The Transfer Portal took over college basketball, and these stats prove it

Maybe even more so than its college football counterpart, the Transfer Portal has taken over college basketball. Smaller roster sizes in basketball allow quicker rebuilds on the hardwood, and coaches can flip their entire rosters from one year to the next.

Recruiting the high school ranks is still important, but more and more, the teams that are left standing at the end of the season are littered with veterans who started their careers elsewhere.

That's certainly the case for last season's National Champion Florida Gators. The three leading scorers for Todd Golden's squad were all seniors they acquired via the portal: Walter Clayton Jr. (Iona), Alijah Martin (Florida Atlantic), and Will Richard (Belmont).

They weren't alone. The team they played in the National Championship Game, Houston, secured two of their top three scorers via the portal: LJ Cryer (Baylor) and Milos Uzan (Oklahoma).

Four of Bruce Pearl's top five scorers at Auburn last season came from the portal: Johni Broome (Morehead State), Chad Baker-Mazara (San Diego State), Miles Kelly (Georgia Tech), and Denver Jones (FIU).

Duke was the only of the Final Four teams that didn't have a roster filled with portal guys, and that's only because the Blue Devils signed an insane recruiting class, headlined by No. 1 overall pick Cooper Flagg.

That's not going to change next year, either. Top programs like Kentucky, Louisville, Michigan, Florida (again), and St. John's, among plenty of others, went heavy into the portal this offseason as they look to replicate the success of last season's contenders and get to the Final Four.

The Transfer Portal continues to blow up in college basketball

Tracking what happens in the Transfer Portal moving forward, now that revenue-sharing has begun in college sports thanks to the landmark House vs. NCAA settlement, will be fascinating. For now, though, the portal has been busier than ever.

The Transfer Portal debuted in 2018, and numbers have steadily risen since then, including a massive spike in 2021 when NIL payments became legal:

2018: 704
2019: 694
2020: 967
2021: 1653
2022: 1649
2023: 1724
2024: 2083
2025: 2320

After three years of mostly stagnant numbers, things exploded in 2021, and no one has looked back. It's no surprise that 2025 featured the most, considering the expected changes coming with the House vs. NCAA settlement. It was the last hurrah of getting NIL deals signed before they had to go through a clearinghouse for approval. The ones not under the table, at least.

If you want to win in college sports nowadays, you have to use the Transfer Portal. Not only do you need to peruse it for top talent to join your program, you need to do your best to keep your own top talent out of it. The latter is key, albeit incredibly challenging, especially with the amount of money that is being thrown around in this era.