How D-II college basketball coaches adapt to the transfer portal era

Dip Metress had long seen the writing on the walls when it came to the transfer portal in college basketball. He just didn’t know when it would start to impact how he managed the Augusta University men’s basketball team.

It happened during the 2025 offseason. Metress, who’s been the head coach of the Jaguars for 21 years, had two of his top three scorers transfer up to Division-I programs. It was the first time he ever had players enter the portal and leave his program.

Loyal followers of D-I men’s college basketball get to enjoy the excitement that comes with recruiting a talented player from the portal who one day may help lead their team to a deep March Madness run. For Metress and others within the Division-II landscape, they have to contend with a new reality: the proliferation of the transfer portal has made them simply a stepping stone for players to achieve their dreams.

“I don’t think any league is going to be the same,” Metress said on the transfer portal. “It’s something that’s a daily conversation, especially at our level.”

A new reality for Division-II basketball programs

When the NCAA transfer portal debuted back in late 2018, it initially was a way to make the process of players declaring that they want to transfer more accessible and streamlined. An online database was created to do that.

Then in 2021, the NCAA created the “one-time transfer rule” that allowed players to transfer schools once without having to sit out a year and lose a year of eligibility. Three years later, the rules shifted to let players transfer multiple times without having to sit out a year.

It was those rule changes, according to Metress, that had a larger impact than initially implicated, particularly at the D-II level. Without any penalty for transferring, it incentivized players to switch schools whenever they found a better opportunity for themselves.

For players who were underrecruited out of high school that landed at a D-II, the current landscape allows them to treat the level the same way junior colleges were considered a stepping stone towards playing at the D-I level pre-transfer portal.

“I feel for these coaches because if they have a good player at the D-II level, especially with some size and the right skillset, he’s probably going to get poached by another coach,” said Eric Simpkin, a regional scout with the One Motive Sports agency. “Unfortunately, that’s just kind of the landscape of it now.”

Many of the players that get poached leave D-II because of the higher potential to transition to the professional game afterwards. If they have their sights set on the NBA and the talent to make it, then moving up to D-I is their best bet. For example, a player like Derrick White on the Boston Celtics, went from the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs (D-II) to the University of Colorado (D-I) en route to being drafted.

For those who aren’t quite NBA material, going overseas to play professionally is also a realistic option for them. But if that’s where they want to go, Metress argues, then D-II programs are still a viable option to get them to that goal. Keshun Sherill, a 2017 graduate and a four-year starter at Augusta, has played overseas for almost a decade.

While Metress can offer that potential pathway to his players, he, and many other D-II coaches, can’t come close to matching the type of NIL packages that players are receiving in the portal. High-major D-I programs can offer transfers well into seven-figures for their services.

Augusta University doesn’t have any NIL funding for players as of now. Few D-II programs can even offer players more than a few hundred dollars. With the type of life changing money that is now available, a D-II will almost always lose out on talent if that’s any type of priority for a player.

“It’s definitely been one of the factors with people,” said Evan Joyner, a sixth-year graduate student at Augusta who played at four different schools in his career. “They’re like, ‘Okay I average this much, and I seen somebody over here average the same, and they [make] this. If they’re getting this, I could potentially get this if I do the same thing.’” 

How do college basketball coaches adapt to the changing landscape?

At the D-II level, coaches will need to accept that players they recruit are no longer guaranteed to play all four years at that school. It’s much more likely to be two years, and if they have legit size and skill without any off-court issues, it’ll be one season. That’ll have to be in the sales pitch to players going forward because if not, coaches will lose out on talented guys, even if they are essentially a rental.

“I think coaches that aren’t doing that are probably going to fall behind,” Simpkin said. “All these kids want [to go] D-I, and they want to cash out while it’s so hot. Might as well lean into it.”

D-II coaches have always had to recruit from multiple avenues to field rosters. Metress routinely recruits talent from overseas in addition to high school players. He also has had the opportunity to get former D-I players who weren’t getting much playing time in the transfer portal.

However, with the rule changes that allow multiple transfers without having to sit a year, it’s much more unlikely that they come down a level without going to two or three D-I schools beforehand. If they do move down now, it’s more an indictment on them as a player than a lack of true opportunity.

“The transfers sometimes that we get at our level nowadays might be a little watered down,” Metress said.

The new landscape may also affect how high school players are recruited at the D-II level. High school seniors will still find their way onto rosters. But the type of player and their backgrounds coming into college, at least for Metress, will become a new factor on whether a kid will earn a scholarship to his program.

“Someone like me will look at a kid, and if he’s been to three different high schools, I’m probably not going to recruit him for Augusta. He’s a flight risk,” Metress said. “We try to look for kids that came to a high school and stayed at the same place, [with a] little more stability in their life.”

It isn’t the same world of college basketball that Metress stepped into 21 years ago. Instead of losing two players to the portal, the 2026 offseason saw five players leave Augusta with D-I aspirations. Things will only continue to stray away from what was once the norm. All that Metress and other D-II coaches can do is roll with the punches and try to adjust on the fly. 

It might not be easy nor fair that they’ll have to adjust to a landscape that’s conducive for D-I programs. Yet, that’s always been the game that D-II’s have been forced to play. The growth of NIL and the transfer portal by the NCAA, unfortunately, just upped the difficulty.

“It’s always been a challenging level,” Metress said. “This is the way college basketball is. It is what it is. It doesn’t mean it’s okay. You’ve got to try to fix this. But that’s not my role.”

This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: How D-II basketball programs are adapting to the transfer portal era