Transfers playing a bigger and bigger role
Fifth-year rule can provide a quick fix for needy programs
Danuel House wanted what is essentially a do-over when he opted to leave the University of Houston basketball program.
House, a 6-7 senior guard from Hightower, was part of a UH team that never reached its potential under former coach James Dickey. So when Dickey was fired and replaced by Kelvin Sampson, House took the opportunity, along with high-profile teammate Ta-Shawn Thomas, to transfer.
In the span of two years, House has gone from a team that failed to make the postseason to playing for Texas A&M in the NCAA-Tournament.
House, the leading scorer for the Aggies, the No. 3 seed in the West Regional who open against Green Bay on Friday, said his decision to leave UH also was influenced by the death of his 81-year--
old grandmother, Ola Mae House, a month after the Cougars made a coaching change.
“I thought a fresh start would be better for me,” said House, a third-team All-SEC selection averaging 15.5 points. “Her death hurt me dearly, and it just seemed like I needed to get away from some other problems and go somewhere where I could focus on academics and basketball. Where I would become a better person and a better player.”
A &M isn’t the only program among this year’s NCAA Tournament field benefiting from transfers. Traditional basketball powers Connecticut, Maryland and Arizona are led by players who began their college careers at other schools.
The idea of players transferring elsewhere is nothing new, but it has grown at an alarming rate over the past few years to the extent that some have compared it to “free agency” while calling it an “epidemic” in need of intervention by the NCAA.
In the last three years, the number of Division I men’s basketball players changing schools has increased from 455 in 2013 to 604 in 2014 to more than 700 prior to this season, according to an annual list compiled by ESPN.
Forty percent of all players transfer within their first twoyears, NCAA president Mark Emmert said.
“No one is happy with the transfer rate, particularly in the sport of men’s basketball,” Kevin Lennon, the NCAA’s vice president for governance, told the Associated Press. “When 40 percent of your students are leaving after their second year, that’s a signal something’s wrong.”
‘It’s kind of a fad’
The reasons for transfers vary from a coaching change to more playing time or a family situation that allows a player to be closer to home.
Under most circumstances, an undergraduate who transfers must sit out a season before playing for a new school, although some have been able to petition for waivers to play immediately, a path taken by House, Thomas (Oklahoma) and Joe Young (Oregon) when they left UH and Rice’s Arsalan Kazemi (Oregon). All four eventually played in the NCAA Tournament with their newschools.
Schools still take the traditional route of building rosters through the recruitment of players out of high school. But finding the right transfer can turn a team in need of that one final piece — or desperate to fill a hole due to a departure of their own — to make a NCAA Tour nament run. The quickest way for a team to find an immediate impact player is through the fifth-year transfer rule adopted in 2006 that gives a fifth-year transfer immediate eligibility if he has earned his degree and seeks a graduate degree in a major not offered by his current school.
“The cool thing to do, I guess it’s kind of a fad, is when you graduate and have a year of eligibility and transfer and play for another school. Our league is full of them,” said Sampson, whose Cougars play in the American Athletic Conference.
Maryland finished tied for third in the Big Ten and is a No. 5 seed in the NCAA Tournament thanks to a pair of ACC transfers — Rasheed Sulaimon (Duke) and Robert Carter Jr. (Georgia Tech), who are both averaging double figures in scoring. Former West Virginia guard Eron Harris is a starter for No. 2 seed Michigan State. Ryan Anderson, a forward who began his career at Boston College, is the leading scorer for sixth-seeded-Arizona. Sterling Gibbs (Seton Hall) and Shonn Miller (Cornell) helped Connecticut claim an automatic bid by winning the AAC tournament a year after missing the NCAA-Tournament.
“Some people don’t like (the fifth-year transfer rule), some people do like it, but I just think it’s a part of the game,” U-Conn coach Kevin Ollie told the Hartford Courant. “You can’t make excuses; you’ve got to make adjustments. You can’t shackle a person from looking for their dreams and doing what’s best for them. You look at different rules and make the best of them, and this has been a great rule for us.”
Mid-majors exploited Not all coaches agree. Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski said there “should be no exceptions” and all transfers, including fifth-year seniors, should have to sit out a year.
In some situations, transfers don’t always work out.
At Louisville, the Cardinals grabbed a pair of fifthyear seniors Damion Lee (Drexel) and Trey Lewis (Cleveland State) and would have been a lock to make the NCAA Tournament. Instead, the two players will miss the postseason due to the school’s self-imposed ban for recruiting violations. That didn’t stop coach Rick Pitino on Senior Night from presenting both players with rings and showing a video tribute with the song “One Shining Moment,” traditionally played after the national title game.
While the NCAA has made hardship waivers tougher, a fifth-year transfer remains “the most legitimate way” for a player to leave for another school, former Rice coach Ben Braun said.
Most of the time, the transfer comes at the expense of a mid-major program, as players develop and eventually want to experience the bigger stage.
Braun, who still remains close to the game as a television and radio analyst, knows firsthand the damage transfers can do to smaller programs.
“I’m more concerned when you see the midmajor kids who have been successful that transfer to try and play at a higher stage,” Braun said. “I see it happening where a player has a really good year and they are being told they can go to a bigger stage or higher level. That’s appealing to some kids. Other kids, it doesn’t faze them and they stay committed to where they started.”