After John Calipari’s backbreaking loss to Oakland, an answer kept making the rounds: You can’t win a national championship anymore with only one-and-dones. Was this correct? We’re not sure. But it implies a question, and the question is only partial in its nature: Can you win a national championship with only one-and-done freshmen?
That last word is crucial. Freshmen. We’ve asked this question a lot over the last nineteen years. It’s always only been relevant when talking about freshmen. We’re still in that mode, apparently. But now, the situation is different.
The transfer portal captures the college basketball world’s attention this time of year, and how could it not? It’s become possibly the biggest free agency cycle in the world of sports, if you measure by what portion of contributing players change jerseys. But as we enter the fourth year of this free transfer era…are the transfers winning?
So far, no. Over the three seasons since the mandatory year off was abolished between transferring and playing, Cam Spencer is the only transfer to immediately win a national championship from within a starting lineup. UConn had no first-year transfer starters last year. Kansas had none in 2022. That 2022 Gonzaga team, the best over the season as a whole, had only one, Rasir Bolton. It’s a small sample, and we’re only looking at starters (for the sake of simplicity), but we’ve yet to see a team built entirely of first-year transfers have big national success.
This isn’t to say that courting transfers is a bad thing, especially for first-year coaches like Mark Pope and Dusty May. Instead, it’s to point out three things:
First, culture and continuity are key. UConn is a sample size of one, but keeping Tristen Newton at point guard and Alex Karaban at the wing while upping Donovan Clingan’s minutes in the paint? That produced a team which felt very similar to last year’s despite losing five of its nine rotation players (Hassan Diarra also stuck around).
Second, going off the first, the best kinds of transfers might be those who play more than a year at their destination, rather than the single-season mercenaries popular among some of the less personally reputable coaches in the sport. We’ve seen plenty of transfers win big. We just haven’t seen them do it right away when surrounded by each other. You can’t build one-year teams and expect them to dominate.
Third, we should probably be wary of the hype Duke’s going to get heading into November. A combination of first-year freshmen studs and first-year transfer role players (with a stud or two likely mixed in or developed as the season goes on) doesn’t fit the recipe we’re seeing from the nation’s top programs.
It’s early in this era. Maybe an all-star approach soon works out. But it’s interesting that the narrative became so confident the old Coach Cal approach didn’t work while still entertaining the possibility of one-year superteams winning. It assumes freshmen are the problem, not first-year players in a program. That might be right, but assuming it is a little bold.
Trade Talk?
Mason Miller is throwing all kinds of gas for the A’s, and after he carved up the Yankees today to get the save, people are noticing. In honor of that, here are some potential pitcher trade targets from the five teams almost definitely out of the eventual postseason push. I’ve put the final year of club control in a parenthetical for each. These lists aren’t exhaustive, either. Just some of the top-ish names on each team.
- Marlins: Tanner Scott (2024), A.J. Puk (2026), Jesús Luzardo (2026), Trevor Rogers (2026)
- Nationals: Trevor Williams (2024), Hunter Harvey (2025), Kyle Finnegan (2025)
- A’s: Alex Wood (2024), Ross Stripling (2024), Paul Blackburn (2025), Mason Miller (2029)
- White Sox: Mike Clevinger (2024)
- Rockies: ?
Again, these lists aren’t exhaustive, and it’s early in the season, but Miller is the big curiosity. Would the A’s trade a player they have under club control through 2029? What kind of package would such a trade require? On the one hand, that’s five and a half years of the guy for cheap salaries. There aren’t many prospects Oakland could get who’d have a longer shelf life, and those that do exist come with more uncertainty. On the other hand, Miller’s a great prize right now, the A’s appear to have no aspirations of contention until 2028, and while Miller’s under club control, he’s got a lengthy injury history and turns 26 in August, putting him on the older side of guys at his stage of the arbitration progression.
It’s very early, but it’s worth keeping an eye on Miller. Among the rest, Harvey and Luzardo are exciting, but who knows what kind of surcharge the Nationals and Marlins might have in mind.
The Rest
The NBA:
- While the playoffs will likely turn towards the more established stars as they progress, and while Damian Lillard certainly made his presence known yesterday, it was a big weekend for some in the younger wave. Shai Gilgeous-Alexander hit the game winner last night as he looks for his first career playoff series win. Anthony Edwards enjoyed a great moment of telling his idol just how good he, Anthony Edwards, is. With the Warriors already done and LeBron’s Lakers likely soon to follow, there are some attention vacuums to fill. The league is growing new stars. (Again, the Celtics and Nuggets and Luka etc. will continue to hold their positions.)
The NHL:
- We’re still waiting for a series to get fully nutty, but Avalanche/Jets threw its hat into that ring last night, and the Oilers are always liable these days for postseason madness, so it’s exciting to see them starting their run (or absence of a run) tonight. We’re also still waiting for our first lower seed to win a game, and no one’s particularly likely to grab a road win tonight? William Nylander is vaguely hurt, the Knights are facing a tough Stars team, the Kings don’t inspire a lot of confidence, and the Islanders are pretty overmatched on paper down in Raleigh. It might stay chalky for another evening.
NASCAR:
- Congratulations to NASCAR on the Jumpman car winning at Talladega, and congratulations to Tyler Reddick for being the one who made that happen. One thought, with frustration at fuel-saving dominating the narrative…
- In addition to fuel-saving helping track position, is this also the moment teams are starting to more heavily weight the cost in the cost/benefit analysis of “race hard early” vs. “hang out in the back of the pack?” It’s always seemed inefficient for guys to try to charge to the front at these superspeedways, given how quickly they get passed back and how likely they are to cause a wreck by racing that way. Could this be compounding the fuel-saving issue?
- (Context: Drivers didn’t really want to lead, but they wanted to stay in striking distance, so they were driving around with their throttle only halfway down, trying to keep their gas tanks as full as possible so as to make really fast pit stops and get right back on the track. Why is this new? Because it’s harder to pass at superspeedways with this new car, making occupying a good position late in the race both difficult and valuable to pull off.)
Chicago:
- The motivation for that look at Mason Miller above does come from the Cubs. It’s been a rough run for Adbert Alzolay in the closer role, and the loss in the first game of Saturday’s doubleheader was a low point. I don’t think the Cubs should trade for Miller (I was more curious about starters, but Alzolay did provoke the line of thinking). Relief pitchers staying good is so rare. But, the Cubs do have some bullpen issues. With Cubs pitching, it’s coming out both ends. The nice thing about Alzolay is that he can fill a variety of roles. The hope is that his confidence isn’t significantly altered by these recent struggles and what appears to be a demotion out of the closer role.
- Speaking of low points, the Bulls went down on Friday against a Jimmy Butler-less Heat team, and this was what made Artūras Karnišovas realize his roster is a mess?? Of course, ‘acknowledging the need for serious changes’ or whatever the line is could just be lip service, but if it isn’t, it’s also bizarre that he didn’t say anything sooner, unless he was just misreading what people want to hear. Either way, the big question marks for the offseason are DeMar DeRozan and Zach LaVine.
- With LaVine, the solution is clear: Trade him for whatever you can get. As long as the team is built around LaVine, the ceiling is going to be low. Get him out and start working towards something worth working towards. At this point, you have to just get what you can get.
- With DeRozan, it’s more complicated, because he’s such a good presence and has been so valuable on the court. It doesn’t seem like this offseason is going to be the one in which the Bulls find The Guy, but could next year be that offseason? You want DeRozan around, but mostly to stay in contention for a 6-seed. If the cost of that is giving up a chance in the 2025 or 2026 offseason to find and build around The Guy, it’s not worth it.
- There wasn’t a whole lot to report from the Blackhawks’ end-of-season round of press conferences. Tyler Johnson is ready to move on, but that isn’t a surprise.
The Packers:
- Brian Gutekunst had a pre-draft press conference, and there wasn’t much of substance there either. We’ll see what we see when the draft comes. That’s part of how it works when you’re picking outside the top ten.
