The 2025 NCAA men’s tournament has understandably dominated much of the conversation around the college sports landscape. But come Monday, some of the talk around college basketball will be about the transfer portal, which former Wisconsin Badgers football star turned NFL star CBS analyst JJ Watt finds absolutely ridiculous.
On Monday, the college basketball transfer portal will open, giving teams a 30-day window to transform their rosters. The only problem, of course, is that any team that ends up making the Sweet 16 won’t be able to focus on the transfer portal given that they’re still in the thick of their playoff run.
This isn’t a problem exclusive to college basketball, either. During the last college football season, the winter transfer window ran from December 9 to December 28, which directly overlaps with the bowl season.
JJ Watt shed some light on this in an article on X, detailing how having a flood of information about the incoming transfer portal during the NCAA Tournament essentially “cannibalizes” the sport.
“Opening the NCAA transfer portal before the end of March Madness (in the same way as opening the football portal before the end of bowl season) is absurd,” Watt wrote. “Literally cannibalizing your own sport. Imagine NFL free agency starting the Monday after Wild Card Weekend…”
Opening the NCAA transfer portal before the end of March Madness (same as opening the football portal before the end of bowl season) is absurd.
Literally cannibalizing your own sport.
Imagine NFL free agency starting the Monday after Wild Card Weekend…
– JJ Watt (@JJWatt) March 23, 2025
It’s hard to argue with what Watt said here.
Not only would moving the transfer portal after the playoffs in college basketball and college football apparently increase popularity around the transfer portal. But it also wouldn’t penalize teams that make deep playoff runs like the current format does.
The transfer portal is already a rather unpopular topic among college sports talking heads. So perhaps a change in the transfer portal window, as Watt is calling for, would at least warm up the idea of adopting the transfer portal concept.
