Former Oregon guard Addison Patterson transfers to Tallahassee CC

Former Oregon guard Addison Patterson exited the transfer portal on Wednesday afternoon by committing to Tallahassee Community College (Tallahassee, Florida). It’s quite a step down in competition for a player who was once tabbed as a top-100 overall prospect in the 2019 recruiting cycle, according to the On3 Consensus Rankings. He originally signed with the Oregon Ducks coming out of high school, but has bounced around at a number of schools over the years, first joining the Nevada Wolfpack back in fall of 2020, then joining the Salt Lake Community College Bruins in August of 2021. This will be his fourth stop in the college basketball landscape.

A native of Toronto, Canada, Patterson averaged 4.6 points for the Oregon Ducks and shot 36 percent from beyond-the-arc during the 2019-2020 season. He’s got extensive playing experience internationally, having played for the Canadian U-17 program and he was also named as the Most Valuable Player of the Biosteel All-Canadian Game.

Coming out of high school, he decided to reclassify from the 2020 recruiting class to 2019. Patterson suited up for the Bella Vista Bears (Scottsdale, Arizona) for the 2018-2019 season. On the 2019 Nike EYBL circuit, he averaged 16.5 points, 6.1 rebounds, 2.6 assists, and 1.1 steals per game. He led his high school team to a National Division title, where he stuffed the stat sheet with 17 points and 10 rebounds in the championship game.

NCAA 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 came 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.