Star Murray State guard Justice Hill enters NCAA Transfer Portal

The Murray State Racers just lost a key part of their team, as guard Justice Hill has entered the NCAA Transfer Portal. Hill just wrapped up his second season at Murray State. With most teams across college basketball being done with their seasons, the portal has continued to pile up quality names. Now, Hill is the latest to enter, and is now searching for a new home.

“Murray State guard Juice Hill has gone portaling, the portal told @Stadium,” Goodman tweeted.

Hill originally committed to the Arkansas Razorbacks as part of the 2019 class. He only spent one semester with the Razorbacks before entering the portal and transferring to Salt Lake Community College. Hill joined Murray State ahead of the 2020-2021 season, and turned into a key player for the Racers.

In his first year at Murray State, Hill started ten games, appeared in 26, averaging 5.7 points, 3.6 assists and 2.0 rebounds in 22 minutes per game. This season, Hill started all 34 games that he played in, posting an impressive line of 13.4 points, 5.1 assists, 2.3 rebounds and 1.1 steals in 31.3 minutes per game. On the season, Hill shot 43.1% overall and 35.8% from three-point range.

Murray State made it to the NCAA Tournament this year as a No. 7 seed. The Racers defeated 10th-seeded San Francisco in the opening round, where Hill posted 15 points, nine rebounds and five assists. In the second round, Murray State lost to Saint Peter’s, and Hill had 19 points in the loss.

Hill announced his decision via his Twitter account on Monday, too.

🖤🖤1️⃣4️⃣✌🏽 pic.twitter.com/wC8c0kMhCa

— Justice Hill (@JuiceHill) March 28, 2022

Transfer portal background information for Hill

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.