Teshaun Steele is, now, the happiest he’s ever been. The 6-foot-7 wing from Worcester, Mass., is committed to play at the University of New Haven next fall. Years of hard work have paid off, and he can now call himself a Division 1 college basketball player.
But it didn’t come without stress, anxiety and even periods of doubt. To realize his dream, Steele had to overcome an emotional rollercoaster.
A back-to-back Mass. high school champion at Worcester North, Steele moved to Darrow last winter for a postgraduate season to do what many in his shoes do, seeking more exposure and better competition in pursuit of a Division 1 scholarship. But as he enjoyed a breakout season, emerging as one of the best two-way players in NEPSAC Class AAA, Steele found himself on an island.
College interest came and went. Steele heard from some coaches – including Div. 1 schools – after last summer’s NEPSAC showcases. Communication died down during the season, then picked up again toward the end of the winter. But the interest wasn’t reaching a tangible stage. As the season ended, Steele – an All-NEPSAC Class AAA selection – didn’t have any committable offers.
Why? Welcome to the NCAA transfer portal waiting game.
During the season, when colleges reached out with interest, his coaches would ask if they’d take him on a campus visit. But the answer was always the same: They were waiting on the upcoming transfer portal to figure out their roster needs first. And they wanted Steele to wait, possibly until the summer.
“I was just like, ‘That’s kinda crazy,’” Steele said. “When I kept hearing that, I was just down on myself because it’s like, ‘Bro, I’m working my ass off.’ …
“My emotions were kind of up and down. I would go from having a good game thinking that I’m about to have a couple coaches reach out to hearing that and being like, ‘Damn, what can I really do? What more can I do to help my recruitment?’ … It was coming closer to the end of the season and I was just stressing about school. I was like, ‘Did I really come here for nothing?’”
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On March 24, two weeks after the season ended, Steele announced his commitment to New Haven. At the time, they were a Div. 2 school before announcing a move to Div. 1 in May. But either way, Steele was thrilled. He had finally found a college basketball home.
Steele’s experience has become common in the transfer portal era. Since 2021, the NCAA has instituted several rules changes that have allowed athletes to switch schools freely without restrictions. It has created a seismic shift in college basketball, and it has only grown more chaotic each year in the age of name, image and likeness (NIL), as athletes seek high figures in compensation from bigger schools. Every year, more and more athletes are entering the NCAA transfer portal for a variety of reasons.
The changes have, among other things, deeply impacted the landscape of high school recruiting. According to Houston Christian head coach Craig Doty, as of April 9 this year – the midpoint of the transfer portal window – there were more than 4,300 players from Div. 1 to Div. 3 who had entered the portal. Add in available JUCO and NAIA players, and Doty estimated that there were more than 9,100 available players for, at the time, approximately 2,178 Div. 1 scholarship openings.
To put it simply, it’s never been harder for a high school recruit to earn a Div. 1 scholarship.
The challenges have been felt across the country, and especially in New England. As the calendar turned to June, several Class of 2025 prospects across the region remained uncommitted, with no clarity on their future. It’s left recruits, their families and their prep programs with no clear answers on how to navigate a quickly evolving landscape that’s not getting any easier.
“It’s infuriating,” Worcester Academy coach Jamie Sullivan said. “I don’t know any other way to say it. It’s really frustrating.”
What changed?
When college coaches visit prep schools, or communicate with coaches about their recruiting approach these days, the messaging is essentially the same.
“We have to get older,” Sullivan said they tell him.
“The consensus is, and I don’t necessarily think it’s wrong, is to get old and stay old,” Cushing head coach James Cormier echoed.
At the high-major level especially, there’s been a shift in roster construction aided by the new transfer rules and arrival of NIL. Now more than ever, coaches are feeling pressure to win now. That means they’re looking to add established veterans in the transfer portal first, and waiting on high school recruits. Rick Pitino, the head coach at St. John’s, has even gone so far as to say he’s not recruiting high school players at all.
“You're not going to replace older guys with freshmen, you’re going to replace an older guy with another older guy,” Boston College head coach Earl Grant said. “The only way to do that is to go to the portal.”
High school seniors are feeling the trickle-down effect. Elite scholarship talents are still typically finding the right high-major level, but the domino effect has impacted many mid-major and low-major recruits who are being forced to accept lower placements than they expect. They are often asked to wait, like Steele, before getting an opportunity, as colleges not only sift through the transfer market, but figure out which of their own players may be leaving.
The timeline for recruiting has shifted drastically as a result of this new climate.
“It’s pushed everything into either very early or very late,” longtime Phillips Exeter coach Jay Tilton said. “There’s no middle ground.”
College programs aren’t committing the same amount of resources into traveling to recruit at high schools. At Putnam Science, head coach Tom Espinosa said they used to have dozens of coaches visit the school for open gyms and games, but the numbers have dwindled over the last few years. “We would get so much traffic with college coaches and it’s just not the same anymore,” Espinosa said.
On-campus evaluations are minimal now. During the season, colleges are traveling less to high school events – Cormier estimated about a 75 percent cut in the last three years – and committing more time to scouting potential transfers. John Carroll, the basketball architect at Newman and commissioner of the New England Basketball League, said the new timeline includes an introduction to the next senior class in May and June, and a hard recruitment in July before a period of trying to get kids to commit. He said it will pick up again briefly in October and November, but then quiet down again until the spring.
“I don’t think it’s any harder, but the timeline has changed,” Carroll said. “When that timeline graduates from people’s memory, then it will be easy. … Now it’s early and late, there’s not much happening in December, January.
“There’s equal opportunity for these guys in college basketball, there’s less opportunity in high-major basketball. That’s the biggest difference. You have to be really, really good or … be willing to be late.”
At a school like Exeter, where most athletes are hoping to couple a good athletic program with a high-academic situation, the calculus has become even more complicated. Luke Soden was a standout postgraduate for Exeter last winter who remained uncommitted until May 31. Before the portal, Tilton said he would have had no-brainer placement opportunities at the Div. 1 level for a player like Soden. But the portal has changed the equation.
“In the past, you can weigh it,” Tilton said. “If you don't have anything by November, you might want to jump on one of the high-academic Div. 3s, but now if you’re not getting recruitment, you’re going to have to play it out longer into December or January. Now your academic Div. 3s are no longer an option. They’re past their deadlines. Those schools aren’t holding spots for kids late. You’re really forced into, do I make a commitment at that level without having had the opportunity to really play out my senior or postgraduate year? …
“The timetable has forced kids into a corner a little bit and risk losing those high-academic (opportunities).”
Desperate times have called for desperate measures. Some players are considering an extra postgraduate season after not getting the recruitment they sought. Other Class of 2025 players, like St. Andrew’s guard Kyle Benjamin and Putnam Science forward Sam Osayi (who ultimately committed to Quinnipiac on May 20) continued to play with their AAU teams this spring in hopes of catching some last-minute attention.
“For that kid to still be playing AAU, it’s crazy,” Espinosa said of Osayi, who was a starter on Putnam’s national prep championship team. “It’s just absolutely crazy. This would never be the case before the portal.
“I think you just have to be patient. It’s easier said than done. Parents aren’t patient, and the kid is finishing their postgrad year and it’s April, May. If you had to pick one word that all these coaches say, it’s, ‘Patient. Be patient.’”
Adapting to the game
Jere Quinn has been the head coach at St. Thomas More since 1978, and he’s seen plenty of changes to the recruiting landscape over the last five decades. He understands the frustrations and challenges facing this era of recruits due to the portal, but he also knows there’s not much he can do to change it. So, he adapts.
“If you don’t adjust to change, you might as well get out of the business,” Quinn said. “And there’s always going to be change.”
At St. Thomas More, they’ve leaned into the changing landscape and embraced it. Quinn’s highly-respected reputation certainly helps, but the program has successfully sold their recruits on development and future monetization at the next level. Before the portal, there was a time when Quinn only brought in postgraduate players to his program, but he’s found himself getting younger lately, and honing in on skill development and maturation over several years, which has become more attractive for college coaches.
“Typically, our kids are ready when they get there,” Quinn said.
St. Thomas More assistant Milo Luciano said he’s seen a shift in the perception of postgraduates, where it typically doesn’t matter how good or productive they are in that season. College coaches, now more than ever, are under pressure to be right on a high school recruit, and they’re more selective as a result. That means they prefer the recruit who has a longer, successful track record.
“There’s not enough ground you can cover in that 365-day span,” Luciano said of postgraduate players. “We’ve noticed that guys aren’t willing to take a chance on just a year of proven stuff. Guys want to be able to look back into the archives and see two, three, four years of really high-level grassroots production.”
Because of the portal, the coaches at St. Thomas More accept that not all of their players are going to start college at the level they think they should be. Last year, Quinn remembers making an “excessive” number of calls to high-major schools about his 6-foot-4 guard, Izaiah Pasha, but didn’t get any bites. Instead, Pasha committed to Delaware, won CAA Rookie of the Year, then transferred to Virginia Tech in April.
That’s the recommendation that Quinn now makes to his players who aren’t getting the high-major recruitment they hoped: Go to a mid-major, be productive, then make a decision. Depending on the situation, there could be long-term benefits. A productive season at a mid- or low-major school could net hundreds of thousands of dollars in NIL money on the other side and potentially a healthy pathway to development, where they can grow from a high-usage early role at a lower level. Going straight to a high-major can certainly still be profitable depending on the fit and role, but that may not always be the case.
“One of the things we’re pitching to guys is to go the path of least resistance,” Luciano said. “Like why get caught at that in-between level? Maybe before, kids would go to an A-10 instead of a MAC, but why put that kind of roadblock in front of yourself now when the goalpost is hundreds of thousands of dollars and the market does say if you produce at any of these levels, it all is perceived to be the same? … This process isn’t going to be so linear, but it may be more fiscally fruitful by the end of it all.”
Uncertain future
Getting noticed has always been an important piece for a high school recruit hoping to get a scholarship. But the portal has made it harder than ever.
The number of opportunities for recruits to play in front of college coaches has dwindled, and the pressure to perform in those limited chances has increased. Events like the NEPSAC showcases in June have become an even more critical part of the recruiting calendar. There’s even more competition to join upper-tier programs like the ones in the NEBL, which offers multiple showcase days in front of crowds of college coaches. The NEBL not only has valuable exposure, but the competition – with each team rostering 7-12 Div. 1 recruits – gives coaches important intel on how their skills can translate.
“These college coaches can watch that game and be like, ‘OK, it’s transferrable,’” Carroll said. “I think coaches want to make sure, more than ever, they really don’t want to get it wrong and they don’t want to waste their money and they don’t want to waste their time and I think the more you can make it transferrable and relatable to the next level, that’s what I think is the most important.”
The future of this environment is hard to forecast. Right now, the NCAA transfer portal is something of a free-for-all, and without more guardrails or rules, it only projects to be harder for high school recruits. Cormier floated the idea of a sit-out year for second-time transfers or limiting the amount of incoming transfers each year, while Sullivan brought up the idea of contracts in an effort to control the portal. Quinn thinks there will eventually be more guidelines put in place.
All hope is not lost. There are still college coaches, like Grant, who believe there’s a place for high school recruits.
“I’m always going to look for high school kids,” Grant said. “There’s too many good kids that I’ve coached where if we didn’t take him out of high school, we would have never had that guy. … The portal is more like how you make your team better. It’s kind of like the free agency where you go out and address needs and then the high school kids are more like how you build your culture. … I think you need a combination of the two.”
There are certainly no simple solutions in this climate. There are fewer opportunities and more roadblocks than ever before in the chase for a scholarship. It doesn’t look like it will get easier any time soon, but the dream lives on.
“I would say just keep the faith,” Steele said. “There was never a time where I was so down to the point that I just didn’t want to play basketball. I just felt like I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing and some way, somehow it’s going to happen. I kept faith that it was going to happen. It ended up happening later than expected but it happened. You just have to believe in yourself and keep going.”
