The transfer portal has taken Houston, Baylor, Gonzaga and UCLA to the Final Four

A former Kansas Jayhawk (Quentin Grimes) scored more points than any other Houston player in its four wins on the path to the national semifinals. In Sampson’s system, which values rebounding as much as scoring, a former Towson Tiger (Justin Gorham) has grabbed the most boards during his team’s extended Indianapolis stay. And the leading assist man? That’s DeJon Jarreau, formerly a Massachusetts Minuteman, who also happens to be the team’s best defender.

The second-seeded Cougars, with four transfers in their starting lineup and two more on the roster, are an extreme example of a program that leans on players from elsewhere. But they’re also a reflection of their peers, both in the men’s Final Four and across the college basketball landscape, as players take advantage of more freedom to transfer and programs embrace how those athletes can be valuable additions.

“Thirty years ago, people that didn’t know what they didn’t know turned their nose up at transfers,” Sampson said. “They thought something was wrong with them. It shows you how little they knew, though. Now, if you’re not taking transfers, you’re behind.”

After Sampson led his group to Houston’s first Final Four since 1984, another Elite Eight matchup began at Lucas Oil Stadium on the other side of a curtain. In that game, another team from Texas with a handful of transfers — top-seeded Baylor — moved on, too. MaCio Teague, formerly of UNC Asheville, hit a pair of pivotal three-pointers late in the second half. Davion Mitchell, who used to play for Auburn, has been the Bears’ defensive stopper all season. They led Baylor to its first Final Four since 1950, and they did so by beating an Arkansas team that Sampson had referred to as “Transfer U” earlier in the tournament. These players — Teague and Mitchell; Grimes, Gorham and Jarreau — are no longer outliers.

In Saturday’s Final Four matchups, eight of the 20 projected starters from Gonzaga, Baylor, Houston and UCLA will be transfers. With more than 1,000 players reportedly already in the transfer portal this year, these Final Four squads are perhaps a glimpse of what future college rosters will look like.

From 2011 to 2015, the Final Four never featured more than one transfer starter. That total gradually grew in recent seasons, with five in 2018. That season, each national semifinalist had at least one transfer who started, and Loyola Chicago, the Cinderella team of the tournament, had two. Now, with transferring becoming more common and all players granted immediately eligibility this season because of the pandemic, that number has surged. The NCAA is soon expected to approve a rule change that allows all players to transfer once without sitting out for a year, as they were previously required to, meaning the effects of the transfer boom won’t be fully apparent until future seasons.

“It’s been a long time since anybody’s gone on the road recruiting,” Sampson said. “Transfer portal is like a menu. You’ve got appetizers and desserts. You’ve got your entrees. You kind of just say, ‘What do you need?’ It’s like one-stop shopping looking at that transfer portal.”

Even for UCLA and Gonzaga, which have only one transfer starter apiece, the new additions elevated their programs. Sophomore guard Johnny Juzang (a former Kentucky Wildcat) has powered the Bruins through the tournament, averaging 21.6 points since his 11th-seeded team began in the First Four round.

During the tournament runs of these Final Four participants, transfers have scored nearly 40 percent of their teams’ points and have accounted for a similar proportion of minutes. Those contributions peaked in the Elite Eight, when transfers scored 64 percent of Baylor’s points, 58 percent of Houston’s points and 55 percent of UCLA’s points. The production during the tournament is comparable to season-long data, too.

Gonzaga, the overall No. 1 seed, has a star freshman point guard in Jalen Suggs and a senior all-American forward in Corey Kispert. Other key players have developed in the program for a few years, but Andrew Nembhard recently joined the team from the University of Florida. When Coach Mark Few was still hoping that Nembhard would receive a waiver to play this season, he met with some of his standout players. Few said he asked Suggs how he felt about adding another guard to the fold.

“He just got the biggest grin on his face,” Few said. “I’ll remember it the rest of my life. He was like: ‘Coach, are you kidding me? That would be awesome.’ I’ve found over the years the real players, they don’t fear anybody. They welcome all great players around them.”

Few told his staff he believed the addition of Nembhard took the Bulldogs from being a top-20 team into the top five, where they could compete for a national title. Nembhard only averages 9.1 points in a high-pace Gonzaga offense that includes four players with better scoring outputs. Nembhard didn’t settle into a starting role until late this season, but he was the team’s second-leading scorer (17 points) in its Sweet 16 win over No. 5 seed Creighton.

“I don’t think he gets talked about enough,” Suggs said. “Man, he’s good.”

There’s no precise formula to build a program. “There’s only your way,” Sampson said. “Whatever way you believe in and it works, then that’s a good way.” For some of these teams, especially Houston and Baylor, transfers have been the answer.

Teague and Mitchell talked before they arrived on Baylor’s campus, and Mitchell says he’s the reason Teague chose the Bears. Teague remembers his soon-to-be teammate saying, if he came to Baylor, together they could reach the Final Four. And after sitting out a season, then having a strong 2019-20 campaign before the tournament was canceled by the pandemic, they made it.

As these transfer-laden teams compete for a title, the portal is buzzing. The moves don’t always work out. But this tournament is proof that those decisions can lead to ideal outcomes with a school that’s a better fit. And so, while the coaches at the Final Four prepare game plans, nearly all of their peers are hard at work hoping to find the transfers who will star in the next tournament.