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Nevada's Steve Alford blasts role of NIL, transfer portal in college basketball: 'It's utterly ridiculous'

ns_headshot_2024-clearby:Nick Schultz•03/15/25•

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Nevada HC Steve Alford
© Rob Gray-Imagn Images

Later this month, the transfer portal window will open for men’s college basketball. Players will be able to hit the open market after the first weekend of the NCAA tournament, and some have already announced their intentions to do so.

Once again, player movement and NIL will intersect, as On3’s Jamie Shaw detailed. As Nevada gets ready for its offseason, Steve Alford called out the state of the landscape with a strong, passionate answer.

Alford lamented the role NIL dollars play in players’ decisions, showing the way recruiting changed since the NCAA allowed athletes to capitalize on their name, image and likeness in 2021. With the portal window on the horizon, he also hears from other coaches about issues with the current model.

“I think you get a blueprint,” Alford said after Nevada’s Mountain West tournament loss to Colorado State. “We’ve been doing it a long time, and we develop a blueprint. Now, the blueprint changes and evolves. Five years ago, I wasn’t [in] on conversations saying how much you want to be paid. Never thought that would happen in college basketball. And I’ve always been a big proponent, as the game and money has evolved and changed, I’ve never been one that said I don’t believe student-athletes shouldn’t be paid.

“But the way it is now is ridiculous. It’s utterly ridiculous. And it’s changed our game. So you’ve got to adapt. We’ve got to adapt, every coach. Every handshake I have now before games that’s brought up. Every game, me and the opposing coach are going to talk about portal issues.”

‘It makes no sense for that to be our model’

During the 2024 transfer cycle, over 2,100 players entered their names in the portal at the Division I level. That leaves plenty of holes to fill on rosters across the country, and that’s expected to be the case again this year.

With that, though, Steve Alford pointed out the importance of the academic progress report. He said rather than hearing about degrees and facilities, he instead receives questions about the amount of money players want.

“Where’s academics at?” Alford said. “Like, I’ve talked to my compliance guys. What’s APR anymore? You can’t control APR. It’s a JUCO. You’re gonna replace eight, nine guys to a roster every year. The travel time that is across the country in these leagues. It makes no sense for that to be our model, but that is our model. So more than us, do we have to evolve as coaches? Yeah, we’ve got to evolve of how, now, we recruit. It used to be, ‘Hey, what’s my degree going to look like? What’s your facilities look like? What’s your relationship with the team look like? Are you there for all practices? Are you a coach that dives into relationships and you’re going to care for my child?’

“You might as well throw all that stuff out, because the only question they’re concerned about is what they’re getting paid in the portal. And to me, that’s a terrible model for an 18-year-old, because, truth be told then, a lot of 18 and 19-year-olds are raising family members now. And that’s not what you go off to college for. That’s just not. That’s frustrating.”

Steve Alford: ‘It’s not name, image and likeness’

NIL dollars continue to flow as players enter the portal and go through the transfer process. It can now be part of the recruiting process after the NCAA announced it would halt NIL-related investigations following an injunction in a lawsuit filed by the Tennessee and Virginia attorneys general.

With that, though, Steve Alford noted issues about dolling out money before players suit up. That, he said, creates bad habits.

“I don’t like our model at all,” Alford said. “I don’t know how that’s going to change now that the genie is out of the bottle, but you asked me a pertinent question, and I don’t like the model that we currently have because it’s not name, image and likeness. That’s not what it is. There’s not that many college players that have that eval as the name, image and likeness. Most of them are getting what they’re getting before they ever produce. You should have to produce, then you receive. It’s a bad lesson, and we shouldn’t be sending kids off to college, academically or in our profession, to teach them bad models for when they’re 25 and 26.

“Like, I’ve got five players now. NIL is done in two months. What happens to them? Are they gonna be able to handle the real world now, after having NIL for a couple years at Nevada or wherever they’ve been? Are they gonna really be prepared to handle the things that, ‘Oh, I’m not getting that money? I have to go earn that money’ We’re not really teaching them that. And I think that’s that’s something that people way above me have to really look at because the NCAA and collegiate athletics should be about teaching life lessons, period, through athletics.”