The Mock Transfer Portal: 80 Top College Basketball Players Likely to Move and Where

The transfer portal may soon cool from the wildfire it’s been, especially if revenue sharing forces the Power Four into similar—and much smaller—spending lanes. Schools that just splurged $14–22 million this cycle could be working with only $3–4 million next year once football takes its massive cut and basketball eats second off a $21 million essentially hard cap. With fewer giant bags to throw around, the market should correct itself somewhat, as well as reduce players moving to more random places with no regional connection, just for the money.

But make no mistake: transferring isn’t going away. Even before the era of unlimited transfers, and money—much less NIL bidding wars—the sport still saw more than 1,200 transfers per year. Revenue sharing might stabilize rosters a bit and reduce desperate overpays, but it won’t eliminate movement, especially from non-P5 mid major programs that will still be working under significantly lower player budgets.

I’ve identified roughly 80 players who are strong candidates to move next offseason. The reasons vary, but the patterns are familiar. Some are tied to coaches who are likely to jump to bigger jobs—or get fired—putting entire rosters at risk. Others are headed toward a numbers crunch, where the role they think they deserve likely won’t align with the minutes they’re about to get. And then there are the serial movers: players already on their second or third stop in as many years. When a guy has shown no inclination to stay put and there’s still more money to be made, history tells us how that story ends. The itch is real.

Some of these players will play their way up. Others will transfer because they come up short. A select few will simply chase the next payout or the next clean slate. The motivations differ, but the conclusion is the same: movement is coming—more targeted, more strategic, and far more likely tied this year to coaching dynamics than the bidding-war chaos of the past two cycles. These are our mock transfer expectations and the reasons why we expect each player to move and where.