When March Madness meets the transfer portal, the world’s biggest scouting combine erupts

[ad_1]

DENVER — They are playing for more than trips to the Final Four and a chance to cut down the nets at March Madness. It is also a chance to see and be seen by other teams.

The transfer portal is open, giving basketball players a 30-day window to switch schools. It means some of the 1,000 or so players on the 68 teams that qualified for the NCAA Tournament – including some of the 250 who are still alive in the Sweet 16 — are playing to win, but also for more money, more playing time, a chance to be seen and potentially set things up for next year.

In some ways, the NCAA Tournament now doubles as the most important three-week scouting combine on the college hoops calendar.

“Anytime you can show up on a big stage and realize there are certain guys who are wired different, to take a hold of big moments, that’s almost a personality trait,” said Doug Stewart, the chief of staff for coach Kevin Young at BYU. “It’s the data that doesn’t come up in analytics and film.”

By tournament time, teams have done plenty of scouting

That’s not to say there’s not data.

For Stewart and others with jobs like his, scouting and trying to find perfect fits is a year-round project. Marc VandeWettering, the chief of staff for basketball operations at Wisconsin, said “you know who people are before they become available.”

“If you wait to do your research until a name pops up in the portal, you’re going to be behind and not be able to move quickly enough,” VandeWettering said.

Wisconsin’s 91-89 loss to BYU also brought more urgency to part of the job VandeWettering and the staff were hoping to put off a few more weeks – roster retention, i.e., trying to keep players on their own team who might be looking elsewhere.

“We’ve been proactive with the guys who are eligible for retention,” he said. “We’ve had some good conversations with those guys, but it takes some time to get things finalized.”

Now, a player…

[ad_2]
Source link : https://www.nbcsports.com/mens-college-basketball/news/when-march-madness-meets-the-transfer-portal-the-worlds-biggest-scouting-combine-erupts

Author :

Publish date : 2025-03-24 18:08:00

Copyright for syndicated content belongs to the linked Source.