Portal

Franklin is a big loss. The three names at the bottom of the list don’t appear on last season’s roster?

Franklin is draft-eligible. Will remain to be seen if he is drafted. But he could have been gone anyway.

West is from the Charleston, SC area. Was on the Signee-Commit list a couple of years ago. I never saw any indication whether he ever showed up in Cullowhee or not.

Lucas Hartman was a FR from Florida and had a few pretty good outings. Good kid. I believe he could develop into a front-line pitcher. His grandparents went to Houston for that weekend.

THE PORTAL

The NCAA transfer portal came into existence in October 2018, allowing student-athletes with the intention of transferring to enter an online database that allows other schools to contact them about possibly joining their institution.

Prior to the portal, athletes would need to request permission from their coach to transfer, and their school could deny their transfer request.

All sports now have a one-time transfer exception (baseball, football, men’s and women’s basketball and men’s ice hockey only got this right last April), meaning student-athletes can transfer to another school once without sitting out for a season (barring any individual conferences rules).

If a student-athlete has already transferred from one D1 school to another, they cannot transfer to a third without sitting out for a season.

THE DEADLINES
However, the one-time transfer exception hinges on the deadlines.

Student-athletes must enter the portal (or at least notify their school’s administration of their intention) by May 1 for all fall and winter sports, and July 1 for all spring sports, in order to be eligible to use the one-time transfer exception.

Student-athletes who miss this deadline will be ineligible to compete at their new school for one season, unless the new school submits a waiver that’s granted by the NCAA.

When announcing that the one-time transfer exception would be expanded to all sports last year, the NCAA noted that certain exceptions to the deadline (AKA a waiver being granted) would apply in the case of a head coaching change or canceled athletic scholarships after May 1 but before July 1.

As is the case in every college swimming off-season, we’ve seen numerous athletes enter the transfer portal in the weeks following the conclusion of the NCAA Championships. And while it’s not necessary for a student-athlete to have decided on where they’re heading next season by the beginning of May, they must at least have entered the portal as of Sunday to ensure that they’re able to compete in 2022-23.

I went to Spartanburg Methodist (Junior) College baseball roster for school year just completed.

Stephen West from James Island, SC is the one who was on our Signed/Committed list for 2021 enrollment.

The SMC roster shows that Western was a "previous school". So I would surmise that he went to WCU for the Fall Semester and went through Fall practice sessions and then transferred to SMC.

Don't understand why he is in the transfer portal related to WCU. He left WCU at least 6 months ago.