Former Alabama Baseball standout Zane Denton transfers to Tennessee

Former Alabama third baseman and junior Zane Denton has committed to Tennessee, Denton announced via social media Saturday morning with a statement reading “I’m coming home.”

The Brentwood, Tennessee native batted .263 (61-232) with 12 doubles and 13 home runs, including a grand slam this past season for the Crimson Tide.

Denton started all 58 games in 2022 for Alabama and though he struggled to get on base consistently, he was best known for hitting home runs and making highlight plays. He also made the All-SEC defensive team for his work at third base this past season, meaning the Volunteers is getting a multi-faceted diamond out of the transfer portal.

Tennessee is regrouping and rebuilding themselves even strong for their 2023 redemption tour after failing, and adding a proven SEC heavy-hitter in the box is a huge step in the right direction so early in the offseason.

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.

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.