2025 Portal Season
- Thread starter bravesfan
- Start date
Mason line-up as of 4/10/25 at 6:00 PM.
1 - Kory Mincy
2 - Brayden O’Connor & Devin Booker
3 - Jermahri Hill
4 - Stas Sivka & Dola Adebayo
5 - Emannuel Kanga
LOTS of holes to fill.........
1 - Kory Mincy
2 - Brayden O’Connor & Devin Booker
3 - Jermahri Hill
4 - Stas Sivka & Dola Adebayo
5 - Emannuel Kanga
LOTS of holes to fill.........
If this was a Schmidt coached team, that is two more players than needed.
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I get the environment college sports operate in now—money talks, and if you want to compete, you have to play the game. That means fee increases, NIL deals, transfers, and big spending. I understand it, and in some ways I even support it, because I want my school to win. But part of me wrestles with what we lose in the process. If I just accept it all as purely transactional—treating college sports like a business deal instead of something emotional—then what’s the point?
I love sports because of the feeling you get when your team, the one you’ve invested so much time, hope, and energy into, finally breaks through. In college, that feeling hits even harder because it feels personal. The team’s success feels like my success. That connection is what makes it special—not the money, not the deals, but the shared belief that it means something. And if we lose that, I’m not sure what we’re cheering for anymore.
I love sports because of the feeling you get when your team, the one you’ve invested so much time, hope, and energy into, finally breaks through. In college, that feeling hits even harder because it feels personal. The team’s success feels like my success. That connection is what makes it special—not the money, not the deals, but the shared belief that it means something. And if we lose that, I’m not sure what we’re cheering for anymore.
Pablo
Hall of Famer
The best men’s NCAA basketball transfer portal players still available, ranked by position
"Point Guard
- Rodney Rice (Maryland)
- Tre Holloman (Michigan State)
- Robert O. Wright III (Baylor)
- Dylan Darling (Idaho State)
- Jacari Lane (North Alabama)
- Chase Forte (South Dakota)
- Barrington Hargress (UC Riverside)
- Jamarii Thomas (South Carolina)
- Jordan Marsh (UNC Asheville)
- Malachi Smith (Dayton)
Shooting Guard
- RJ Luis (Saint John's)
- Tayton Conerway (Troy)
- Malik Thomas (San Francisco)
- Xaivian Lee (Princeton)
- Wesley Yates III (USC)
- Dan Skillings (Cincinnati)
- Ian Jackson (North Carolina)
- Christian Davis (Bradley)
- Lamar Wilkerson (Sam Houston State)
- Melvin Council Jr (Saint Bonaventure)
Small Forward
- Mackenzie Mgbako (Indiana)
- Devin Tillis (UC Irvine)
- Kanon Catchings (BYU)
- Kimani Hamilton (High Point)
- Jadrian Tracey (Oregon)
- LeJuan Watts (Washington State)
- Tre Carroll (Florida Atlantic)
- Tyler Harris (Washington)
- John Camden (Delaware)
- Garry Clark (Texas A&M-Corpus Christi)
Power Forward
- Darrion Williams (Texas Tech)
- Alvaro Folgueiras (Robert Morris)
- Malique Ewin (Florida State)
- Ante Brzovic (College of Charleston)
- Basheer Jihad (Arizona State)
- AK Okereke (Cornell)
- JaKobe Coles (Grand Canyon)
- Guillermo Diaz Graham (Pittsburgh)
- Aaron Bradshaw (Ohio State)
- Jalen Haynes (George Mason)
Center
- Aday Mara (UCLA)
- Eddie Lampkin (Syracuse)
- Ben Middlebrooks (NC State)
- Luke Bamgboye (vcu)
- Efton Reid (Wake Forest)
- Lawson Lovering (Utah)
- Hosana Kitenge (Louisiana-Lafayette)
- Juslin Bodo Bodo (High Point)
- Duke Brennan (Grand Canyon)
- Parsa Fallah (Oregon State)"
I’ll say this for Begg, he has people around him that know what they are talking about. This is not a money grab, or a case of getting bad advice. He is very likely homesick, and that outweighed all the positives of his situation at Mason.
I wish he would’ve stayed and I hate that it was so easy for him to step away. Thought he was primed for a really good sophomore year in an important role.
Changes are obviously needed, but it is what it is. Wish him nothing but the best.
I wish he would’ve stayed and I hate that it was so easy for him to step away. Thought he was primed for a really good sophomore year in an important role.
Changes are obviously needed, but it is what it is. Wish him nothing but the best.
Well, when you’re homesick and virtually your entire support structure (aka your team) collapses what’s the point in sticking around?
11 players leaving on a team that won 27 games and supposedly “liked each other”. Granted I know 5 of them exhausted eligibility, but still 6 players going into the portal seems excessive to me.
11 players leaving on a team that won 27 games and supposedly “liked each other”. Granted I know 5 of them exhausted eligibility, but still 6 players going into the portal seems excessive to me.
My guess would be Begg wants to be closer to home to play. Maybe wants his parents/family, friends to come to see him play. Sometimes this is a big factor, or the biggest factor, with a kid - especially in basketball.
I think Tony and staff just needs to recruit the Mid-Atlantic region - like a 6-7 state radius. Focus on VA, DC, MD, WV, PA, NJ, NY, Tennessee, NC, SC, that's it. Otherwise, very good chance a kid will transfer out these days if they are outside this range.
Georgia is too far, wouldn't recruit it, same the other direction with with Conn/Mass....keep NY as the Northern most stopping point and SC as the farthest south. Only go out of this radius if a coach or player has a direct relationship with the player or player's family.
On a broader spectrum...times have changed, society has turned into promoting individualism with kids these days... pushing for them to be their own person.... look at what influences kids.... it's TikTok, Youtube, online game platforms, etc. that promotes creating your own channel or brand and to go get as many followers and fame and money as you can no matter what. Kids go to school and then come home and hop on their phones, tablets, computers, gaming consoles, etc. and go into their little shell or world where they don't interact with people anymore.
I think Tony and staff just needs to recruit the Mid-Atlantic region - like a 6-7 state radius. Focus on VA, DC, MD, WV, PA, NJ, NY, Tennessee, NC, SC, that's it. Otherwise, very good chance a kid will transfer out these days if they are outside this range.
Georgia is too far, wouldn't recruit it, same the other direction with with Conn/Mass....keep NY as the Northern most stopping point and SC as the farthest south. Only go out of this radius if a coach or player has a direct relationship with the player or player's family.
On a broader spectrum...times have changed, society has turned into promoting individualism with kids these days... pushing for them to be their own person.... look at what influences kids.... it's TikTok, Youtube, online game platforms, etc. that promotes creating your own channel or brand and to go get as many followers and fame and money as you can no matter what. Kids go to school and then come home and hop on their phones, tablets, computers, gaming consoles, etc. and go into their little shell or world where they don't interact with people anymore.
2011WinOverVillanova
Starter
Would 99% say Cincy.
1. They have the money to throw at him
2. They only have 6 players on their current roster. Only 2 Forwards and both are young.
Haynes can kill it there and make his money.
2025-26 Men's Basketball Roster - University of Cincinnati Athletics
The official 2025-26 Men's Basketball Roster for the University of Cincinnati Bearcats
gobearcats.com
Would 99% say Cincy.
1. They have the money to throw at him
2. They only have 6 players on their current roster. Only 2 Forwards and both are young.
Haynes can kill it there and make his money.
2025-26 Men's Basketball Roster - University of Cincinnati Athletics
The official 2025-26 Men's Basketball Roster for the University of Cincinnati Bearcats
let's say Cincy has $5M in NIL Money
Haynes gets his asking price of $1M
then 13 other scholarship players must split the remaining $4M
each getting about $225k
everyone is getting paid but is everyone happy?
now start dropping that $5M total budget down and keeping Haynes at $1M
this math ain't mathing
the key question is
for a given total team NIL budget
how much does Haynes' $1M request have to drop to meet his needs and keep harmony on the team?
Pablo
Hall of Famer
St. Bonaventure transfer Melvin Council down to 4 schools
St. Bonaventure transfer guard Melvin Council is searching for a new home, and he's down to four potential options.
"St. Bonaventure transfer guard Melvin Council is searching for a new home, and he’s down to four potential options. On3 has learned he’s considering the Kansas Jayhawks, Mississippi State Bulldogs, Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets and Georgia Bulldogs."
"Originally, Council thought it was in his best interest to return to St. Bonaventure. Evidently, something changed for the star guard, and he entered the transfer portal. Now, there’s a myriad of teams courting him for the 2025-26 season."
'I’m not in it for the money, I’m in it for the culture, family, and fans,' Council Jr. said, regarding the matter via the Olean Times Herald. 'I will have to talk to my mom and my dad, but most likely I do feel the best thing is to come back and play another year at St. Bonaventure.'
One thing is for sure, this wasn’t a decision Council took lightly. St. Bonaventure coach Mark Schmidt made some pointed comments about the transfer portal at the end of their season, and it was evident Council had to be sure before entering his name into the portal.
'At Bonaventure, you can’t have one foot in and one foot out,' Schmidt stated. 'Either you’re in or you’re out, and if you’re out, you’re out. And we do that because we built this program and we don’t want anybody using us.
'There’s no way a kid is gonna put his name in the portal and try to look for other schools and now he’s not happy with those schools and so he wants to come back to Bonaventure. Our program is too special for that.'
Moving forward, Melvin Council will be joining his third team in as many seasons, but he’ll be on his biggest stage yet when he makes his decision. His time at Wagner and St. Bonaventure helped build him, and we’ll see how he uses the lessons learned in the future."
These are the issues that are causing coaches to lose sleep at night and quit their jobs.
Almost all of these kids have dreams of playing professionally. What do they think is going to happen when they're playing in Romania or Israel or the G-league or even the NBA? They're likely going to be in a new city far away from family and travelling once or twice a week to play road games. If that's what they want then they better figure out how to immunize themselves against homesickness now. It's the nature of the beast.
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THIS - very salient point and adapts to the new environment.
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