The NCAA Men's Basketball transfer portal opened on March 26th and ushered in the new pay for play, buy a roster era. Around 2,300 players entered looking to "cash in" at a new school for the 2025-26 season. The Broncos had two of their best players take the cash with Christoph Tilly moving to Ohio State and Tyeree Bryan to Texas Tech. The Bronco coaching staff developed them and they became "in demand" players; resulting in them getting nice paydays and a legit chance to play in the NCAA tourney with their new teams.
Men's Basketball. as we've all known it, is now essentially a free agent marketplace where the Power Conferences have the money to buy talent and, in theory, higher odds chances to the NCAA Final Four and NCAA titles. Rumored total roster "salaries" for the Power Conference elites range from $10-$20 million as they bid for the best 5 star players a school can buy. This season may be a "one year" open market as the courts will confirm a settlement that will allow Universities to pay athletes a total of about $ 20 million directly from school budgets with the possibility that NIL money "may" be reigned in to some degree.
Through graduation and the portal, SCU lost 70% of our scoring and 75% of the minutes played in the 2024-25 season. According to analytics sites, those two stats are some of the most reliable indicators of future success. Since the 2022 season, 18 of the 25 mid-major teams that made the NCAA tourney returned at least 64% of their players minutes. The formula states maximizing returning minutes(experience), securing down level transfers from high majors, and limit reliance on Freshman.
Last season the Broncos used this model very successfully falling just short of an NCAA bid, but receiving an NIT invite. The current year recruiting process has used elements of the above success model. The new Bronco roster has three high major transfers in Sasha Gavalyugov (Villanova), Gehrig Normand (Michigan) and Chris Tadjo (Iowa).
Overall, the roster has six freshman; two of which are redshirt Freshman. We have four Sophomores, three who are redshirts including Christian Hammond and Bukky Oboye who will be in their third year in Coach Sendek's system. Add Brenton Knapper, Jake Ensminger, Elijah Mahi, Malachi Douyen, and Brendan Yarusso who return as our most experienced roster veterans.
According to the new NCAA roster rules, Men's Basketball can have up to 15 equivalency scholarships; meaning the scholarships can be divided into full or partial rides. Our roster has good overall size. We have four guards 6'0" to 6'3", seven players 6'4" to 6'8", and four players 6'9 to 7'1". Our WCC opponents also have good size and depth at center, You can view the new roster on the SCU MBB web page.
The coaching challenges will be significant as we will need to get the most possible from our younger players. They'll need to learn our system as well as adapt to D1 size an speed. An additional challenge will be to keep any younger, breakout talent on the roster going forward as the transfer portal will open them up to cash poaching from high major and power conference teams.
The new pay for play portal may result in player development to be more like the Brandin Podziemski one and done season, versus Jalen Williams three years of growth and then to the Pros. Hopefully, our returnees and redshirts plus a breakout Freshman will jump start this process. The coaches goal of making the NCAA tournament has not changed. Maybe with all the chaos the NCAA will expand the tournament to 72 or even 80 teams to make it more fair. In my opinion, it's the least they can do after their brazen exploitation of athletes that blew up in their face. We'll see.
So far, the non-conference schedule looks as strong as last year starting with games at the Acrisure event in Palm Springs, with teams committed like Mississippi, Iowa, Minnesota, USF, Stanford, and Colorado to name a few. Brackets have yet to be finalized to know which teams we'll play. I expect additional games versus McNeese St., ASU, Idaho State, and even a possible Xavier game; dates and locations to be announced.
The craziness of this March may pale in comparison to March 2026 when tournament selections happen. Will the Power Conference "haves" rule over the "have less" and "have nots"? The good thing for the Broncos is this roster will be motivated and hungry to prove they can compete and hopefully make strides to higher levels in the WCC.
Next up, more roster, schedule, and intended playing style strategies.
