Dollars and sense: How Bradley basketball and its NIL group navigate the NCAA transfer portal

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Bradley’s Duke Deen, middle, holds a sign proclaiming the Braves’ Missouri Valley Conference championship as he and his teammates celebrate their 73-61 victory over Drake in the regular-season finale Sunday, Feb. 26, 2023 at Carver Arena.

PEORIA — The NCAA transfer portal and NIL era has become a take-no-prisoners battleground for the Bradley Braves and all other Division-I college basketball programs.

For mid-major programs, the portal can take your star shooting guard, your all-conference center and more. Coaches now have to re-recruit their own players at the end of the season and hope they don’t chase NIL money in the portal, or get lured by player agents to leave their team.

At the same time, coaches can must dig into the portal — more than 1,000 players — and spend resources vetting replacements to keep their programs strong.

“The portal, it’s a war,” Bradley Braves coach Brian Wardle said. “We’ve lost a lot with Malevy Leons (eligibility expired) and Connor Hickman (entered portal) being gone. Replacing that just depends on if you can recruit the portal well. We’re doing our research and I feel good right now about who we are pursuing.

“But it’s ever-changing every day.”

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And it doesn’t matter where or when. The Illini were deep into the NCAA Tournament in the Elite Eight on Saturday when head coach Brad Underwood told media:

“It’s the most absurd thing in the history of sport, by the way, is what we’re doing in the portal while we’re playing basketball. This is ridiculous. I’ve got one coach scouting and two just living in the portal,” Underwood said. “I’m making recruiting calls up and down this hallway yesterday as we’re preparing for an Elite Eight game.

“It’s reality. We’ll tackle it, we’ll figure out what we need. It’s been great to us. University of Illinois has benefitted from the portal as much as any team in the country.”

Home of the Brave is Bradley’s ally

NIL collectives are the allies in this…

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Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/dollars-sense-bradley-basketball-nil-115749197.html

Author : Journal Star

Publish date : 2024-04-03 11:57:49

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