In college hoops, ‘maybe next year’ could now mean a whole new team

Defending national champion UConn will play Purdue for the NCAA men’s national championship tonight, and it should be a competitive and thoroughly entertaining game.

But before we go there, let’s examine the team that best exemplifies the remarkable transformation of college basketball in recent years with the transfer portal, NIL and a pandemic, which have made for a general state of fruit basket turnover.

That team would be the Alabama Crimson Tide, a thoroughly eclectic group of vagabond talents who came together for an amazing NCAA Tournament run before losing a hard-fought battle to UConn in the semifinals. The final score of 86-72 was in no way indicative of how competitive the Crimson Tide was against the team favored to win a second consecutive national title.

Even the most diehard of Alabama basketball fans needed a program to know the players when the season began. They came from everywhere. You had Grant Nelson, from Devils Lake, North Dakota (population 7,192), who had played his first three college basketball seasons at North Dakota State of the Summit Conference. You had dynamic point guard Mark Sears, who transferred in from Ohio University of the Mid-American Conference year ago. Sears, who hails from Muscle Shoals, Alabama, had a pit stop at Hargraves (Va.) Military Academy before his two seasons at Ohio.

We are just getting started. New Jersey native Aaron Estrada, the shooting guard and second leading scorer behind Sears, who began his college odyssey at St. Peters, transferred to Oregon and then to Hofstra of the Coastal Athletic Association, before finally winding up at Bama.

Want more? South Carolinian Nick Pringle, who played power forward, started his college basketball at Wofford College of the Southern Conference, where he played sparingly as a freshman. From there, Pringle went to Dodge City Community College where he spent a season before landing at Bama, where he has improved mightily in two seasons.

There’s more, but you get the point. Of the five Crimson Tide starters against UConn, only one — wingman Rylen Griffin from Dallas — began his collegiate days the traditional way at Alabama.

Credit fifth-year Tide coach Nate Oats for bringing together such a divergent cast and weaving it together to lead the nation in scoring, win 25 games and play its way into the national spotlight. And Oats would be the perfect guy to assemble such a group of guys who mostly began their careers at mid-major schools, some making multiple stops, before winding up at Bama. After all, Oats played at Division III Marantha Baptist (Wisconsin) University, and coached there first before moving to Wisconsin- Whitewater, Romulus (Michigan) High School and then the University of Buffalo (Mid-American Conference).

Clearly, Alabama players took similarly circuitous routes to reach college basketball’s big-time and lead the Tide to the first Final Four in school history.

Alabama is probably the most successful illustration of college basketball’s sea change, but it’s happening all over. North Carolina State, another Final Four darling, came from out of nowhere with seven transfers, including all five starters. UConn has three transfers among its key players. Only Purdue, among the Final Four teams, relies primarily on its own recruits. The Boilermakers have had just two transfers over the past four seasons.

Here in Mississippi? Fruit basket turnover, it is. At Ole Miss, Matthew Murrell was the only Ole Miss regular who began his college career in Oxford. At State, five of the seven highest scorers began their careers elsewhere. At Southern Miss, none of the 10 leading scorers began their college basketball careers in Hattiesburg.

Who knows what the rosters at all three schools will look like next year? Answer: At this point, nobody.

What does this mean for college basketball’s future? No question, the fan bases that invest most generously in NIL collectives will have the best chance of making the turnarounds that Alabama and North Carolina State have enjoyed this season.

Seems to this observer it will become much more difficult for the so-called mid-majors to pull the stunning upsets and make the Cinderella runs that have made the NCAA Tournament so thoroughly entertaining through the years. Schools such as Davidson, Loyola (Chicago), Butler, Virginia Commonwealth, Loyola Marymount and St. Peters have slayed Goliaths and won multiple tournament games. Now that the power conference schools can cherry pick mid-major talent through the portal, that will be more difficult. You think North Dakota State couldn’t have made some noise if Grant Nelson hadn’t moved on to Alabama?

There’s a flip side to all this. With so much roster turnover, the turnarounds will go both ways. Not only will schools like Alabama and North Carolina State make unexpected runs, but proud programs like Michigan (8-24 this year), Notre Dame (13- 20), West Virginia (9-23), Georgetown (9-23), UCLA (16-17 and Southern Cal (15- 18) will have some disastrous (for them) seasons. The portal giveth, the portal taketh away. Lose a couple players in the portal, make a couple more bad portal selections and even the best programs can go south in a hurry.

It’s a new world in college basketball. A strange, unpredictable world.

Rick Cleveland, a native of Hattiesburg and resident of Jackson, has been Mississippi Today’s sports columnist since 2016.