Division I men’s basketball player movement raises ‘alarm’

When Connecticut won the 2011 NCAA men’s basketball national title, Alex Oriakhi and Roscoe Smith were starters and Michael Bradley was on the bench as a redshirt freshman.

This fall, Oriakhi will be at Missouri, Smith will be at UNLV and Bradley will be at Western Kentucky.

All three had an obvious reason to transfer: The Huskies must skip the 2013 postseason because of the team’s low Academic Progress Rate (APR). But Connecticut is hardly alone in being affected by transfers. The NCAA’s most recent figures show men’s basketball has the highest percentage of transfers in Division I, a one-year rate of 10.9% in 2010-11. Of about 1,050 freshman men’s basketball players at 340 D-I schools in their first two years:

-Only 60% continue into their third year at their original institution.

-Less than 2% leave early to play pro basketball.

-The other 38% leave. Most transfer, some drop out completely, a few others leave for undocumented professional opportunities.

“The number that causes me alarm isn’t that 10.7 or 10.9 (%) or whatever the number is in men’s basketball,” NCAA President Mark Emmert said. “It’s that 40% of men’s basketball student-athletes aren’t at their original school by the end of their sophomore year because they’ve transferred, they’ve dropped out, they’ve moved on.”