Transfers rule March Madness. See how your team's roster compares.
The Post analyzed the careers of 10,000 college basketball players to see how transfers are increasingly shaping the sport.
If you've ignored college basketball since last March … well, you might be a little confused this week.
That men's player who seemed perfect for his team — the jersey colors made sense, the coach and him seemed like real buddies? He plays for a bigger program now. And that women's player you took to? She also transferred, no matter how many times she called your alma mater her dream school.
This is college basketball in 2025. Player movement is rampant. Players staying put can feel like a surprise. No program is spared from the chaos of The Portal.
To understand the phenomenon and its impact, look no further than the men's and women's NCAA tournament fields. On the men's side, 53 percent of all rotation players previously logged minutes at another Division I school, according to a Washington Post analysis. Roughly one-third of these key contributors — the top eight players in total minutes on each roster — played for another D-I program just last season.
On the women's side, nearly 40 percent of key players previously played for another D-I team — a big jump from before 2021, when the NCAA stopped requiring athletes to sit out a year after transferring. This increase has plateaued somewhat in the past three years, whereas the number of transfers in men's hoops continues to rise. That's mostly because there's more name, image and likeness (NIL) money being thrown around for male players. Still, transfers have also had a major influence on the women's game.
Look up your favorite 2025 tournament team
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Auburn
Auburn men's team
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Johni Broome
Miles Kelly
Denver Jones
Chad Baker-Mazara
Chaney Johnson
Tahaad Pettiford
Dylan Cardwell
Chris Moore
6,789 minutes
in previous seasons at other D-I schools
6,933 minutes
in previous seasons at this school
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The Post collected the rosters of every men's and women's NCAA tournament team since 2010, then analyzed the careers of roughly 10,000 players using statistics logged on the website Sports Reference. The Post found that key contributors for 2025 tournament teams previously played for another D-I school more than three times as often as their peers a decade ago, when just 15 percent of men's tournament rotation players and 9 percent of women's had recorded minutes at a different D-I program.
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Auburn, the No. 1 overall seed in the men's field, has four players in its top eight who've logged minutes at another D-I school. And that doesn't include another key contributor who began his career at a D-II program. (Sports Reference only maintains statistics for D-I teams, so transfers from lower levels, including junior colleges, are not included in The Post's analysis.)
The trend extends up and down the men's bracket. Alabama, a No. 2 seed, has five transfers in its top eight. Bryant, a No. 15 seed, has seven. Not only are there more players in this year's tournament field who have transferred than have spent their entire careers at a single school, some are on their third or even fourth D-I team.
In 2025, transfers rule the men's game
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Memphis
5 seed
Kentucky
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McNeese
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Grand Canyon
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Louisville
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Texas
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High Point
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Bryant
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Norfolk State
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Texas Tech
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Vanderbilt
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Oklahoma
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St. John's
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Mississippi
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Utah State
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Xavier
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Iowa State
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Michigan
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Missouri
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VCU
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In the women's tournament, some of the biggest stars — such as Paige Bueckers at Connecticut and Flau'jae Johnson at LSU — have only played for one team. But D-I transfers contribute at nearly every school. Only five of the 68 tournament teams don't have one in their rotations.
Most women's tournament teams have multiple transfers
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TCU
2 seed
Arkansas State
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Grand Canyon
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Maryland
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Mississippi
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Oregon
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Oklahoma State
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Alabama
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Florida Gulf Coast
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West Virginia
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Michigan State
7
San Diego State
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North Carolina
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Tennessee
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Illinois
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Baylor
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Mississippi State
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LSU
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Kansas State
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California
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For three straight years — Duke in 2015, Villanova in 2016 and North Carolina in 2017 — men's teams won national titles without a single transfer among their key players. The women's champions around that time had similar roster constructions, with development at a single school far more common than it is today. By contrast, many of this year's top contenders are powered by transfers, especially on the men's side.
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The reasons for the transfer boom amount to a perfect storm. In the summer of 2021, the NCAA permitted athletes to profit off their NIL, which quickly led to boosters paying de facto salaries to football and men's basketball players. The NCAA eased transfer restrictions that year, too, allowing athletes to switch schools once without sitting for a year. Then last April, even those rules were eliminated, meaning players could transfer wherever, whenever, without the consequence of stalling their athletic careers.
Not every transfer decision is about money, especially on a women's side that attracts far less interest from boosters. Players transfer for more minutes. They transfer because their coaches leave and they want to follow them or start fresh somewhere else. They transfer to escape a bad fit. They transfer, in some cases, simply because they can, because they need a reset and that itch is easier to scratch than ever.
But money is a major factor in many cases. For players who won't play professionally, transferring — or the threat of transferring — is often the best way to cash in on their talents. And for players who will play professionally, there will always be coaches trying to poach them.
The number of transfers on tournament teams has skyrocketed Men's teams
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Not all transfers are new to their teams. Some joined their programs years ago. But when you include freshmen, about half of rotation players in the men's field hadn't logged any minutes at their school before this season.
Of course, there are exceptions, including Purdue (a No. 4 seed) and Marquette (a No. 7 seed). Neither team has a single player in its eight-man rotation who has transferred at any point in his college career.
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And then there are the most extreme cases of the Portal Effect. At St. John's, six of Rick Pitino's top eight players in minutes are transfers. He recently said on the Pardon My Take podcast that he is not recruiting any high school players for next season, feeling he can't win big with them in the transfer era. At Kentucky, the entire rotation joined the team this past offseason, after coach John Calipari left for Arkansas. Together, the Wildcats' top eight players entered this season with plenty of experience: close to 18,000 combined minutes. It was just all at other D-I schools.
Kentucky 2025 men's team
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Otega Oweh
Koby Brea
Andrew Carr
Amari Williams
Jaxson Robinson
Lamont Butler
Brandon Garrison
Ansley Almonor
17,726 minutes
in previous seasons at other D-I schools
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While constant player movement potentially has hurt the popularity of men's basketball, having at least some roster continuity has helped the women's game grow. Entering the season, the eight-man rotations of men's tournament teams had, on average, roughly 4,400 combined minutes on the court at their current schools. A decade ago, that number was 6,800. On the women's side, the decrease has been less stark — from 7,600 then to 6,400 now.
Together, the Kentucky Wildcats' top eight players entered this season with plenty of experience: close to 18,000 combined minutes. It was just all at other D-I schools. (Steve Roberts/Imagn Images)
The connection between familiarity and fandom is easy to see. Take Iowa's women's Final Four team from a year ago: Yes, the hype was mostly due to Caitlin Clark. The rotation, though, entered the season with 13,000 combined minutes at the school; no men's rotation in the past three NCAA tournaments has had that much combined experience at a program. Unlike with many men's rosters, fans had watched the whole Iowa team grow over time.
In this year's tournament, most of the top women's teams have just one or two rotation players who previously played elsewhere, including title contenders South Carolina and Connecticut (one each). UCLA, however, has four, including standout center Lauren Betts, who began her career at Stanford.
South Carolina 2025 women's team
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Te-Hina Paopao
Raven Johnson
Bree Hall
Joyce Edwards
Chloe Kitts
Tessa Johnson
MiLaysia Fulwiley
Sania Feagin
2,431 minutes
in previous seasons at other D-I schools
7,578 minutes
in previous seasons at this school
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Coaches and programs spend a ton of time fundraising, both to retain players and win the bidding war for transfers. That process, the endless loop of pleading and negotiating, contributed to why Tony Bennett, Mike Krzyzewski and other prominent coaches have retired in recent years, saying they couldn't juggle these demands with the already grueling job of running a program.
As soon as this summer, schools could be permitted to pay athletes directly for the first time. In anticipation of that rule change, schools are already trying to slow the roster churn by inking athletes to multiyear contracts, according to multiple agents and coaches who have negotiated deals for the next academic year. It's just unclear if any effort to roll back player movement will be successful.
For now, though, no matter the seeds, no matter the matchup, transfers will have a massive influence on March Madness. And with the transfer portal opening again next week, the lucky schools will spend the month juggling game prep with roster management, their seasons and future success all on the line.
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