As SEC schools raid top players from mid-majors, Norfolk State’s coach explained why Cinderellas stand slim chance in March Madness: They’re ‘a glorified juco’ now.
As transfer rules loosened these last few years, coaches at power-conferences looked to the portal to build rosters, at expense of mid-major teams.
Cinderella showed signs of weakness in NCAA Tournament before this year. Perhaps, she’s not dead, but just hibernating for a year.
Norfolk State managed one of the great upsets in men’s NCAA Tournament history with veteran players who didn’t shy away from No. 2 Missouri in a first-round upset.
Kyle O’Quinn, one of Norfolk’s four senior starters, went off for 26 points in his penultimate game before being drafted into the NBA.
No chance Norfolk could hang onto a player of O’Quinn’s caliber for four seasons nowadays, amid college basketball’s transfer revolution. But don’t take my word for it. Just listen to what Norfolk coach Robert Jones said recently.
“Now, we’ve got to get a new team every year, every two (years),” Jones told WAVY-TV. “We’re basically a glorified juco.”
“Until mid-majors get the money that high majors have, we’re never going to be able to keep kids here for a long time,” added Jones, who was an assistant coach on Norfolk’s 2012 Cinderella team. “It’s easy to get them. It’s hard to retain them.”
Cinderella became a glorified community college, in Jones’ own telling. Maybe that helps explain why no team from outside a Power Four conference reached the Sweet 16 this season.
Tired of getting slapped by Cinderella’s slipper, power-conference coaches now acquire the best players off mid-major rosters.
This emerged as a natural evolution after the NCAA began to loosen transfer restrictions in 2021, amid a flurry of legal action. The rules further loosened after a 2023 court order that allows players to bounce from school to school, year after year, without penalty.
Mid-major standouts able to transfer freely without penalty can’t ignore the financial and exposure benefits of moving up to a high major. Coaches within the power ranks can’t ignore top mid-major players who possess the talents to become high-major stars, and mid-major coaches don’t have the clout to retain proven players.
Transfers supplanted the ‘diaper dandies’ who once dominated college hoops.
The NCAA maintains disinterest in collective bargaining or a contract-based employment model that might offer coaches more roster control. In lieu of that, the transfer carousel spins ‘round, and the top players from teams like Norfolk stampede toward Power Four rosters.
On cue, Norfolk’s top scorer Brian Moore Jr. swiftly entered the transfer portal after the team’s first-round NCAA loss to Florida. Last spring, Norfolk lost leading scorer Jamarii Thomas to South Carolina, as Thomas joined his third school in as many years. Thomas became the Gamecocks’ second-leading scorer.
“You can get (players), because a lot of kids want opportunities,’ Jones, the Norfolk coach, explained, ‘but once they get the opportunity, and then they blow up, it’s hard to retain them, because now the big boy is going to come.”
Auburn, Tennessee reflect transfer revolution in March Madness
A photo circulated in 2019 showed how Grant Williams looked as a freshman clinging to baby fat, compared to what he’d become as a chiseled junior forward on the frontline of one of the nation’s best teams.
Three years spent in Tennessee’s strength in conditioning program transformed Williams. He epitomized a Tennessee roster that coach Rick Barnes spent years developing. That Vols team ascended to a No. 1 ranking for a stretch of the season and reached the Sweet 16. Tennessee’s roster included no transfers on that team that won 31 games, and a fan base fell in love with a lineup it knew well.
Oh, how the sport changed in a matter of years.
Tennessee will play a Sweet 16 game against Kentucky on Friday with a transfer-fueled roster. Barnes’ 2024 recruiting class featured one high school recruit. More room for transfers.
Five transfers played in Tennessee’s second-round win against UCLA. Four came from mid-majors, including leading scorer Chaz Lanier.
Thanks, Cinderella, for putting in the legwork. Barnes will take it from here.
“Every year the excitement of putting together a team and putting the parts together is, honestly, it’s fun,” Barnes told reporters last spring.
It’s more fun when you’re the program gaining top players, rather than losing them.
The SEC advanced seven teams into the Sweet 16, an NCAA record for a conference. Several factors account for the SEC’s uprising. Expansion helped. SEC newcomers Oklahoma and Texas qualified for the field. Strong hiring and more effective scheduling became keys, too.
Also unmistakable, though, is that SEC schools flex muscle in the transfer sweepstakes.
Consider No. 1 overall seed Auburn, playing in the Sweet 16 on Friday.
Bruce Pearl took Auburn to its first Final Four in program history in 2019 with a roster he’d signed and developed. Now, he’s playing the transfer game, too.
Superstar Johni Broome is in his third year at Auburn after transferring from Morehead State.
Auburn’s Sweet 16 opponent, No. 5 Michigan, deploys a starting lineup exclusive to players who have transferred at least once. That includes Michigan’s star frontcourt of Vladislav Goldin and Danny Wolf. They played last season at Florida Atlantic and Yale, respectively, Cinderellas that won games in last year’s NCAA Tournament.
Instead of trying to run it back in a glass slipper, Goldin and Wolf turbo-charged Michigan’s rebuild.
“I don’t begrudge anyone (for transferring),” said Michigan coach Dusty May, who previously coached Goldin at FAU.
Can Cinderella make a comeback?
The Sweet 16, for the first time since 2007, features no team seeded No. 11 or higher, but Cinderella’s vitality has been threatened before.
The following year, in 2018, Loyola-Chicago charged into the Final Four as an 11-seed, a comeback for Cinderella, and Nevada reached the Sweet 16.
Perhaps, Cinderella has another comeback left in her next season.
No. 12 Colorado State, from the Mountain West, would have reached this year’s Sweet 16 if not for Maryland banking in a runner at the buzzer. No. 12 McNeese beat Clemson in the first round. Drake beat the big boys at their own transfer game. Using a lineup packed with Division II transfers, the 11th-seeded Bulldogs upset Missouri in the first round.
After Drake, Colorado State and McNeese exited the tournament, power-conference schools plundered their coaches. Players aren’t the only ones treating Cinderella as a pitstop.
Jones didn’t leave. Norfolk’s veteran coach is still plugging away, remolding a roster that must replace its transfer-bound leading scorer. Such is life at “a glorified juco.”
Blake Toppmeyer is a columnist for the USA TODAY Network. Email him at BToppmeyer@gannett.com and follow him on X @btoppmeyer. Subscribe to read all of his columns.