Oregon guard Rivaldo Soares enters transfer portal

One of Oregon’s starting guards appears headed for a departure from the program.

Senior guard Rivaldo Soares, who started 33 games for Oregon during the 2022-23 season, has entered the transfer portal.

Soares announced his intention to transfer via his Twitter account Monday morning.

thank you 🫶🏽 pic.twitter.com/S7nmqsdvyz

— Rivaldo Soares (@Waldo_ML) April 10, 2023

A 6-foot-6 guard who joined the Ducks in 2021-22 after spending his freshman and sophomore seasons at South Plains College, Soares become an integral figure for the Ducks last season.

He averaged 7.2 points and 3.6 rebounds in his first season as a starter. He averaged 27.9 minutes per game — third-most among Oregon players behind only Will Richardson and Jermaine Couisnard.

Soares struggled to shoot from three-point range this season. His 99 attempts from downtown were the third-most on the team, but he shot at just a 25% clip.

He delivered one of the more memorable moments of the Ducks’ season when he buried to go-ahead jumper to seal a comeback win over rival Oregon State in Corvallis on Feb. 24.

Soares becomes the fourth Oregon player thus far this offseason to enter the transfer portal, joining junior guard Tyrone Williams, freshmen center Kel’el Ware, and junior forward Lok Wur.

**Oregon men’s basketball transfer portal tracker: Commitments, departures**

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.