The springtime is peak transfer season for women’s college basketball and the portal is buzzing as was expected. The thing to watch right now in Division I is the peak compared to a year ago. The question the current data leaves looming over the sport is if COVID-19 ending the season early created an early exodus or if the April wave is still to come?
As we noted in our first portal analysis, the in-season transfers were nearly identical to last season. But March, well it’s on a much higher pace in 2020.
In 2019 the March pace was 6.67 portal entries per day. Through 25 days of March 2020 the number is up nearly a third at 8.6 per day.
If you look at the data in the comparison graph below it’s hard to figure out if the trends are the same as 2019 but just happening half a month early. The next two weeks will obviously answer the question but there is one more factor that should be stemming the tide of transfers – coaching changes.
(click graph to enlarge)
The number of programs with coaching changes is relatively low. Openings, some of which have been filled, include UNLV, Utah Valley, Winthrop, Brown, Alcorn State, Detroit Mercy, Holy Cross, North Dakota, Navy opened and Nebraska-Omaha.
There isn’t a Power 5 coaching job open right now.
If coaching changes are the main catalysts for spikes in transfers then the early spike doesn’t make sense. And if jobs are not opening because of travel limitations, will we see another late spike if more jobs open in the summer as opposed to the spring?
In 2019 we saw nearly two portal entries per Division I program. If that rate increases, what impact will that have on proposed legislation to remove the mandatory redshirt year when transferring?
For comparison sake, even a modest increase would still keep the women’s basketball transfer rate lower than men’s basketball which saw more than 1,000 transfers in the last academic calendar year despite a lower scholarship totals (13 max for men vs 15 for women).
You can follow our ELITE 100 Transfer Tracker here: link.
Chris Hansen is managing editor of ProspectsNation.com and serves on the McDonald’s All-American and Naismith Trophy selection committees. He was a co-founder of and the national director of scouting for ESPN HoopGurlz from 2005 until 2012 and is the director of the Check Me Out Showcase and ELITE is EARNED events. He can be reached at chris@eliteisearned.com.
