Elite New Jersey Academy Relaunches Under Founder Ian Turnbull to Address “Confusing” NCAA Landscape and Transfer Portal Disruption
BELMAR, NJ – April 27, 2026 – Covenant College Prep, one of the nation’s most proven pipelines for collegiate basketball talent, today announced the official return of its basketball program following a one-year hiatus. The program, founded and led by Executive Director Ian Turnbull, will resume operations immediately, offering high school and postgraduate student-athletes a structured, high-performance pathway to NCAA Division I, Division II, NAIA, and JUCO competition.
Naismith Hall of Fame Coach, Bob Hurley with Covenant College Prep players
Since its inception, Covenant has produced scores of players who have gone on to play at high major and mid-major Division I programs, in addition to over 100 scholarship athletes at the Division II, NAIA, and JUCO levels. Notable alumni include Nick Jourdain (Memphis University), Shavar Reynolds (Seton Hall University), and A.J. West (University of Nevada).
Turnbull cited the rapidly shifting NCAA regulatory environment as a primary catalyst for the program’s revival.
“The rapidly changing NCAA regulatory environment is confusing and frequently overwhelming for many talented players and their families,” said Turnbull. “With college coaches like Rick Pitino explicitly declaring that they are not recruiting high school players, and thousands of experienced athletes available in the transfer portal, the recruitment process has been transformed. We take a lot of pride in offering counsel and guidance to our players, as well as an opportunity to improve and compete against top-level competition.”
Covenant College Prep is modeled after the prestigious New England Preparatory School Athletic Council (NEPSAC) and operates on five core principles: Appropriate Behavior, Fair Play, Good Sportsmanship, Excellence, and Competition. The program’s “Commitment to Excellence” philosophy emphasizes continuous improvement and innovation, propelling athletes toward high performance in academics, social development, and athletics.
On-Court Identity & Development
Defense-First System: Stifling team defense built on individual accountability, designed to generate offense from defensive pressure.
Attack-Mode Offense: Fast-paced, matchup-exploiting schemes with innovative sets to outwit opponents.
College-Level Training: Daily team practices, “Skills Only” workouts, and position-specific instruction.
Strength & Conditioning: Measurable on-court performance improvements through elite S&C programming. Program Advantages for Student-Athletes
NCAA-approved classes (Full 48H credit structure)
Opportunity to earn college credits
National schedule with significant exposure opportunities
Housing & Meals
Student-athletes will reside in two dedicated team houses located two blocks from the ocean in scenic Belmar, New Jersey:
House 1: 8 bedrooms, 3 bathrooms, 3,500 sq. ft. House 2: 5 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 3,000 sq. ft. The two houses are situated two blocks apart.
Breakfast, lunch, and dinner will be provided daily at the team house by Covenant College Prep.
Enrollment & Contact
Interested players and parents are invited to contact Ian Turnbull directly for tryout and enrollment information.
Ian Turnbull, Executive Director
Phone: 732-642-3269
Covenant College Prep is a premier basketball academy committed to preparing young men for the challenges of collegiate athletics through superior instruction, competition, and character development.
The theater of amateurism has always demanded that the laborers perform gratitude. They are finally refusing the script.
CAMDEN, NJ – There is a familiar tremor of anxiety running through college sports, a sense among many fans, pundits and administrators that something essential has been lost. The arrival of name, image and likeness compensation and the liberated transfer portal has, we are told, unleashed a wave of selfishness, greed and disloyalty among the young men and women who play the revenue-generating sports. The athletes, particularly the Black athletes who dominate football and men’s basketball, are now routinely described as mercenaries, as bad teammates, as children who have been ruined by money they did not earn and freedoms they do not know how to wield. The language is moral, the tone is elegiac, and the target is precise.
What is remarkable about this cascade of criticism is not its volume but its selectivity. The same multibillion-dollar industry that has normalized the spectacle of middle-aged coaches jetting from one contract to another in pursuit of seismic paydays, leaving behind the very players they recruited with promises of family and brotherhood, now looks those players in the eye and calls them disloyal for doing the same thing on a much smaller scale and with a fraction of the institutional power. This glaring double standard is not a glitch in the logic of college sports. It is the logic itself, and it reveals the endurance of what the long-time NCAA Executive Director, Walter Byars, described as a “neo-plantation” arrangement of power dressed in the language of amateurism and moral character.
The System as a Battlefield
To understand this moment, one must see college athletics as a theater in a much larger system, a social machinery designed to manage the relationship between those who own the capital and those who produce the value with their bodies. In this arrangement, every major area of human activity—the economy, education, entertainment, labor—functions as a battlefield on which a racial hierarchy is reinforced. The role assigned to the Black body within this machinery is to be an instrument of production, a source of spectacle and revenue whose labor enriches institutions controlled almost entirely by white executives, white university presidents, white athletic directors, white head coaches and white-run media conglomerates. The unspoken rule of this arrangement is that the instrument must not acquire a will of its own. When it does, the system must declare a moral emergency.
This is precisely what we are witnessing in the era of the transfer portal and NIL rights. A class of laborers that was expected to perform, produce and remain gratefully in place has suddenly acquired the limited but real ability to move, to bargain and to claim a share of the wealth it generates. The response has been a language of character assassination that would be immediately recognizable to anyone who has studied how dominant groups have historically reacted when subjugated populations take a step toward economic autonomy. A person who was supposed to be a tool is now acting like an independent agent. That transformation must be defined as a moral failure, not a rational economic choice.
The Case Study That Exposes the Hypocrisy
The saga of Deuce Jones renders the double standard unavoidable, so naked in its contradictions that it functions as a kind of parable for the entire era.
Jones was the Atlantic 10 Men’s Basketball Rookie of the Year during the 2024-2025 season while playing for La Salle University. Like thousands of other college athletes, he entered the transfer portal after the season ended—exercising the same freedom of movement that every American worker is taught to regard as a birthright. He ultimately committed to St. Joseph’s University, just a few miles across town, to play for Coach Billy Lange. He signed a lucrative NIL deal, the kind of contract that critics insist corrupts the young but that no one would begrudge a fifty-year-old man.
Before Jones could ever wear the Hawk uniform in a meaningful game, the architecture of his decision collapsed. Lange departed. He abruptly left St. Joseph’s and accepted a job within the New York Knicks organization. The coach who had recruited Jones, who had sold him on a vision, a system and a relationship, was gone before the season began—pursuing his own career advancement, his own economic interests, his own ambitions. The machinery of the sport processed this as normal. Lange was praised for seizing an NBA opportunity.
Steve Donahue, who had recently been hired as an assistant after being fired as head coach at the University of Pennsylvania, was promoted and signed a multiyear contract to replace Lange. The program Jones had chosen no longer existed. The coach he had committed to play for was gone. The system he had been recruited to fit was replaced by one designed by a man he never agreed to play for. The player-coach relationship did not work out. Jones, the reigning Atlantic 10 Rookie of the Year, left the team after 10 games.
Then came the familiar verdict. Some St. Joseph’s fans, reaching for the well-worn vocabulary of the moral panic, characterized Jones as a “bad teammate” following his commitment to the University of Alabama at Birmingham.
Pause on that sequence. A middle-aged white coach takes a job, recruits a young Black athlete, signs him to a contract, then abandons that contract before a single season is played to better his own professional standing. That coach’s departure sets off a chain reaction that fundamentally alters the conditions under which the athlete agreed to labor. The institution replaces the coach with someone the athlete never chose, in a system he never signed up for. When the relationship predictably fails, the athlete exercises the same prerogative the coach exercised—to leave for a better situation—and the athlete is the one branded disloyal. The coach is ambitious. The player is a bad teammate. The entire episode is a master class in how the language of character functions as a disciplinary weapon, applied only to those who are supposed to stay in their assigned place.
The Vocabulary of Control
Consider the word “selfish.” When a running back enters the transfer portal seeking a better offensive scheme, more exposure and a larger NIL collective payout, he is condemned as a mercenary who has abandoned the sacred cause of the team. But what is the unspoken expectation here? It is that the young Black athlete should subordinate his own economic interests, his own physical health during a famously short and brutal career, and his own family’s financial future to the emotional needs of a fanbase and the career ambitions of a coaching staff. The word “selfish” in this context functions as a code. It is a term of discipline applied to laborers who are supposed to think collectively only insofar as that collectivity serves the institution. The athlete’s individualism is a threat; the coach’s individualism is a sign of competitive greatness. Billy Lange leaves for the Knicks, chasing his own advancement, and that is the natural order of things. Deuce Jones leaves for UAB after the coach who recruited him disappears, and that is a character flaw.
Then there is “greedy.” The same television broadcasters who celebrate a coach’s new $95 million contract as a triumph of the free market will, minutes later, express grave concern that an NIL deal worth a few hundred thousand dollars is corrupting the souls of 19-year-olds. The accusation of greed is almost never directed upward. It does not attach itself to the conference commissioners earning millions or the athletic directors who preside over facilities arms races built on the uncompensated labor of generations. It is reserved for the laborer who dares to ask for more than what the system has deemed his appropriate allowance. The function of this selective accusation is to produce guilt. It is meant to make a young person feel dirty for wanting what the system’s architects take as their birthright.
“Disloyal” may be the most revealing epithet of all. Loyalty, in the moral vocabulary of college sports, flows only one way. The coach who leaves a program in the middle of the night, who breaks a contract without penalty to accept a richer offer, who tells recruits he will be there for their entire careers and then holds a press conference at another school 48 hours later—this man is described as ambitious, strategic, a winner. His disloyalty is recast as a natural expression of his excellence. But the player who transfers, especially after his coach has already left, is branded with a scarlet letter. The lesson is stark: Loyalty is an obligation demanded of the dominated and a courtesy occasionally offered by the dominant. It is a leash, not a contract.
And what of the charge of being a “bad teammate”? This accusation is a particularly effective instrument of internal policing. It transforms the entirely reasonable act of pursuing better working conditions into a betrayal of one’s peers. The logic is that a player who negotiates for his own value is fracturing the locker room’s sacred unity. But that unity, in the context of a system designed to extract maximum physical effort from Black bodies for the financial and reputational benefit of white-controlled institutions, is a unity of the plantation. It is a collectivism that does not empower the collective but rather harnesses it to the goals of those who own the land. A bad teammate, in this framework, is anyone who reminds his fellow workers that they have interests of their own that the institution will not protect. Deuce Jones was supposed to stay, to submit to a system he never chose under a coach he never committed to, for the sake of a unity that had already been shattered by the man who recruited him. When he declined that burden, he became the villain.
The Great Diversion
The exclusive focus on the athlete’s moral character is not an accident. It is a diversion. It turns the public’s gaze away from the actual economic violence of the system—the years of uncompensated brain trauma, the billion-dollar television deals built on scholarships that do not remotely cover the value produced, the universities that build gleaming athletic cathedrals while their academic missions strain—and redirects it toward the comportment of the 20-year-olds who have finally found a sliver of leverage. If the public can be persuaded that the real problem is the player’s ingratitude, then it will not ask why the coach’s salary has a different moral valence or why the system was built so that the vast majority of the wealth flows to everyone except the people the crowd actually pays to see.
This is not an argument against coaching salaries or the right of any professional to maximize their market value. It is an argument for consistency. Coaches and administrators are free to operate within the logic of capitalism because that is what the system permits people with power to do. The moral panic begins when people who were never supposed to have power begin to operate under the same logic. The dominant group’s freedom, when exercised by the dominated, is recoded as sin.
The Crisis Beneath the Crisis
The current hand-wringing over NIL and the transfer portal is, at bottom, a crisis of control disguised as a crisis of values. What has been disrupted is not the moral formation of young athletes. Young athletes, like young people in every industry, are responding rationally to the incentives and opportunities placed before them. What has been disrupted is a racialized labor arrangement that depended on a captive workforce performing gratitude while generating obscene wealth for others. The story of Deuce Jones is not an outlier that complicates the dominant narrative. It is the narrative stripped of its euphemisms. A coach exercised his freedom and was celebrated. An athlete exercised the same freedom and was condemned. The language of selfishness, greed and disloyalty is the sound a system makes when its tools begin to talk back. We should not mistake that noise for wisdom, and we should be very clear about who benefits when we do.
CAMDEN, NJ – For three years, D.J. Wagner’s career has been defined by loyalty. Loyalty to John Calipari, the coach who recruited him to Kentucky, who coached his father at Memphis, who became a second father to the Wagner family. Loyalty that led him to follow Calipari from Kentucky to Arkansas after his freshman season, sacrificing the comfort of a program where he had already earned a starting role for the uncertainty of a rebuild.
That loyalty earned him nothing. Not a featured role. Not a clear path to the NBA. Not even consistent playing time.
As a freshman at Kentucky, Wagner shared the backcourt with Reed Sheppard and Rob Dillingham—both eventual one and done NBA first-round picks. As a sophomore at Arkansas, he watched Boogie Fland emerge as the team’s leader and go-to guy before Fland transferred to Florida. As a junior, he was pushed aside by Darius Acuff, the SEC Rookie of the Year and Player of the Year, a lottery pick in waiting.
In college, Wagner has never been the man. He has never had the opportunity to play 35 minutes per game as the featured option.
He has never been the player his team looked to in every critical moment.
That changes now.
Wagner’s decision to transfer from Arkansas to Maryland is not a story of disloyalty. It is a story of a player finally putting himself first. After three years of sacrificing for others, after three years of competing for minutes against NBA talent, after three years of deferring, Wagner has chosen to become the main character in his own story.
At Maryland, under Buzz Williams, Wagner will be the starting point guard and primary playmaker. He will have the opportunity to demonstrate that he remains one of the finest players in the nation and a viable NBA draft prospect. And he will finally answer the question that has followed him since high school: What can D.J. Wagner do when he is the man?
The Portfolio Problem: Two Decisions, Two Different Motivations
To understand Wagner’s journey, you have to understand his two transfer decisions as fundamentally different kinds of portfolio allocations.
Decision #1: Kentucky to Arkansas (2024) – The Loyalty Move
After a solid freshman season at Kentucky—SEC All-Freshman Team, three-time SEC Freshman of the Week, 28 starts in 29 appearances—Wagner faced a choice. Calipari was leaving for Arkansas. Wagner could stay at Kentucky, compete for minutes against a new crop of five-star recruits, or follow his coach to Fayetteville.
He chose loyalty. He followed Calipari.
The Calculus: Wagner traded the stability of a program where he had already earned a role for the uncertainty of a rebuild. He traded Kentucky’s brand for Arkansas’s promise. But he gained something invaluable: the trust of a coach who knew his family, who had coached his father, who would prioritize his development.
Or so he thought.
Decision #2: Arkansas to Maryland (2026) – The Self-Interest Move
After two seasons at Arkansas, Wagner’s production had plateaued. As a sophomore, he was an ironman—the only Razorback to start all 36 games, ranking second in the SEC in minutes (34:32 per game), leading the team with 131 assists. After Boogie Fland’s injury, he took over full-time at point guard and averaged 12.2 points and 4.6 assists over the final 18 games.
But as a junior, his role diminished. Darius Acuff arrived and immediately became the focal point of the offense. Wagner’s starts dropped from 36 to 19. His minutes, his shots, his assists—all down.
He had been loyal. He had waited his turn. And his turn never came.
This time, Wagner made a different choice. He chose self-interest. He entered the portal not to follow a coach, but to find a program where the wins and losses depend on his play.
The Calculus: Wagner traded SEC prestige for Big Ten opportunity. He traded a bench role for a starting job. He traded uncertainty for clarity. And he gained something invaluable: a chance to finally be the featured player.
The Maryland Opportunity: Buzz Williams and a Clean Slate
Buzz Williams is one of the most respected coaches in college basketball. He has won at least 100 games at Marquette, Virginia Tech, and Texas A&M—and he is seeking to become just the third Division I head coach to win 100 games at four different institutions, joining Maryland Hall of Fame coach Lefty Driesell and Steve Alford.
Williams’ track record speaks for itself: 18 seasons as a head coach: 373-228 (.621) 2x SEC Coach of the Year (2019-20, 2022-23) Led Texas A&M to the NCAA Tournament in each of his last three seasons Has won 100+ games at three different programs
But Wagner has already played a 100 games, logging major minutes, for a Hall of Fame coach.
Playing for Williams is opportunity to display his full game. Williams has a reputation for developing guards, for building defensive-minded teams, for maximizing the talent on his roster. He will give Wagner the keys to the offense and trust him to make plays.
The Numbers: A Player Who Keeps Improving
Wagner’s three-year college career shows steady improvement in the areas that matter most:
The positive trends: His three-point percentage has improved every season (29.2% → 30.4% → 34.6%) His assist-to-turnover ratio as a junior (85 assists, 23 turnovers) was elite (3.70) He is 52 points from 1,000 for his career and has 312 career assists
The concerning trends: His scoring and assists dropped significantly as a junior He started only 19 of 35 games He has never been the featured option
At Maryland, Wagner will have the opportunity to reverse those trends. He will be the main playmaker. He will play 30+ minutes per night. He will have the ball in his hands.
Arkansas head coach John Calipari speaks with guard D.J. Wagner (21), Saturday, Nov. 8, 2025, during the second half of the Razorbacks’ 69-66 loss to the Michigan State Spartans at the Breslin Center in East Lansing, Mich. Visit nwaonline.com/photo for today’s photo gallery. (NWA Democrat-Gazette/Hank Layton)
What Wagner Has Endured
It is impossible to assess Wagner’s journey without acknowledging what he has been through. He has competed against NBA-level guards every single year of his college career:
Freshman (Kentucky): Reed Sheppard (NBA first round) and Rob Dillingham (NBA first round) Sophomore (Arkansas): Boogie Fland (team leader, later transferred to Florida) Junior (Arkansas): Darius Acuff (SEC ROY, SEC POY, lottery pick)
He has never been the priority. He has always been the second or third option. And yet, he has never complained. He has never quit. He has played through injury—including an ankle injury that limited him as a junior. He has defended. He has facilitated. He has done whatever his team needed.
That maturity—that dedication to winning—made him an attractive prospect in the portal. High major programs like Villanova and St. John’s pursued him heavily. But Maryland offered something they could not: a clear path to being the man.
The Final Verdict: A Player Reclaiming His Narrative
D.J. Wagner was the No. 1 player in his high school class. He was the McDonald’s All-American Game MVP. He was supposed to be a one-and-done lottery pick.
That is not how his story has unfolded. But it is not too late to rewrite the ending.
At Maryland, under Buzz Williams, Wagner will have the opportunity to demonstrate that he is one of the best players in the nation and a viable NBA draft prospect. He will finally be the main playmaker.
He will finally have the chance to answer the question that has followed him since high school.
His first transfer was driven by loyalty. His second transfer is driven by self-interest. And that is exactly as it should be
Wagner has sacrificed enough. He has waited enough. He has been loyal enough.
CAMDEN, NJ – The transfer portal is filled with cautionary tales—players who moved up too fast, who chased money over fit, who disappeared into depth charts and never recovered. But for every cautionary tale, there is a player like Budd Clark, who has used the portal precisely as it was intended: as a ladder.
Clark’s journey from Merrimack to Seton Hall to Ole Miss is not a story of impatience or disloyalty. It is a story of a player who has improved every single year, who has consistently bet on himself, and who has made strategic decisions to maximize his competition level, his development, and his professional future.
After beginning his collegiate career in the MAAC, Clark will start for Mississippi in the SEC this season. That sentence would have seemed impossible three years ago. But Clark has proven that the portal, used wisely, can be a tool for ascending—not just transferring.
Young players should study Clark’s path. He is a prototypical “Philly Guard”—extreme toughness on both ends of the floor, a pure point guard in the Kyle Lowry mode, a player who has consistently improved every aspect of his game each year. And he has done it by making calculated decisions under conditions of incomplete information, asymmetric power, and time pressure.
The Portfolio Problem: Two Decisions, One Trajectory
To understand Clark’s journey, you have to understand his decision-making as a series of portfolio allocations—each one balancing immediate returns against long-term growth.
Decision #1: Merrimack to Seton Hall (2024-25)
As a sophomore at Merrimack, Clark dominated the MAAC. He averaged 19.8 points per game (23rd nationally), 6.0 assists (top-20), and 2.7 steals (5th nationally). He was named All-MAAC First Team and NABC North Atlantic First Team. He scored in double figures in all but one game and eclipsed 20 points 16 times.
But he had proven everything he could prove at the low-major level. He needed a higher platform.
Seton Hall offered that platform. The Big East is one of the premier conferences in college basketball. The competition is tougher. The exposure is greater. The NBA scouts are in attendance.
The Calculus: Clark traded MAAC dominance for Big East opportunity. He traded a guaranteed starring role for the uncertainty of a higher level. But he also traded low-major obscurity for high-major visibility. The speculative assets—development, exposure, professional pathway—outweighed the risk.
Decision #2: Seton Hall to Ole Miss (2025-26)
Clark’s single season at Seton Hall was a resounding success. He adjusted to the upgrade in competition and thrived in Shaheen Holloway’s system, earning second-team All-Big East honors and Big East All-Defensive team honors. He averaged 12.7 points, 4.9 assists, 3.0 rebounds, and 2.0 steals per game. He ranked third in the Big East in both assists and steals.
But the Big East, while elite, is not the SEC. And Clark had one season of eligibility remaining.
Ole Miss offered the next rung on the ladder: a starting job in the SEC, a platform with NBA scouts in attendance every night, and a chance to prove he could produce against the highest level of college competition.
The Calculus: Clark traded Big East production for SEC exposure. He traded a high-major platform for an elite conference stage. And he gained something invaluable: a head coach with a national championship pedigree.
The Chris Beard Factor: A Coach Who Wins at the Highest Level
If Clark’s decision to transfer to Ole Miss was strategic, playing for Chris Beard made it inspired.
Beard has led four different programs to the NCAA Tournament since 2016, including an appearance in the 2019 National Championship game and an Elite Eight run the year before at Texas Tech. As an NCAA head coach, he owns a 296-142 record—a 67.6 winning percentage that ranks among the best in the nation. He is 13-6 in the NCAA Tournament, including a perfect 6-0 in the opening round.
Across 16 seasons as a collegiate head coach, he has a 340-159 overall record.What Beard Brings: A four-time conference coach of the year A two-time national coach of the year A proven track record of developing guards for the next level A system that emphasizes defensive intensity—perfect for a Philly guard like Clark
Despite a challenging season, Beard helped guide Ole Miss to a historic run at the 2026 SEC Tournament, where they became the first team seeded 15 or higher in an NCAA Division-I conference tournament to reach the semifinals. They knocked off 10-seeded Texas, seven-seeded Georgia, and two-seeded and nationally-ranked Alabama before taking three-seeded and nationally-ranked Arkansas to overtime in the semifinals.
For Clark, a player who has improved every year, playing for a coach who has won at the highest level is the final piece of the puzzle. Beard will prepare him for the professional gam.
The Philly Guard Mentality: Kyle Lowry Mode
Clark is a prototypical “Philly Guard.” He is tough. He is competitive. He defends. He makes winning plays. He is not afraid of the moment.
His numbers tell the story:
Clark has improved every single season. He has adapted to higher competition levels each year. He has not maxed out his potential—he has expanded it.
What Young Players Should Learn from Clark
Dominate Before You Move Up. Clark did not leave Merrimack after one season. He stayed, dominated, and proved he had nothing left to prove at that level. Then he moved up.
Choose Fit Over Flash. Seton Hall was not the biggest brand in the Big East. But Shaheen Holloway’s system—defense-first, point guard-centric—was a perfect fit for Clark’s skill set.
Keep Climbing. Clark did not stop at Seton Hall. He assessed his portfolio, recognized that the Big East had served its purpose, and moved up again to the SEC.
Prioritize Development Over NIL. Clark could have chased larger NIL packages elsewhere. Instead, he prioritized playing for coaches who could develop him and prepare him for the professional level.
The Final Verdict: A Blueprint for the Strategic Transfer
Budd Clark’s journey is a blueprint for how the transfer portal should work. He did not transfer out of desperation. He transferred out of strategy. He did not chase the highest NIL offer. He chased the right level, the right fit, the right coach. He began his career as a NEC Rookie of the Year at Merrimack. He will end it as a starting point guard in the SEC, playing for a national coach of the year. That is not luck. That is a player who understood his own portfolio, who made calculated decisions under conditions of incomplete information, and who consistently bet on himself.
The portal is full of cautionary tales. Budd Clark is a success story—one that should be studied by every young player considering a transfer.
CAMDEN, NJ -The transfer portal is often framed as a story of impatience—players who leave at the first sign of adversity, who chase playing time, who refuse to wait their turn. But Chance Westry’s journey is different. His story is not about impatience. It is about survival.
Westry has transferred three times: from Auburn to Syracuse, from Syracuse to UAB, and now from UAB to Xavier. He has undergone two leg surgeries—one in 2022, another in 2023. He played in just 11 games as a freshman. He redshirted his sophomore season. He logged spot minutes off the bench at Syracuse as a junior.
And yet, after all of that, he is still standing. He is still improving. And at Xavier, he will likely start for a Big East program with two years of eligibility remaining.
This is not a story of a player who could not commit. It is a story of a player who refused to quit.
The Portfolio Problem: Three Decisions, One Trajectory
To understand Westry’s journey, you have to understand his decision-making as a series of portfolio allocations—each one shaped by injury, opportunity, and the need to find a program that would trust him.
Decision #1: Auburn to Syracuse (2023)
Westry arrived at Auburn as a consensus four-star recruit—ranked No. 26 by Rivals, No. 32 by ESPN, No. 38 by 247Sports. He had averaged 24.1 points, 5.3 rebounds, and 3.1 assists as a sophomore at Trinity High School in Pennsylvania, earning Class 3A Player of the Year honors. He had surpassed 1,000 career points in just two seasons. He had been invited to try out for the USA Basketball Junior National Team.
But injuries derailed his freshman season. He underwent arthroscopic knee surgery in the fall, missed the preseason and the first two games, and played in just 11 games, averaging 2.5 points. He needed a fresh start.
Syracuse offered that fresh start. The Orange had a history of developing guards. The ACC provided a national platform. And Westry hoped that a change of scenery would allow him to finally get healthy and play.
The Calculus: Westry traded the SEC for the ACC—a lateral move in terms of conference prestige. But he traded a program where he had barely played for a program where he hoped to earn a role. The speculative assets—health, opportunity, development—outweighed the risk.
Decision #2: Syracuse to UAB (2025)
Westry’s time at Syracuse was more frustration than fulfillment. A training camp leg injury required surgery. He missed the entire 2023-24 season. He returned in 2024-25 but logged only spot minutes off the bench against Tennessee, Notre Dame, and Albany.
Two years at Syracuse. Two surgeries. Minimal playing time. He needed a program where he could actually play—where he could be featured, not just a reserve.
UAB offered that opportunity. The Blazers were a rising program in the American Athletic Conference. They needed a lead guard. They promised him a featured role.
The Calculus: Westry traded ACC prestige for AAC opportunity. He traded a bench role for a starting job. He traded uncertainty for clarity. And the gamble paid off.
Decision #3: UAB to Xavier (2026)
Westry’s single season at UAB was a breakout. He played in all 32 games, made 27 starts, and averaged 15.5 points, 5.6 assists, and 3.8 rebounds per game. He scored a career-high 31 points against Cleveland State. He broke the program record and American Conference record with 15 assists in a single game against Charlotte. He was named second-team All-American Conference.
He had proven he could produce. But the AAC, while respectable, is not the Big East. And Westry had two years of eligibility remaining.
Xavier offered the next rung on the ladder: a starting job in the Big East, a platform with NBA scouts in attendance, and a chance to prove he could produce against high-major competition.
The Calculus: Westry traded AAC production for Big East exposure. He traded a mid-major platform for a power conference stage. And he gained something else: a head coach with a proven track record of winning.
The Richard Pitino Factor: A Coach Who Wins
Richard Pitino arrived at Xavier after a successful stint at New Mexico, where he was named the 2024-25 Mountain West Coach of the Year. He has 15 seasons of experience as a head coach, a 262-204 record, an NIT Championship, and four NCAA Tournament appearances. He was the 2016-17 Big Ten Coach of the Year at Minnesota.
Pitino is sixth among the top winningest active head coaches under the age of 50, and second among active head coaches under the age of 45, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. Before becoming a head coach, he spent seven years as an assistant or associate head coach, including five NCAA Tournament appearances, one Final Four, four Elite Eights, and two 30-win seasons.
For Westry, a player who has battled injuries and inconsistency, playing for a proven winner matters. Pitino has built programs. He has won conference coach of the year awards in two different leagues. He has taken teams to the NCAA Tournament. He knows what it takes to win.
The Impact of Injury: A Career Nearly Lost
It is impossible to assess Westry’s journey without acknowledging the toll of his injuries. Two leg surgeries. Two lost seasons. The mental grind of rehab, of watching from the sideline, of wondering if he would ever be the player he was supposed to be.
Many players would have quit. Many would have transferred down to a lower level just to play. Westry kept believing. He kept working. And at UAB, he finally got his chance.
His numbers at UAB—15.5 points, 5.6 assists, 48.7% shooting—are even more impressive when you consider that he was still shaking off rust, still building confidence, still learning to trust his body again.
What Westry Gains at Xavier
A Big East Platform: Xavier will face UConn, Marquette, Creighton, Villanova, and Providence. NBA scouts attend Big East games nightly. Westry will be seen.
A Proven Head Coach: Richard Pitino has won everywhere he has coached. He has taken teams to the NCAA Tournament. He knows how to win.
A Clear Role: Xavier struggled to a 15-18 (6-14 Big East) record last season. They need a lead guard who can score and facilitate. Westry fits that profile. He will likely start from day one.
Two Years of Eligibility: Unlike many transfers who have one season to prove themselves, Westry has two. That extra year allows him to build, to develop, to position himself for a professional career.
The Final Verdict: A Testament to Resilience
Chance Westry’s journey is not a cautionary tale about the transfer portal. It is a testament to resilience. He has endured two leg surgeries, two lost seasons, and three transfers. He has been counted out, written off, and overlooked.
And yet, he is still standing. He is still improving. And at Xavier, he has a chance to write the final chapter of his college career—not as a player who transferred too many times, but as a player who refused to quit.
The portal is full of players who left and faded away. Chance Westry left, found himself, and came back stronger.
CAMDEN, NJ – Athletes are frequently criticized for chasing immediate NIL paydays rather than prioritizing programs that offer superior coaching, development, and professional pathways. You are well acquainted with the narrative: players sign with schools offering the largest guarantees, struggle to adapt, lose confidence, and watch their draft stock crater.
Rare are the stories of rational and intelligent decisions based on strategy. Where the player does not chase the highest NIL offer. Where the player chases the right fit, the right level, the right platform, and the right coach.
The transfer portal is often portrayed as a realm of chaos. But for every cautionary tale, there is a player like Ernest Shelton, who has used the portal not as an escape, but as a ladder.
Shelton’s journey from Division II Gannon to Merrimack to Boston College is not a story of impatience or disloyalty. It is a story of a player who has improved every single year, who has consistently bet on himself, and who has made well-informed strategic decisions to maximize his development, his exposure, and his professional future.
This season, after beginning his collegiate career in the PSAC, Shelton will likely start for Boston College in the ACC under first-year head coach Luke Murray—the architect of UConn’s back-to-back national championship offenses. That sentence would have seemed impossible three years ago. But Shelton has proven that the portal, used wisely, can be a tool for ascending—not just transferring.
The Portfolio Problem: Two Decisions, One Trajectory
To understand Shelton’s journey, you have to understand his decision-making as a series of portfolio allocations—each one balancing immediate returns against long-term growth.
Decision #1: Gannon to Merrimack (2024-25)
As a freshman at Gannon, Shelton was a reserve, averaging just under 13 minutes per game. But he showed flashes—a 24-point explosion in his collegiate debut (8-of-12 from three), a 40.8% three-point percentage that ranked fifth in the PSAC.
During his sophomore season at Gannon University in 2024-25, Ernest Shelton emerged as a full-time starter and one of the most prolific scorers in the PSAC, appearing in and starting all 34 games while averaging 27.8 minutes per contest. He led the team with 17.4 points per game, knocked down 150 three-pointers at a 37.0 percent clip, and shot an impressive 85.5 percent from the free-throw line. Shelton recorded seven 20-point games and one 30-point outburst, highlighted by a season-high 32 points against Virginia State (March 16) and a season-best seven three-pointers against Davis & Elkins (November 13). His breakout sophomore campaign proved he could carry a featured scoring load and set the stage for his subsequent transfer to Merrimack and eventual ascent to Boston College.
He needed a platform where he could play.
Merrimack offered that platform. The Warriors were a rising program in the MAAC. They needed shooting. They needed a guard who could stretch the floor. They promised him a featured role.
The Calculus: Shelton traded the comfort of a known system for the uncertainty of a new one. But he also traded D2 starter’s minutes for a D1 starting job. He traded PSAC obscurity for MAAC visibility. The speculative assets—development, exposure, professional pathway—outweighed the risk.
Decision #2: Merrimack to Boston College (2025-26)
Shelton’s single season at Merrimack was a resounding success. He tied the program’s single-game record with nine three-pointers (9-of-12) on his way to 33 points in a win at Boston University. He had the rare feat of two four-point plays in back-to-back games. He scored 23 points, making five threes, at No. 20 Auburn. He led the Warriors with 16 points in a win at Princeton. He made five threes on his way to 17 points in a win over La Salle at the Palestra.
He had proven he could produce at the Division I level. But the MAAC, while respectable, is not the ACC. And Shelton had one season of eligibility remaining.
And then Luke Murray was hired.
Boston College offered the next rung on the ladder: a starting job in the ACC, a platform with NBA scouts in attendance every night, and a chance to prove he could produce against high-major competition.
The Calculus: Shelton traded the comfort of a known role (featured scorer at Merrimack) for the uncertainty of a higher level. But he also traded MAAC visibility for ACC exposure. He traded a mid-major platform for a power conference stage. And he gained something invaluable: a head coach who had just coordinated the most dominant two-year stretch in modern NCAA history.
The Luke Murray Factor: A Championship Pedigree
If Shelton’s decision to transfer to Boston College was strategic, the arrival of Luke Murray made it inspired. Murray joined Dan Hurley’s UConn staff prior to the 2021-22 season. In four seasons in Storrs, the Huskies posted a 115-32 (.782) record—the winningest four-year span in program history.
They won back-to-back national championships in 2023 and 2024.
They produced eight NBA players and three lottery picks, including Donovan Clingan, a lottery pick whom Murray led recruiting efforts for.
Murray’s Offensive Pedigree: UConn’s offense ranked No. 22 in his first season (Kenpom) Soared to No. 3 in his second season Peaked as the nation’s No. 1 offense in 2023-24 The ’24-25 unit finished 15th in adjusted offensive efficiency and was the BIG EAST’s most efficient attack
Murray’s Player Development Track Record: Final Four MOP and All-American Adama Sanogo Lottery pick Donovan Clingan (lead recruiter) Alex Karaban (All-BIG EAST) Liam McNeeley (McDonald’s All-American) Cam Spencer (First Team All-Conference, NBA draft pick)
For Shelton, a shooter who has improved every year, playing for the architect of the nation’s most efficient offense is a dream scenario. Murray’s system prioritizes spacing, ball movement, and three-point shooting—all of which play directly to Shelton’s strengths.
The Consistency: A Player Who Improves Every Year
What makes Shelton’s journey remarkable is not just the transfers themselves, but the consistent improvement that has accompanied each move.
Shelton has improved every single season. He went from a reserve to a full-time starter. From 7.9 points per game to 17.4. From the PSAC to the MAAC to the ACC. And now, he will play for a coach who has coordinated the most efficient offense in college basketball.
The Information Asymmetry Problem
One of the most underappreciated dynamics of the transfer portal is the information asymmetry between players and programs. Programs have complete information about their own rosters, their own systems, and their own depth charts. Players do not. Shelton mitigated this risk by making moves that were logical, incremental, and evidence-based. He did not jump from Division II to the ACC in one move. He took an intermediate step—Merrimack—to prove he could produce at the Division I level.
He chose programs where he had a clear path to playing time. He chose coaches who had demonstrated they could develop guards.
And now, he has chosen to play for a coach who has demonstrated he can develop NBA talent and coordinate championship-level offenses.
That patience—that strategic sequencing—is the exception, not the rule, in the portal era.
What Shelton Gains at Boston College
A Championship Offensive System: Murray’s UConn offenses were historically efficient. The 2023-24 squad set a program-record with 37 wins and was the dual BIG EAST champion before concluding the most dominant two-year stretch in modern NCAA history. Shelton, a career 40% three-point shooter, will thrive in a system that prioritizes spacing and perimeter shooting.
NBA Development Infrastructure: UConn produced eight NBA players and three lottery picks during Murray’s four seasons. Shelton will be coached by someone who has prepared players for the professional level.
ACC Exposure: Boston College will face Duke, North Carolina, Virginia, Miami, and Florida State. NBA scouts attend every ACC game. Shelton will be seen nightly.
A Clear Role: Boston College needs shooting. Shelton provides shooting. He will likely start from day one.
The Final Verdict: A Blueprint for the Strategic Transfer
Ernest Shelton’s journey is a blueprint for how the transfer portal should work. He did not transfer out of desperation. He transferred out of strategy. He did not chase the highest NIL offer. He chased the right fit, the right level, the right platform, and the right coach.
He began his career as a reserve at a Division II program. He will end it as a starter in the ACC, playing for a coach who has won back-to-back national championships and developed lottery picks. That is not luck. That is a player who understood his own portfolio, who made calculated decisions under conditions of incomplete information, and who consistently bet on himself. The portal is full of cautionary tales. Ernest Shelton is a success story—one that should be studied by every player considering a transfer.
CAMDEN, NJ – The transfer portal is a marketplace of hope and hazard. For every player who moves up and flourishes, there is another who disappears into the depth chart, his career momentum stalled by poor fit, overcrowded rosters, or promises unmet.
Kevair Kennedy understood the risks. He entered the portal anyway. And when he chose Wake Forest over a host of other high-major suitors, he did so not as a gambler chasing a payday, but as a strategist making a calculated portfolio reallocation.
Kennedy’s freshman season at Merrimack was historic. He became the first player in MAAC history to win both Player of the Year and Rookie of the Year in the same season. He dropped a career-high 32 points against Siena. He nearly recorded a triple-double against Boston University with 16 points, 11 rebounds, and 8 assists. He torched Vermont for 20. He went toe-to-toe with #9 Florida, scoring 14 points on 4-of-8 shooting. He was named MAAC Player of the Week twice and Rookie of the Week seven times.
The numbers were undeniable. The tape was undeniable. And the portal came calling.
But Kennedy was not simply chasing the highest bidder. He was solving a portfolio problem—balancing immediate returns against the speculative assets that would determine his professional future.
The Portfolio Problem: What Kennedy Was Weighing
When Kennedy entered the portal, he faced a classic high-major transfer dilemma:
Immediate Returns (High Major Offers): Substantial NIL guarantees, the prestige of the ACC, Big East, Big 10 or SEC, and the promise of a national stage. On paper, the offers were overwhelming.
Speculative Growth Assets (Merrimack): A system where he was already the unquestioned star. A coaching staff that had built the offense around him. Guaranteed minutes, guaranteed touches, guaranteed leadership. But a platform—the MAAC—with limited national visibility and fewer NBA scouts in attendance.
Kennedy had already proven he could dominate the MAAC. He had nothing left to prove at that level. The question was whether he could translate that production to a higher stage—and whether the risk of losing his featured role was worth the reward of ACC exposure.
Why Wake Forest? The Steve Forbes Factor
Among the suitors, Wake Forest emerged as the optimal destination. And the reason is simple: Steve Forbes.
Forbes has built a program at Wake Forest defined by guard development, offensive freedom, and a track record of maximizing transfers. Under his watch, Alondes Williams went from a role player at Oklahoma to ACC Player of the Year. Jake LaRavia transformed from a mid-major standout into an NBA draft pick. Tyree Appleby became one of the most prolific scorers in the conference.
Forbes does not just recruit transfers. He features them. He builds his offense around them. He gives them the green light and the trust to play through mistakes.
For Kennedy, that was the critical variable. He did not need to be told he would compete for minutes. He needed to be told he would be the man.
The Information Asymmetry Problem
One of the most underappreciated dynamics of the transfer portal is the information asymmetry between players and programs. Programs have complete information about their own rosters, their own systems, and their own depth charts. Players do not.
When Kennedy entered the portal, every high-major program could promise him anything. But promises are not playing time. Depth charts shift. Coaches get fired. Recruiting classes arrive. The player who is promised 30 minutes in April may find himself playing 15 in November.
Wake Forest offered something different: a track record. Forbes has proven he will feature transfers. He has proven he will build his offense around a lead guard. He has proven he can prepare players for the professional level.
That track record was worth more than any NIL guarantee.
What Kennedy Leaves Behind (And What He Gains)
Let’s be clear: Kennedy is leaving a situation where he was a king. At Merrimack, he was the MAAC Player of the Year, the Rookie of the Year, a first-team all-conference performer, and the face of the program. He played 35 minutes per night. He had the ball in his hands in every critical moment.
At Wake Forest, nothing is guaranteed. The ACC is a different animal. The guards are longer, faster, more athletic. The scouting is more sophisticated. The margin for error is thinner.
But Kennedy is not a player who needs to prove he can dominate the MAAC. He has already done that. He needs to prove he can be an ACC lead guard—and that requires a platform, a coach, and a system that will give him the opportunity.
Wake Forest offers all three.
The Final Verdict: A Calculated Risk
Kennedy’s decision to leave Merrimack was not an indictment of the program that developed him. It was a recognition that his portfolio had appreciated to the point where the MAAC no longer offered sufficient growth potential.
At Wake Forest, he will face better competition, play in front of more NBA scouts, and prepare for the professional game under a coach who has proven he can develop guards for the next level. The risk is real—he could struggle, lose minutes, or fail to adjust to the ACC’s speed and physicality.
But the reward is worth the risk. A dominant season in the ACC would make him a legitimate NBA draft prospect. A dominant season in the MAAC would have been more of the same.
Kennedy made the strategic choice. He prioritized platform, development, and professional pathway over the comfort of guaranteed minutes and a guaranteed role.
CAMDEN, NJ – The transfer portal giveth, and the transfer portal taketh away. But sometimes—rarely—the portal gives a player the chance to reconsider, recalibrate, and return.
That is precisely what happened when Robert Wright III, arguably the top point guard in the transfer portal this spring, made the stunning decision to withdraw his name and remain at BYU. The 6’1″ floor general had been pursued relentlessly by Kentucky, Ohio State, and a host of other blue-blood programs eager to add a proven winner to their backcourts. For a moment, it seemed Wright was gone—another star plucked from the Wasatch Front by the gravitational pull of the SEC or Big Ten.
Instead, Wright did something increasingly rare in this era of perpetual roster churn. He stayed.
And by staying, he may have made the smartest decision of his career.
The Portfolio Problem: What Wright Was Weighing
To understand Wright’s decision, you have to understand the calculus that elite players now face. This is no longer simply a choice between schools. It is a portfolio allocation problem—a balancing of immediate returns against long-term speculative assets. When Wright entered the portal, he was confronted with a classic dilemma:
Immediate Returns (Kentucky/Ohio State): Substantial NIL guarantees, the prestige of the SEC or Big Ten, and the promise of a national stage. On paper, the offers were overwhelming.
Speculative Growth Assets (BYU): A system where he was already the unquestioned leader. A coaching staff that had built the offense around him. A developmental infrastructure that had just produced an All-Big Ten Third Team season, a 39-point outburst against Colorado, and a game-winning dagger at Madison Square Garden.
The high major offers promised money and exposure. But they also promised uncertainty. A new coach. A new system. New teammates who had not yet learned to trust him. The risk of becoming a role player rather than the man.
Wright weighed those risks carefully. And he chose BYU.
What He Leaves on the Table (And What He Gains)
Let’s be clear: Wright is leaving real money on the table. Kentucky and Ohio State’s collectives were prepared to offer NIL packages that BYU—despite its resources—could not match. In the short term, this decision costs him.
But the long-term calculus is different.
Wright is not a player who needs to prove he can score against high-major competition. He has already done that. This past season, he averaged 18.1 points, 4.6 assists, and 3.5 rebounds per game while shooting 41 percent from three and 82 percent from the line. He scored a career-high 39 points in an overtime victory over Colorado on Valentine’s Day. He hit a game-winning three-pointer against Clemson in the Jimmy V Classic at Madison Square Garden. He was named All-Big 12 Third Team, NABC Second Team All-District, and was a finalist for the Bob Cousy Award.
He has nothing left to prove at the individual level.
What he needs is what BYU already provides: certainty. He knows he will play 35 minutes per game. He knows the offense runs through him. He knows Coach Kevin Young—a former NBA assistant with the Phoenix Suns—is preparing him for the professional game. He knows the Big 12 is the toughest conference in college basketball, and he has already conquered it.
At Kentucky or Ohio State, none of that would be guaranteed. He would have to earn trust. He would have to compete for minutes against other elite guards. He would have to learn a new system, build new chemistry, and hope that the promises made during recruitment translated to playing time.
That is a risk Wright did not need to take.
The Asymmetric Information Problem
One of the most underappreciated dynamics of the transfer portal is the information asymmetry between players and programs. Programs have complete information about their own rosters, their own systems, and their own depth charts. Players do not.
When Wright entered the portal, Kentucky and Ohio State could promise him anything. But promises are not playing time. Depth charts shift. Coaches get fired. Recruiting classes arrive. The player who is promised 30 minutes in April may find himself playing 15 in November.
Wright has already experienced this dynamic once. He transferred from Baylor to BYU after his freshman season precisely because he wanted a guaranteed role. He got it. He started all 35 games, averaged nearly 35 minutes, and became the face of the program.
Why would he risk that again?
The BYU Infrastructure: More Than Just Minutes
It is also worth noting what BYU offers beyond playing time. Kevin Young is not a typical college coach. He spent years on Monty Williams’ staff with the Phoenix Suns, developing NBA talent and learning modern offensive principles. His system—pace, space, player empowerment—is a direct pipeline to the professional game.
Wright flourished in that system. He was 6th in program history in field goal attempts in a debut, 8th in games started in a season, 10th in assists in a single season, 14th in points in a game, and 20th in points in a single season. He is not just a player at BYU. He is a program cornerstone.
And BYU’s schedule—with games against Kansas, Houston, Baylor, Iowa State, and Texas—provides as much high-level competition as any conference in America. Wright does not need the SEC to be seen. He is already seen.
The Final Verdict: A Mature Decision in an Immature Market
In the chaotic, transactional world of the transfer portal, Wright’s decision to stay stands out as remarkably mature. He was pursued by the biggest brands in the sport. He was offered life-changing money. He had every excuse to leave.
He chose to stay because he understood that the goal is not maximizing NIL compensation in a single season. The goal is maximizing career value over a lifetime. And BYU—with its system, its coach, its certainty—offers him the best path to the NBA.
Wright has a legitimate opportunity to be a first-round pick in the 2027 NBA Draft. He could make more money in his rookie contract than any NIL deal could provide. And he will look back on this decision—to stay, to trust, to finish what he started—as the moment his career trajectory changed for good.
The portal giveth. But sometimes, wisdom taketh away.
PHILADELPHIA, PA – The great unraveling of the N.C.A.A. was never really about money. It was about control. For a century, the association operated as a cartel, dictating precisely who gets what, when and how. University presidents, athletic directors and coaches acted as self-interested rational actors maximizing institutional benefit while student-athletes accepted scholarships in exchange for their labor and silence.
Then came 2021. Name, image and likeness rights arrived. The transfer portal opened. And the entire edifice cracked.
But here is the paradox that no one saw coming: In granting athletes the freedom to profit from their fame, we assumed we were giving them agency. We were wrong. What we actually did was transfer control from a centralized, predictable, if deeply flawed, governing body to a chaotic and largely unaccountable network of adults — handlers, parents, agents, and self-appointed advisors — who now exercise real power in college sports. Understandably, this transfer of power has been extremely disruptive to long established college sports business practices.
AJ Dybantsa, Brigham Young
The Empty Chair at the Table
After a plea for help from conference commissioners and Power 4 athletic directors, President Donald Trump convened a “College Sports Roundtable” at the White House. During this gathering, President Trump said he will write an executive order within a week that will “solve all of the problems” brought forth in the unprecedented meeting. President Trump boldly declared that he will provide a plan to address the future of college sports. Trump hosted the first “Saving College Sports” roundtable with vice chairs Secretary of State Marco Rubio, New York Yankees president Randy Levine and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. They were joined in the East Room by about 50 people from varied backgrounds,
President Donald Trump and Nick Saban, former Alabama football coach
The group included other politicians, sports celebrities, media executives, conference commissioners, and university presidents, chancellors and athletic directors. Those who spoke delivered a similar message: College sports needs federal legislation to restore order in the N.I.L. space and its overall economics. The glaring omission from the group was the student-athlete. There were no scholastic or collegiate student-athletes participating. Zero. Yet the President of the United States concluded that he heard from everyone he needed to hear from and he will solve all of the problems.
“I will have an executive order within one week, and it will be very all-encompassing,” Trump said. “And we’re going to put it forward, and we’re going to get sued, and we’re going to see how it plays, OK, but I’ll have an executive order, which will solve every problem in this room, every conceivable problem, within one week, and we’ll put it forward. We will get sued. That’s the only thing I know for sure.”
Yes, they will get sued. If recent history is an accurate guide, they will be successfully sued. The N.C.A.A. has lost an overwhelming majority of legal battles in recent years.
One thing is painfully obvious: the student-athlete, particularly the elite youth navigating high-major basketball and football, is not the empowered decision-maker of N.I.L. mythology. They are, more often than not, a passenger in a vehicle driven by people with interests that may not align with their own.
The Media’s Preferred Sources
This absence of athlete voice is not merely a White House oversight. It reflects a systemic pattern in how the N.I.L. era is discussed and debated. A 2021 analysis of media coverage surrounding amateurism and N.I.L. rights found that sources such as the N.C.A.A. and politicians were most frequently cited — a combined 191 times — while collegiate student-athletes were quoted a total of seven times. Seven.
The message could not be clearer: Those who govern college sports, those who profit from it, and those who cover it have decided that the actual participants are not necessary to the conversation. Their voices are not required. Their perspectives are not sought. Their presence is optional.
The Illusion of Choice
Consider the decision environment facing a 19-year-old basketball prospect weighing offers from multiple high-major programs. On its face, this is a moment of remarkable opportunity. The same athlete who a decade ago would have signed a financial aid agreement now confronts seven-figure N.I.L. proposals and revenue-sharing projections.
The assumption in economics is straightforward: individuals have clear preferences, evaluate all available options, and choose the most effective path to maximize personal benefit. This assumes the actor possesses complete information and the capacity to process it.
Elite youth athletes possess neither.
Darius Acuff, Arkansas, SEC Player of the Year
The N.C.A.A.’s regulatory environment has become so labyrinthine that even coaches confess bewilderment. Purdue’s Matt Painter captured the moment with devastating candor: “We just want to know the rules so we can abide by them. We don’t know what’s going on.” If coaches inside the system cannot decipher the regulations, what hope does a teenager have?
The rules themselves are no longer static. They are litigated in real time. Since November, more than 50 N.C.A.A. eligibility cases have been filed in state and federal courts, with judges increasingly willing to scrutinize restrictions under antitrust and contract theories. One quarterback obtains an injunction allowing a sixth year; another, in a different state court, is denied. Outcomes are “fact-specific and jurisdiction-dependent” — meaning whether an athlete can play often depends not on merit but on which judge hears the case.
This is not a system. It is a lottery.
Cam Boozer, Duke
Who Really Decides?
The N.C.A.A., to its credit, created a formal mechanism for athlete input. Student-Athlete Advisory Committees operate at the campus, conference and national level, charged with generating a student-athlete voice. At Division III institutions like Tuskegee University, members engage in admirable community service.
But let us be honest about what these committees do not do. They do not negotiate N.I.L. contracts. They do not advise on whether a $2 million offer complies with N.C.A.A. rules. They do not explain the tax implications of the House settlement’s revenue-sharing cap. They are advisory bodies, not fiduciary advisors.
The real decision-making occurs elsewhere. In the living rooms of handlers. In the offices of A.A.U. coaches whose reputations — and sometimes financial interests — tie to where their players land. In conversations between parents and uncles who may lack sophisticated understanding but possess outsized influence. In negotiations between agents and collectives, conducted well before the athlete formally enters the portal .
One high-major general manager described the dynamic bluntly: “You have conversations going on and you have to know damn well that the presentation you’re getting for your own player is going to 10 other schools.” Another noted that by the time a player enters the portal, “most guys will have a shortlist of three to five schools and a good market range of what those schools will offer.”
The deals are effectively done before the athlete’s name appears. The portal is merely theater.
Hannah Hidalgo, Notre Dame
The New Advisors, The Old Problems
At the 2025 Sports Lawyers Association Annual Conference, a panel titled “The New Advisors — Representing the Future Athlete” offered an unsettling glimpse into this shadow market. Panelists described how agents now serve as both business managers and quasi-life coaches, creating inevitable tensions between maximizing an athlete’s market value and respecting their personal autonomy .
One particularly candid admission came when a Wasserman executive acknowledged that his firm builds relationships with athletic departments, administrators, and high school coaches not just to sign clients, but to influence where athletes enroll. He referred to this as “guiding” athletes toward schools that align with their N.I.L. ambitions. But at what point does guidance become steering? If representation is now essentially recruitment, the potential for undue influence becomes much harder to ignore.
The panel also highlighted a concerning trend where high school athletes are being courted earlier than ever, often by underqualified or unscrupulous agents, with commissions reaching as high as 20 percent — far above traditional industry standards.
The Adult Economy
Assume, as we must, that these adults are themselves rational actors. Handlers seek to maximize influence. Agents pursue commissions. Parents want security for their children and, in some cases, for themselves. All weigh costs and benefits, preferring outcomes that maximize gains.
The problem is that these gains do not always align with the athlete’s long-term welfare. A handler who pushes a player to transfer annually generates repeated recruiting buzz. An agent who encourages chasing the highest N.I.L. bid secures a larger commission, even if the athlete lands in a poor developmental environment.
The numbers involved have become staggering. High-major basketball programs now spend between $7 million and $10 million on rosters. Power conference football programs face revenue-sharing caps of $21.3 million, with some pushing total investment toward $40 million . Star players command $2 million to $3 million, with a handful approaching $4 million.
This is real money. It attracts real predators.
The High School Hunting Ground
The exploitation begins earlier than many realize. In Louisiana, a state with one of the nation’s largest shares of high school football players recruited by Division I colleges, a legislative task force heard testimony of “rampant” problems among the state’s premier football schools. Adults with no professional certifications or backgrounds in the law swoop in to secure representation from Louisiana’s top recruits — some as young as 12 or 13 years old .
J.T. Curtis, the legendary football coach at John Curtis Christian School in River Ridge, told the panel: “Until we find a way to get outside influences out of the lives of our high school athletes, we’re going to continue struggling with this.”
The task force’s response? Recommendations that anyone other than a parent who helps high schoolers negotiate endorsement contracts must register as an agent with the state — subject to background checks and required to complete training. For athletes under 17, the task force proposed requiring that a portion of their compensation be deposited into a trust account .
These are sensible protections. But they are also admissions: the system is broken, and teenagers cannot navigate it alone.
The Information Asymmetry
The fundamental injustice of the current system is not that athletes are paid — they should be — but that they negotiate from a position of profound ignorance while the adults across the table possess sophisticated understanding of the rules, the market and the leverage points.
A panelist at the Sports Lawyers Conference raised the question of a university’s “duty of care” when presenting complex 25-page N.I.L. agreements to 18-year-old students. These young athletes are exposed to potential exploitation, especially when they lack the resources to secure knowledgeable counsel before signing. As one expert urged, athletic departments cannot expect student-athletes entering college to be “fully-fledged business representatives” capable of negotiating on their own behalf .
A player considering a transfer may not know whether years of junior hockey now count against their eligibility clock. They may not understand that the N.C.A.A.’s waiver process has become even more unpredictable as courts intervene. They may sign an N.I.L. contract without realizing that a collective’s promises are not always enforceable, or that tax implications could consume a third of the value.
The S.C.O.R.E. Act, should it pass, would create uniform federal standards. But even that legislation, stalled in the House, would not solve the information problem. It would merely standardize the rules that athletes still cannot decipher.
Meanwhile, the White House roundtable proceeded without them. The people making the rules do not include the people bound by them.
The 95 Percenters
The conversation around N.I.L. is dominated by the experiences of star athletes in football and men’s basketball — the “top 5 percent” who command seven-figure deals. But this focus obscures the reality for the vast majority of college athletes.
As one industry expert noted at the Sports Lawyers Conference, 83 percent of college athletes are not participating in N.I.L. deals at all. The so-called “95 percenters” — athletes in non-revenue sports and smaller markets — receive little institutional support, minimal media coverage, and virtually no guidance in navigating the commercial landscape .
Yet even these athletes face the same complex decisions, the same legal documents, the same tax implications. They simply lack the leverage to demand competent counsel.
The Independent Counsel Athletes Deserve
The young man sitting across from me had just been offered $600,000 to transfer. He was 19. His family had never dealt with contracts beyond a car loan. The school was 1,200 miles from home, with a coach he had met twice. He had 15 days to decide.
I told him what any competent advisor would have: slow down. Model the tax implications. Compare the depth chart. Call players already on the roster. Read the fine print — was it guaranteed, or renewed annually at the collective’s discretion?
He did none of these things. He took the money. Eight months later, he was back in the portal, having played 87 total minutes, his brand value cratered, his eligibility clock ticking.
This story is not unusual. It is the defining feature of the N.I.L. era: young people making life-altering decisions in informational vacuums, surrounded by adults with competing interests, operating under artificial time pressure designed to benefit institutions.
Tessa Johnson, South Carolina
A Strategy for Empowerment
The N.C.A.A. was not designed for this moment. It evolved over a century to control eligibility, movement and compensation. Its rules were written to limit, not empower. Its enforcement mechanisms were built to punish, not protect. Asking the N.C.A.A. to provide independent counsel is like asking the I.R.S. to provide free financial planning — structurally incompatible with its institutional purpose.
Yet for now, the N.C.A.A. must play a central role in any system-wide intervention. It controls the eligibility clearinghouse. It maintains the transfer portal. It certifies agents and collectives in some jurisdictions. It remains, however imperfectly, the only entity with national reach.
Knowing full well how difficult it will be, the N.C.A.A. and its member institutions should establish a national network of certified athlete advisors — analogous to the financial planners and legal aid professionals who serve other vulnerable populations. These advisors would be independent of universities, conferences and collectives, paid from a central fund supported by N.C.A.A. revenues and television contracts, with a fiduciary duty to the athlete alone .
Their role would be straightforward: to explain, in plain language, the implications of eligibility rules, transfer requirements and N.I.L. contracts. To model tax consequences. To assess whether a program’s developmental infrastructure serves the athlete’s long-term goals. To identify honest brokers and flag potential conflicts.
This is not a radical proposal. Some institutions are already moving in this direction. Monmouth University, for example, has instituted financial literacy requirements for any student-athlete participating in revenue sharing or receiving additional benefits, providing education on personal brand management, accounting, finance, and tax consequences . These efforts are commendable. But they remain isolated and inconsistent.
What is needed is structural, not advisory. It is the difference between a suggestion box and a lawyer.
Completing the Revolution
Harold Lasswell’s classic definition of politics remains the most useful lens: “who gets what, when, how.” In college athletics today, the athletes get money — substantial sums, in some cases — but they do not get control. They get compensation without agency, payment without power.
The adults get everything else. They get the satisfaction of influence, the currency of relevance, the commissions and the credit. They get to determine, behind closed doors, which athlete goes to which school for how much money. They get to navigate the regulatory maze while the athletes stumble through it.
The irony could not be more stark. A movement that began as a fight for athlete rights — for the freedom to profit from one’s own labor — has produced a system in which athletes have less genuine choice than ever before. They can go anywhere, theoretically, but they go where they are told. They can make any deal, theoretically, but they sign what they are given.
The solution is not to return to the old model of paternalistic control by universities. That model was exploitative in its own way. The solution is to complete the revolution that N.I.L. began but has not finished — to give athletes not just the right to profit, but the right to understand, the right to choose, and the right to independent counsel.
A national network of certified athlete advisors would not solve every problem. But it would create something that does not currently exist: a source of disinterested, professional advice, available to every athlete regardless of sport, conference or N.I.L. valuation.
It would, in short, give athletes someone in their corner whose only interest is their interest.
Until we do, the chaos will continue. The adults will keep winning. And the voices of those who actually play the games will remain unheard — absent from White House roundtables, missing from media coverage, and drowned out by the handlers, agents and advisors who have made themselves the true powers in college sports.
PHILADELPHIA, PA – For three long winters, a familiar silence hung over the basketball cathedrals of Philadelphia. No streamers raining from the Palestra rafters. No jubilant students rushing the court at the Finn. No knowing smiles on Hawk Hill. For the first time in the modern era, the City of Brotherly Love was exiled from of March Madness for more than 1,000 days. The Big Five, that storied confederation of basketball identity, had become an afterthought on the national stage.
Kevin Willard, Villanova
That drought ended on Selection Sunday. And as the names “Villanova” and “Penn” flashed onto the bracket, it signaled not merely a return to the fold, but a validation of a new philosophy in college athletics. Faced with the existential disruption of the transfer portal and NIL (Name, Image, and Likeness), the Presidents and athletic directors at Villanova and Penn did not simply hire basketball coaches; they hired CEOs of basketball programs. In Kevin Willard and Fran McCaffery, they found leaders whose immediate success provides a masterclass in navigating the chaotic waters of modern college sports.
The Calculus of Change
To understand the euphoria of this March, one must revisit the difficult decisions of last spring. Villanova’s decision to move on from Kyle Neptune and Penn’s separation from Steve Donahue were not indictments of their character or effort. Rather, they were strategic choices made under conditions of incomplete information, asymmetric power, and immense time pressure. In the current paradigm, a coach is no longer judged solely on x’s and o’s, but on their ability to manage a high-turnover roster, fundraise for NIL collectives, and leverage support staff with the precision of a general manager.
Both programs were not simply choosing a coach; they were seeking a return to pride for programs with strong historical traditions. They needed leaders capable of translating history into a pitch that resonates in a present where players are also employees. By any measurable standard, both hires have paid immediate, resounding dividends.
Tyler Perkins, Villanova
The Measurable Success of Kevin Willard at Villanova
In the cutthroat environment of the Big East, Villanova needed to reclaim its birthright. Kevin Willard’s first season on the Main Line is a textbook example of modern roster management fused with winning basketball.
Traditional On-Court Performance: The Wildcats are dancing. After a 3 year absence, Villanova is back in the NCAA Tournament. While the regular season had its growing pains, the team peaked at the right time, demonstrating the coaching acumen necessary to win in March.
Recruiting & Roster Management: Willard inherited a program in flux. His immediate success in the transfer portal was staggering. He didn’t just fill gaps; he retooled the engine, securing high-impact players who bought into his system immediately. This ability to “re-recruit” his own roster while acquiring proven talent is the hallmark of a modern coach who understands the portal is not a threat, but a resource.
Adaptability to Modern Landscape: Willard arrived with a clear understanding that fundraising is coaching. He engaged the Villanova donor base, ensuring the NIL infrastructure could compete with the blue bloods of the sport.
Fran McCaffery, Penn
The Renaissance of Fran McCaffery at Penn
While Villanova fights in the gladiator arena of high-major basketball, Penn’s success is arguably a more delicate engineering feat. Coaching in the Ivy League requires adhering to strict academic standards and operating without the scholarship flexibility of the power conferences. Fran McCaffery has navigated these constraints with the savvy of a veteran diplomat.
Traditional On-Court Performance: The Quakers are Ivy League Champions. They cut down the nets. This is the ultimate metric. McCaffery took a program that had stagnated and immediately instilled a winning DNA, capturing the conference’s automatic bid.
Program Leadership & Culture: In the Ivy League, you cannot simply “portal” your way to a title. You must develop players over four years. McCaffery has a legendary reputation for player development. He inherited a roster and immediately improved its synergy, blending the returning talent with his system to create a cohesive unit that played with a chemistry absent in recent years. He restored the standard of Penn Basketball: excellence.
Budget Management & Adaptability: The Ivy League presents a unique challenge in the NIL era—namely, that it doesn’t exist in the same way. McCaffery’s success lies in selling a different kind of value: the value of an Ivy League degree combined with high-major coaching. He is winning the recruiting battles not with cash, but with culture and a vision, proving that adaptability sometimes means knowing how to win with the tools unique to your workshop.
TJ Power, Pennsylvania
A City’s Pride Restored
The return of Villanova and Penn to the NCAA Tournament is more than a statistical correction; it is a cultural revival. The “Holy City of Hoops” has its altars lit once more.
By moving on from the past, both programs embraced a future that demands versatility. Kevin Willard proved he could handle the mercenary nature of the Big East, while Fran McCaffery proved he could galvanize the scholar-athletes of the Ivy League. They represent two sides of the same coin: success in the 21st-century college game requires a coach who is part X’s and O’s savant, part general manager, and part fundraiser.
As the brackets are filled out in corner bars from Manayunk to Media, the names “Nova” and “Penn” are written in ink with hope. The drought is over. The strategic gambles paid off. And in Philadelphia, that is worth celebrating—because in this town, basketball isn’t just a game. It’s a birthright.
The Black Cager 