Former Stanford forward Neal Begovich commits to Duke

Former Stanford forward Neal Begovich committed to Duke out of the transfer portal, he announced on Twitter on Wednesday. He is walking on at Duke, according to On3’s Joe Tipton.

Begovich spent four seasons at Stanford, appearing in 15 total games. He has 16 career points on 14 career field goal attempts. He started two games as a junior in 2022-23.

By virtue of a redshirt and the Covid-19 year, he has multiple years of eligibility he could use.

My Next Chapter: The Brotherhood 💙😈 pic.twitter.com/t303Wf49G1

— Neal Begovich (@Lil_Bego) May 10, 2023

Begovich will be the fifth newcomer for the Blue Devils in 2023, joining four freshman signees: Jared McCain (No. 11 prospect nationally, per the On3 Industry ranking), Sean Stewart (No. 16), TJ Power (No. 18) and Caleb Foster (No. 19). It’s enough to give Duke the No. 2 overall signing class for the 2023 cycle.

To keep up with the latest players on the move, check out On3’s Transfer Portal wire.

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.