nine games but missed most of yea due to a knee injury and has since transferred to Duquesne.  Clark was fifth on the team with 9.0 points and first with 6.9 rebounds, but he also dealt with injures and entered the transfer portal.

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.