Chatanooga star Malachi Smith enters NCAA transfer portal

According to Matt Zenitz of On3, Malachi Smith of the Chattanooga Mocs has entered the NCAA transfer portal. This will be his second time going through the process, beginning his collegiate career at Wright State. Now, Smith will be looking to take another step forward after a successful 2021-2022 season.

Smith played in 35 games last season for Chattanooga, starting in 34 of them. He led the Southern Conference in scoring, averaging 19.9 points per game. Add his 6.7 rebounds and 3.0 assists and a lot of top programs will be coming after Smith in the transfer portal.

Thanks to Smith and his elite scoring, the Mocs were able to make the NCAA Tournament this season. Winning the Southern Conference Tournament led to a first-round matchup against Illinois, with the Fighting Illini coming out on top.

Chattanooga also saw their head coach leave this offseason in Lamont Paris. He accepted the South Carolina job and could look to recruit Smith to Columbia with him as well.

Transfer portal background information for Malachi Smith

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.