COMMENTARY
You may never have heard the names Isiaih Mosley or Ezra Manjon before. Norchad Omier probably doesn’t ring a bell, either.
To quickly end the suspense, Mosley and Manjon — both sophomores — are two of the top collegiate scorers in the country at the moment, while Omier — a 6-foot-7 freshman from Nicaragua — is one of the top rebounders.
They all play for rinky-dink Division I schools in rinky-dink conferences you’re likely not all that familiar with, either.
A generation ago, it made sense if even the top college hoops coaches at the best schools had never heard of such players putting up big numbers while playing in the middle of nowhere.
But, this is 2021, and it appears the game truly leaves no stone unturned when it comes to constructing rosters.
You use to be able to sum up roster building with one word: Recruiting.
It was once a simple and understood word. Sure, it may have brought a ton of underhandedness and scandal along with it through the years, but at least it gave us a general sense of closure.
What happens in today’s game is not recruiting.
Oscar Tshiebwe up and transferring from West Virginia in the middle of a season and landing at Kentucky wasn’t recruiting.
And if you look at current transfer statistics, there is a real good chance that Mosley (Missouri State), Manjon (UC Davis) and Omier (Arkansas State) won’t be at their same schools come next season.
If so, that won’t be recruiting, either.
“Stealing from other programs,” is how WVU coach Bob Huggins called it, before second-guessing himself slightly. “Stealing may not be the right word, taking guys out, I think that’s what’s going to happen.”
What it should really be called is college basketball free agency, courtesy of the NCAA Transfer Portal, which is filled to the brim each and every season.
To be transparent, I’m more on the side of athletes’ rights to transfer, especially at a time when the world is completely different than it was just five minutes ago.
Coaches leave. They run under-performing players out in order to open up a scholarship for someone else.
The portal opens up a much easier avenue for hundreds of athletes to make a fresh start, and with the NCAA likely to allow blanket one-time transfers in the near future, you’ll see a ton of players taking advantage.
Just don’t believe that every single player in the portal has a good reason for being there.
“I think that’s what you’re going to see basically from now on, people grabbing guys out of the transfer portal,” Huggins said. “Guys going into the transfer portal, I think it’s going to be like professional sports. It’s going to be trading pieces.”
The question of what’s next is constant, and it is no different in this situation.
“I don’t know that it’s become a science, yet,” Huggins said. “I think it’s going to come to that.”
The schools with enough forward thinking may be the best equipped to adapt.
What’s that mean? Well, picture a college hoops program able to hire a room full of aspiring twenty- and thirty-somethings looking to break into the college game for the sole purpose of becoming transfer-portal experts.
They watch hours upon hours of film. Not of the team they work for and certainly not of a future opponent, but of each and every player in the portal.
Their mission: Find the right fit that maybe can’t be found by bringing in some freshman straight out of high school.
That, my friends, is a glimpse of what the future could look like for college programs.
Schools will have four coaches sitting on the bench during a game, while 10 others armed with notepads and remote controls are huddled in a room staring at rows of computer screens.
That’s basically what the future of roster constructing could come down to.
Is it better to bring in a freshman, one who could blossom into a fine player, but also one who may be unhappy by sitting the bench early on and pick up and leave or is it better to dive into the portal and sign a kid who scored 18 points a game a year ago at San Jose State?
It is the question Huggins and his coaches will have to answer.
The portal officially opened in October, 2018. Since that time, WVU has signed just one player — forward Gabe Osabuohien — out of it.
Other programs have made a living off the portal. Iowa State is the No. 1 example in the Big 12. The Cyclones have probably signed two more transfers since I began writing this column.
WVU, for the most part, has trusted its recruiting and development of players.
It found a golden nugget with guys like Jevon Carter and Deuce McBride. It beat out some good teams for Derek Culver, Kevin Jones, Devin Williams and Isaiah Cottrell.
It scoured the junior-college ranks for Jaysean Paige and Taz Sherman.
This is the future calling, though, and the future of the game just may be that transfer portal.
To be sure, there is no sure thing. Just because a guy lit it up in the Atlantic 10, doesn’t mean he will do the same in the Big 12.
Just because a transfer may come from another Power Five school, it may not equal success at WVU.
But, it’s hard to ignore the future. While the first instinct right now may feel like stealing a player when diving into the portal, the future still comes.
It will be interesting to see how much Huggins welcomes it down the road.
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