Eastern Michigan transfer Noah Farrakhan commits to West Virginia

Former Eastern Michigan guard Noah Farrakhan has committed to West Virginia, a source told On3.

The 6-foot-2, 170-pound Newark, N.J. native averaged 12.1 points, 4.1 rebounds, and 2.3 assists last season while playing alongside NBA draft-pick and former No. 1 overall recruit Emoni Bates.

Once considered a five-star recruit, Farrakhan was highly-touted during his early high school years, receiving high-major offers from the likes of Florida, Maryland, Ohio State, Providence, St. John’s, and others. He decided to drop down a level and opted to play for East Carolina, before entering the transfer portal and landing at Eastern Michigan, where he’s played the last two season. Farrakhan is now a two-time transfer meaning he will need a waiver from the NCAA in order to be eligible to play this upcoming season.

Farrakhan is a shifty, experienced guard with scoring ability, making this a solid late addition for WVU.

Interim head coach Josh Eilert, as well as Director of Recruiting Jay Kuntz and other staff members, have been vital in keeping the Mountaineers‘ ship afloat after parting ways with Hall-of-Fame coach Bob Huggins.

Eliert and Kuntz were able to retain key transfers Kerr Kriisa (Arizona), Jesse Edwards (Syracuse), and RaeQuan Battle (Montana State). The staff also added several more quality transfers in Akok Akok (Georgetown), Quinn Slazinski (Iona), and Jeremiah Bembry (Florida State). WVU also brings back Jose Perez, a transfer from a year ago.

Noah Farrakhan is headed to West Virginia, 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.