Committee recommends cutting men’s hoops transfer window to 30 days

The NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Oversight Committee has recommended reducing the transfer portal window from 45 days to 30, according to the committee’s May report.

Additionally, under the new recommendation, the college basketball transfer portal would instead open the day after the end of the second round of the NCAA Tournament — a week later than it currently does, the day after Selection Sunday.

The proposal — which was endorsed by the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) — now moves to the Division I Council for consideration in June. If approved, the change would go into effect for the 2024-25 athletic calendar.

If the committee’s recommendation is accepted, as expected, it would mark the fourth change to the college basketball calendar since October 2023. First, the NCAA reduced the portal window for all college sports from 60 days to 45. Then in January, the oversight committee adopted legislation reducing the number of live recruiting periods in May through July. Many coaches celebrated those changes, which fought back at the never-ending nature of modern recruiting.

Most recently, in April, the Division I Council adopted rules stating that graduate transfers — who previously did not have any deadline to enter the portal, and who entered as late as August last offseason — had to abide by undergraduate portal deadlines.

All of those changes, as well as the committee’s latest proposal, seek to create stronger guidelines amidst a constantly shifting college landscape. Moving the portal entry date back a week would reduce the amount of transfer portal recruiting happening during the NCAA Tournament. Coaches in each of the last two Final Fours, including Connecticut’s Dan Hurley, have lamented hosting transfer portal visits and making recruiting calls with their seasons still ongoing. The committee said that, under its new proposal, 91 percent of teams will have concluded their seasons by the day after the second round of March Madness.

The 30-day window would also expedite the decision-making timeline for players contemplating transferring. Under the current calendar, players had until 11:59 p.m. on May 1 to declare their intention to enter the portal; this proposal would shift that deadline up several days.

Beyond the transfer portal, the committee also recommended that all six countable coaches on a college staff be allowed to recruit off-campus. Last offseason, the NCAA adopted rules allowing college staffs to carry six countable coaches, rather than the previous limit of four. That led to an industry-wide hiring streak, which was seen as a major way to improve the college coaching pipeline. This latest proposal would do the same, allowing coaches currently restricted to on-campus development to work on their recruiting chops and round out their skill sets. Under the new recommendation, head coaches would still be responsible for selecting which four of their six countable coaches can hit the road on any given day — but those four could vary on a day-to-day basis, affording new opportunities for young coaches.

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