Chris Beard details changed he noticed in transfer portal this season vs. last

Ole Miss is coming off its best NCAA Tournament finish since 2001 and just its second Sweet Sixteen finish ever. Looking to build on that, head coach Chris Beard again turned to the Transfer Portal this offseason.

One challenge in the Transfer Portal, though, is that it presents new challenges every season. Those are something that Beard took notice of this season, particularly compared to how last season went in the portal.

“Yeah, I think each year it’s different,” Chris Beard said. “I’m trying to think back two years with maybe [Sean] Pedulla vs. Travis [Perry] or Koren [Johnson]…and certainly not complaining about this, but we were able to play into the second weekend whereas the first year it was almost like we had a two week head start on this. That’s a real part of this.”

The Sweet Sixteen run isn’t something anyone at Ole Miss would give up. At the same time, because the Transfer Portal opened during the NCAA Tournament, it changed how the coaching staff was able to prepare after missing it entirely the season before.

“You’ll hear coaches and administrators talk about when the portal opens,” Beard said. “But there’s so much work being done before the portal opens. Right, common sense. I think, for us, this year the portal opened on Monday, if I’m not mistaken, and we got done playing on Saturday… So, we get back to Oxford and then two days later. So, that was a little bit different than we were on tighter of a time frame.”

According to Chris Beard, this amounted to one of the biggest changes coming in the form of how recruiting was orchestrated. Those relationships were developed remotely, rather than in person this year. That comes at the same time that the House settlement was being agreed upon, changing roster sizes and how revenue can be distributed to athletes.

“This year, I think it’s safe to say, no secret, there were less official visits going on. A lot of the stuff this year was done so much, obviously name, image, and likeness is a factor, but with agents. It seemed like there was more phone calls and Zooms. We actually signed a couple of the players on this roster without official visits,” Beard said. “Which is crazy, but that was just kind of the way it was going. So, I would think just off the top of my head, to answer the question, to me, that was kind of the major kind of difference. Can’t really quantify it, but you just kind of felt that a lot of these things were happening when we didn’t even have a chance to meet the player.”

Chris Beard put together the 19th-ranked transfer class in the 2025 cycle, according to the On3 College Basketball Team Transfer Portal Rankings. That’s included seven incoming players, including Kezza Griffa, James Scott, and Travis Perry. In total, five of those transfers come from power conference teams.