did sign an executive order last month<\/a> that includes a provision limiting transfers, allowing student-athletes to transfer only once without sitting out a season before they graduate. However, many aspects of the order could stand up to legal challenges is uncertain.<\/p>\n\u201cI think for this thing to work, we have to put some teeth into it,\u201d Houston coach Kelvin Sampson said. \u201cUntil there\u2019s an antitrust component in all this, then we live in constant fear of a lawsuit. All it takes is one guy to say you\u2019re limiting my ability to profit off of my name, image and likeness by not allowing me to chase or have a better opportunity elsewhere.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe players\u2019 rights will always win,\u201d Sampson added. \u201cBut at some point, we\u2019ve got to be guardians of the game. How do we make our game better?\u201d<\/p>\n
This would help, especially when paired with a one-time transfer rule. But there are two unintended consequences that coaches dislike.<\/p>\n
The first consequence, coaches said, is the change eliminates redshirts, because a redshirt would no longer extend eligibility.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow you\u2019re going to have a full roster that expects to play,\u201d Painter said. \u201cIf guys aren\u2019t going to be in a rotation or they\u2019re going to be our eighth or ninth man, we\u2019ve redshirted a lot of those guys.\u201d<\/p>\n
The redshirt can reduce dissension, because the focus is on development and adjusting to college and not playing time.<\/p>\n
\u201cA redshirt allows a player to make improvements without the pressure of thinking, \u2018man, I\u2019m not good enough here. I\u2019m not playing.\u2019 Well, just because you\u2019re not ready doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re not good enough,\u201d Painter said. \u201cAnd a lot of people will tell you that. The internet does that. Fans do that. Oh, he\u2019s not good enough. Well, it\u2019s hard when you\u2019re 19 years old to adjust to major college basketball when you\u2019re going against 22, 23, 24-year-olds. That year allows for a lot of growth, and now it sets you up for a better career.\u201d<\/p>\n
The second impact is the five-in-five makes it harder for freshmen to earn playing time, which could lead to more roster movement.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve almost, without formalizing it, gone back and said freshmen don\u2019t play varsity basketball,\u201d Santa Clara coach Herb Sendek said. (Before the 1972-73 season, freshmen were not allowed to play football or basketball.) \u201cThey play on the freshman team, like David Thompson did at North Carolina State.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sendek said there are obvious exceptions. The top prospects will still play as freshmen, but it will now be harder for most younger players.<\/p>\n
Olen sees a world where this could push high school prospects to consider starting at lower levels, which would just generate player movement in a different direction.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor a long time, everyone at every level kind of felt kids are gonna go to the highest level they can,\u201d Olen said. \u201cYou\u2019re seeing some of that dissipate with the new landscape. I think you\u2019re gonna see more of that dissipate a little bit, where players, even right out of high school, are gonna be reluctant to go to places where they can\u2019t play sooner rather than later. Or you\u2019re going to see more of the two-year, multiyear deals come into play.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s another beef coaches have with the current setup. While contracts are being signed, most only lock in the school, not the player.<\/p>\n
\u201cContracts have to be good both ways,\u201d Schertz said. \u201cWhen people say, the coaches\u2019 portal\u2019s open, I agree. But almost every coach I know has a buyout that\u2019s more than their year-to-year salary that either the coach themselves or the institution they\u2019re moving to has to compensate the school they took the coach from.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo now if you want to say that, you sign a player for a $1 million, and for them to leave, they or the school they\u2019re going to has to pay you $2 million. And they\u2019re not eligible to play at the other school until that money is received. Then I think you\u2019re having a different conversation that would also really tamper down the movement.\u201d<\/p>\n
Schertz would like to see college basketball adopt a system similar to European soccer and basketball, where an acquiring team must pay for transfers. He\u2019d also love to see a system similar to the NBA\u2019s Bird rights, where a player can earn more staying with his current team than if he chose to go into free agency. Or a system where a player receives a bonus year \u2014 the fifth year \u2014 if he graduates in four years or stays at one school for four seasons.<\/p>\n
The coaches all have ideas, and one frustration they have with the system for changing and adopting new rules is that they\u2019re hardly part of the process. The Division I Cabinet does not include any coaches; it consists mostly of athletic directors and conference commissioners.<\/p>\n
\u201cI love being in the rooms and listening to someone from the NCAA or a commissioner or an AD or a faculty rep because they come from a different perspective, then I like forming my opinion after I listen to them,\u201d Painter said. \u201cThey don\u2019t reciprocate that to coaches. Now some people in a room do. But the total piece, when you\u2019re coming to it, they really don\u2019t. And it probably irritates them that we keep saying this, but they just don\u2019t. It\u2019s their actions. They can say whatever they want. Their actions show that they don\u2019t do those things.\u201d<\/p>\n
Painter said the NCAA has made some strides in the Oversight Committee, which includes three head coaches among its 20 members. But when it comes time to vote, Painter said, the coaches are still in the minority. \u201cThere\u2019s just a disconnect with coaches, and there always has been,\u201d Painter said.<\/p>\n
The five-in-five rule is a response, however, to what coaches want in terms of consistency for eligibility.<\/p>\n
Players like Ellis, professionals coming to play college basketball from overseas, have made it a necessity to know who is eligible and for how long. The argument that those players should not be eligible because they\u2019re already professionals hasn\u2019t held up because college basketball has become more of a professional enterprise.<\/p>\n
But because the international model for amateurs is so different \u2014 young players play on professional feeder teams \u2014 it\u2019s easier to determine how many years of eligibility players have when timelines are consistent across the board.<\/p>\n
![\"David](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/USATSI_28660847-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
\n Illinois brought in numerous international transfers. Head coach Brad Underwood doesn\u2019t see that changing. (Bob Donnan \/ Imagn Images)<\/p>\n
Illinois coach Brad Underwood, who built most of his team last year with international prospects, believes international recruiting will remain a big part of today\u2019s game with a slight adjustment.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it\u2019ll be a push towards the youth,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Underwood agreed that it would have happened organically in the next couple of years anyway.<\/p>\n
Previously, the best international players could earn money overseas in their teens but not in college. Now they can earn in both places, but they\u2019ll land where they can make the most. Consider Duke\u2019s recent signing of FC Barcelona center Joaquim Boumtje Boumtje, who turns 17 on May 30 and will need to play two college seasons before he\u2019s age-eligible for the NBA Draft.<\/p>\n
So, eventually, a scenario where St. John\u2019s pays seven figures for a 23-year-old point guard from England will rarely even be an option. Because Ellis will have made that move years earlier, starting his college career at 19 to maximize his earning potential.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe turnover isn\u2019t going anywhere, but my hope is that it gives us the potential to do a little bit more roster building, planning beyond the year-to-year,\u201d Olen said. \u201cNow, I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s really gonna happen, but to me, that\u2019s sort of on our end, the potential upside of more certainty in everyone\u2019s path and clock and eligibility hopefully can allow us to build a little more beyond 10 months at a time.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014 Brendan Marks contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Last month, St. John\u2019s signed Olimpia Milano point guard Quinn Ellis. Ellis, who just turned 23, is a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":653295,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,1417,1404,1411,1418,78162,1409,263055,262149,85,3276],"class_list":["post-653294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-gonzaga-bulldogs","tag-houston-cougars","tag-illinois-fighting-illini","tag-mens-college-basketball","tag-new-mexico-lobos","tag-purdue-boilermakers","tag-saint-louis-billikens","tag-santa-clara-broncos","tag-sports","tag-sports-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=653294"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/653294\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/653295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=653294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=653294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=653294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Matt](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/USATSI_28614604-scaled.jpg\")
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