Washington State transfer Efe Abogidi receiving big interest

Former Washington State center Efe Abogidi has received interest from a long list of schools since deciding to enter the transfer portal while also testing the NBA Draft waters. CBS Sports’ insider Jon Rothstein posted a complete list of 35 schools which the Nigerian-born player is considering.

Among the biggest programs after Efe Abogidi in the transfer portal, eight SEC schools have entered the race along with five from the Big 12. In total, 23 of the 35 schools involved come from Power Five conferences across the country.

The SEC schools include Florida, Kentucky, LSU, Mississippi State, Missouri, Ole Miss, South Carolina and Texas A&M. The Big 12 schools include Iowa State, Kansas State, Oklahoma, Texas and West Virginia.

Georgia Tech, Virginia Tech and Wake Forest are involved from the ACC with Arizona, Oregon, Oregon State and Washington involved from the Pac-12. Iowa, Maryland and Penn State are considered from the Big Ten.

Other notable schools involved in his recruitment include Creighton, Gonzaga, Houston, Marquette, Memphis, UCF and Xavier. The list is rounded out by Alabama State, Louisiana Tech, Loyola Marymount, Nevada and San Francisco.

In two seasons at Washington State, Abogidi started 56 of 64 appearances. He has averaged 8.4 points and 6.4 rebounds with 1.6 blocks and 0.8 steals on defense.

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.