Give and take: How Missouri Valley pragmatically uses the NCAA basketball transfer portal

PEORIA — The Missouri Valley Conference does not fear the NCAA men’s basketball transfer portal.

From coaches to commissioner, the 12-team circuit has evolved to a pragmatic outlook that the portal is a give-and-take fact of life in modern college basketball.

“We’ve heard a lot about student-athletes departing the Missouri Valley Conference to go different places,” MVC commissioner Jeff Jackson said in an interview earlier this summer. “I remember two years ago, we were ranked 15th as a conference. After all those (players) departed, and our teams went out and replenished, we ended up ranked ninth or 10 last season.

Last season, MVC regular-season champion Indiana State finished 32-7 and made a run to the championship game of the National Invitation Tournament after bringing in four transfers.

“So,” Jackson said, “I think there’s a lot of different ways institutions can find to be successful.”

Jackson and a handful of coaches were asked about the transfer portal and the soaring NIL money being offered by Power 5 schools to recruit elite players in the portal and how a mid-major like the Valley has to deal with it.

Valley basketball raided by the Power 5

Missouri Valley Conference commissioner Jeff Jackson was in attendance as Bradley beat Southeast Missouri State, 73-60, at Carver Arena on Saturday, Nov. 19, 2022.

The Missouri Valley Conference was ranked 10th among 33 conferences scored by metric site KenPom.com in the 2023-24 season. That means the Valley had plenty of player talent for Power 6 teams to raid — and raid they did, as players acquired agents, pursued NIL money and looked for higher-profile opportunities.

The transfer portal included 86 players overall from the MVC, and 12 of the 16 players voted to the MVC’s three all-conference teams last season. That included two-time MVC Player of the Year Tucker DeVries, who entered the portal on March 27, days after his father, coach Darian DeVries, left to become head coach at West Virginia. Indiana State first-teamer…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/missouri-valley-pragmatically-uses-ncaa-084713480.html

Author : Journal Star

Publish date : 2024-09-16 08:47:13

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