Ole Miss, Chris Beard land commitment from Georgetown transfer Brandon Murray

Georgetown transfer Brandon Murray has committed to Ole Miss, he told On3.

The 6-foot-5, 225-pound small forward averaged 13.7 points, 3.9 rebounds, and 3.2 assists this season for the Hoyas, who finished 11th in the Big East, with an overall record of 7-25.

Murray discussed his commitment to Ole Miss with On3.

“I chose Ole Miss because of the mission and plan that coach Beard and staff have,” he said. “I’ve never met a group of coaches with chips on their shoulder. It didn’t feel like I was getting recruited. It was more of the staff opening up and inviting me to the family.”

Murray, a native of Germantown, Md., began his college career at LSU. As a freshman with the Tigers, Murray averaged 10 points, three rebounds, and 1.9 assists. Following the 2021-22 season, LSU fired head coach Will Wade and Murray entered his name into the transfer portal, eventually landing at Georgetown. Murray’s coach was fired, again. This time the Hoyas parted ways with head coach Patrick Ewing, so Murray entered his name into the transfer protal once more.

There has also been a recent coaching staff change at Murray’s newest school, Ole Miss. After five years as the head coach, the Rebels fired Kermit Davis. Former Texas head coach Chris Beard has since been hired as his replacement in Oxford. Brandon Murray becomes Beard’s big transfer portal commitment as head coach at Ole Miss.

On3 Transfer Portal Rankings

Brandon Murray headed back to the SEC, 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.