Evan Miyakawa, a college basketball analytics guru who tracks transfer portal spending, initially estimated the market had increased 35% over last year. A few weeks later, he adjusted his projections to 65%<\/a>. A player worth $1 million last spring is now worth $1.65 million.<\/p>\n The Athletic polled<\/a> power conference coaches and general managers about going rates. One GM estimated $1.5 million for a borderline starter, $2.5 million for a definite starter, $3 million-plus for an all-league performer.<\/p>\n The results are predictable: The power conferences, which have access to richer TV contracts, have the most money, and players are following it.<\/p>\n Ninety-seven players on ESPN\u2019s list of the top 100 transfers<\/a> have committed to new schools. Ninety-five went to power conferences, which in college basketball are football\u2019s big four plus the Big East. Two went to Gonzaga, which has a power conference budget, thanks to the Pac-12 offering it a full media rights share despite not playing football.<\/p>\n An analysis by SB Unfurled using OVR player ratings showed similar migration patterns.<\/p>\n The average rating of transfers from one power conference program to another is 73.0, while the average for those transferring down to a mid-major (or below) is 60.3. The average rating of players transferring \u201cup\u201d to power conferences is 75.9 while those making lateral moves within non-power conferences is 61.8.<\/p>\n \u201cThe math is brutal for mid-majors,\u201d SB Unfurled writes<\/a>, \u201cbleeding top 20% talent upward while absorbing below-average players in return. With (power conference) programs stockpiling portal talent at scale, the gap between college basketball\u2019s haves and have-nots is only accelerating.\u201d<\/p>\n These are the headwinds Dutcher and his veteran staff must navigate. Their solution is to trim the sails and mine undervalued, overlooked players, trusting their evaluation instincts, staying quiet to avoid the prying eyes of rival programs that are wondering whom the Aztecs are targeting, ignoring the urge to engage in portal combat bidding wars.<\/p>\n Instead, they got 6-11 Jeremiah \u201cBear\u201d Cherry<\/a>, who started for UNLV two seasons ago but was almost a forgotten figure after transferring to Sacramento State, then suffering a season-ending knee injury six games into the season. He grew up in San Diego, wanted to return home and ended his recruitment before the market for the portal\u2019s most coveted commodity \u2014 space-eating centers \u2014 soared to preposterous proportions.<\/p>\n Nick Anderson, a 6-4 guard who averaged 15.5 points per game at Rice<\/a> last season, spent the first two years of his college career at Division III University of St. Thomas in Houston after getting no other offers, followed by a year at Prairie View A&M at the bottom of Division I.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s made the step at every level, came up to college, played well, made the next step, played well,\u201d Dutcher said. \u201cNow he\u2019s making the next step, and I think he\u2019s ready for it. He\u2019s been a really good player no matter what level he\u2019s played.<\/p>\n Chance Gladden, a 6-4 guard from Boston University<\/a>, brings a comparable boulder-on-the-shoulder mentality, forced to prove himself in a low-major conference after being bypassed by bigger programs. He responded by averaging 14.4 points and 4.5 assists per game while twice winning games with buzzer-beaters.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had known about him, we studied him, we made some calls, and we just felt we were going to make a push,\u201d Dutcher said. \u201cI talked to their coaches, I talked to coaches who played against him, and the consensus was he\u2019s ready for that jump.\u201d<\/p>\n The Aztecs looked even farther east for two more players, Luka Skoric from Croatia<\/a> and David Torresani from Italy<\/a>. And Dutcher says they\u2019re close to landing a third European pro in what amounts to a radical departure from the days of almost exclusively recruiting Southern California.<\/p>\n Skoric and Torresani have similar career arcs: rising stars with modest statistics because they\u2019re coming off the bench on high-level pro teams loaded with former U.S. college stars and grizzled European vets. Skoric is a skilled 6-9 forward who can shoot the 3 and attack the rim from the perimeter. Torresani is a speedy point guard who led Italy to the under-20 European Championship title last summer.<\/p>\n Both have been pros for years.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen they come to the States to play college basketball, it will not be a big step up,\u201d Dutcher said. \u201cIt will be lateral, if anything, and maybe, based on the guys they\u2019re playing with, it will be a step down from their current competition.<\/p>\n \u201cYou just look at the guys they\u2019re playing with and the level of players they\u2019re playing against every night.\u201d<\/p>\n They\u2019ll join a modest core of returning players, just four from last season and only two \u2014 freshmen Elzie Harrington and Tae Simmons \u2014 who were part of the 11-man rotation.<\/p>\n A year ago, Dutcher had the bulk of the roster back after losing only guard Nick Boyd in the transfer portal. This year, he lost three seniors and six more to the portal.<\/p>\n It becomes a chemistry experiment, then, seeing whether he can coalesce such disparate ingredients into a functioning whole, and do it by November. The nonconference schedule is loaded with power conference foes and could be the most ambitious in school history.<\/p>\n The Rays, after all, are currently tied with the Yankees for first place in the AL East despite a fraction of the payroll.<\/p>\n \u201cTime will tell,\u201d Dutcher said. \u201cIt always looks good on paper, but we have to get them all here and see what they\u2019re really about. You think you have a good team, but until you get them all here and put them on the same page, you don\u2019t really know.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s the nature of the business now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UC Irvine\u2019s two best players entered the transfer portal last month, 6-foot-10 center Kyle Evans and 6-4 guard…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":660512,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,4762,3914,119756,85,55723],"class_list":["post-660511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-college-sports","tag-latest-headlines","tag-sdsu-aztecs","tag-sports","tag-top-stories-sdut"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660511","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=660511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/660511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/660512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=660511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=660511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=660511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Sacramento](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/AP25323323637178.jpg\")
Sacramento State forward Jeremiah Cherry (9) plays against UCLA in a Nov. 18 game at Pauley Pavilion. (AP Photo\/Jessie Alcheh)<\/p>\n![\"San](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/SUT-L-azhoop-0505-04.jpg\")
San Diego State has added Italy\u2019s David Torresani to its men\u2019s basketball roster for the 2026-27 season. (FIBA basketball)<\/p>\n