Former four-star North Carolina guard Kerwin Walton hits NCAA Transfer Portal

The North Carolina Tar Heels lost some depth on Sunday morning, as second-year guard Kerwin Walton has decided to enter his name into the NCAA Transfer Portal. On3’s Matt Zenitz first reported the development.

Walton is a former four-star recruit, according to the On3 Consensus, a complete and equally weighted industry-generated average. He was rated as the 111th overall player and the 28th-best small forward in the 2020 class.

Walton played in 31 games this past season with one start. He played 13.3 minutes per game, averaging 3.4 points and 1.1 rebounds. Walton started 20 games in the 2020-2021 season, leading North Carolina in three-point shooting at 42%. That year, he averaged 21 minutes per game with 8.2 points, 1.7 rebounds, and 1.8 assists.

Walton is the second Tar Heels player to hit the transfer portal wire in as many days, as forward Ryan McAdoo also entered on Saturday.

Transfer portal background information for North Carolina

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.