Dollars and sense: How Bradley basketball and its NIL group navigate the NCAA transfer portal

PEORIA — The NCAA transfer portal and NIL era has become a take-no-prisoners battleground for the Bradley Braves and all other Division-I college basketball programs.

For mid-major programs, the portal can take your star shooting guard, your all-conference center and more. Coaches now have to re-recruit their own players at the end of the season and hope they don't chase NIL money in the portal, or get lured by player agents to leave their team.

At the same time, coaches can must dig into the portal — more than 1,000 players — and spend resources vetting replacements to keep their programs strong.

"The portal, it's a war," Bradley Braves coach Brian Wardle said. "We've lost a lot with Malevy Leons (eligibility expired) and Connor Hickman (entered portal) being gone. Replacing that just depends on if you can recruit the portal well. We're doing our research and I feel good right now about who we are pursuing.

"But it's ever-changing every day."

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And it doesn't matter where or when. The Illini were deep into the NCAA Tournament in the Elite Eight on Saturday when head coach Brad Underwood told media:

"It's the most absurd thing in the history of sport, by the way, is what we're doing in the portal while we're playing basketball. This is ridiculous. I've got one coach scouting and two just living in the portal," Underwood said. "I'm making recruiting calls up and down this hallway yesterday as we're preparing for an Elite Eight game.

"It's reality. We'll tackle it, we'll figure out what we need. It's been great to us. University of Illinois has benefitted from the portal as much as any team in the country."

Home of the Brave is Bradley's ally

NIL collectives are the allies in this chess game. Peoria's Home of the Brave, which supports the Bradley men's basketball team, is in its third year after launching as the first so-called "Name, Image and Likeness" collective in the Missouri Valley Conference.

Home of the Brave is independent of the Bradley basketball program. It does not recruit players. NIL discussions happen with a player after he commits to Bradley.

"Things change every 15 minutes in the portal," said Joe Messmore, co-founder of Home of the Brave. "Year 1, it wasn't this crazy and frankly the roster was pretty well set. The day (star Bradley point guard) Terry Roberts portled out of here was the day after we had our first organizational meeting.

"The rules were so fluid, changed a couple times that summer. There was a Supreme Court case against the NCAA. The second year we talked to anyone after they committed. Now there are lawsuits between states and the NCAA over player's (transfer) rights."

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The Supreme Court ruled in a 2021 case against the NCAA that college players had the right to be compensated, leading to the birth of NIL collectives. More recently, Ohio, Virginia, Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Tennessee, West Virginia and the federal government's Department of Justice all filed a lawsuit against the NCAA seeking to remove NCAA rules that limited how many times a player could transfer.

A court injunction was won, and carried through this 2023-24 season. If it remains permanent, the transfer portal will become a free-agent vehicle through which players can change teams every season without penalty.

"The system is broken," Cliff Ellis, the winningest active coach in D-I basketball, wrote in The Tennessean after he retired in December. "Teams are built and destroyed by the transfer portal/NIL system. Over 1,800 players entered the transfer portal for men's basketball last year. There are 351 Division-I basketball teams. On the average, transfers affect almost half of a team's roster without accounting for graduation or other attrition.

"That’s insane. Teams can go from bad to good overnight or from good to bad."

The money and mid-majors

The NCAA portal rules evolve and NIL era continues to grow.

"At one time, giving a student recruit a T-shirt would bring an NCAA investigation," Ellis wrote. "Now a million-dollar NIL deal gets a quarterback."

The basketball money is big, and the collectives that control it wield power.

"Now collectives are free to discuss NIL opportunities with recruits, although we haven't operated that way," Messmore said. "We've seen some scenarios where a collective has started dictating to the coaches what recruits to go after. That doesn't work. We're not involved in recruiting. We here to support the Braves program."

Mid-major teams' collectives have no chance to match NIL dollars with programs in the nation's largest five or six conferences like the Big Ten. Messmore says Home of the Brave believes these so-called "Power 5" teams generally have $2-3 million in NIL backing them. He thinks the "super-elite" programs within that group have collectives delivering about $5 million.

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How that money gets distributed varies with each NIL collective. Some high-major teams are believed to give every player on its roster an equal amount. Other NIL collectives create compensation slots into which players are slotted.

In the Missouri Valley Conference, NIL money for a player who is a starter is believed to average about $10,000-$12,000. An elite returning all-conference player could reach $50,000 or more. Rotation players could draw $7,000-$10,000. Everyone on the team has value, so every player will get something.

The Home of the Brave collective likely works at the high end of those averages or beyond as a major player among Valley collectives.

"But there are crazy numbers out there for high-end transfers at the Power 5 level," Messmore said. "Some of those players calculate they can be a second-round NBA pick and sign for that money. So if a Power 5 team wants them, it's going to cost at least that to get them to forgo the draft."

Messmore isn't sure these escalating NIL dollars are sustainable for larger collectives if they don't see a return on their investment, especially if programs underachieve.

"At some point will boosters start backing off?" Messmore asked. "It's a constantly fluctuating supply-and-demand."

Home of the Brave raised $150,000 for its NIL collective in its inaugural year and doubled the spending in its second year, said Messmore. They are trying to build on that in their third year of operation. For the first time, the Collective is open for membership to the public. And customized corporate sponsorship opportunities are welcomed, too.

Home of the Brave can be joined through its website hotbrave.com, with specific details under a membership link. There is an online merchandise store fans can utilize to support the collective that supports their team.

"We're boot-strapping a little, really haven't gotten into individual corporate sponsors yet," Messmore said. "We're careful, selective in what we spend and who we give it to."

What is the bottom line?

The 12-team Missouri Valley has been rocked by the NCAA transfer portal this spring, which early on saw 10 of the 16 all-conference team players jump in the portal.

Indiana State is in the NIT championship game, and its roster could blow apart if coach Josh Schertz leaves for another job. Drake lost its coach and eight players, including Valley Player of the Year Tucker DeVries. UNI saw six go to the portal and Southern Illinois had nine go to the portal after losing its coach. Belmont lost 60% of its starting lineup to the portal.

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Along with Bradley, those teams accounted for the top six finishers in the Valley this season.

Bradley now could find itself in a strong position as the Valley center of power could be shifting.

"We all believe that Bradley has a very unique opportunity to return a big core of players and compete for a Valley championship," Messmore said. "It's all about getting an NCAA bid and we think this team is positioned to that."

Wardle, meanwhile, knows there is work to do after Hickman and reserves Goanar Biliew and Kyle Thomas are gone to the portal.

Last week, rotation players Christian Davis and Demarion Burch announced their return, while on Wednesday night, center Darius Hannah announced he would be back for a fifth year. Bradley's all-Valley point guard Duke Deen also declined to jump into the portal and instead chose to stay on the Hilltop. Wardle was elated, but not surprised.

"If you know Duke and know his parents you are not shocked at that decision," Wardle said. "He's a leader, he's really fun to coach and be around. He's won everywhere he's gone. To have him back, that leadership and passion. It's so big for us."

And it's part of the platform on which Wardle has built Bradley's strategy in the transfer portal and NIL era.

"You have to find players that will be grateful to be at Bradley," Wardle said. "Guys who've had gratitude in their previous spot. If they ask immediately about NIL money, we go in a different direction.

"Finding guys where winning for them is important. Are they about winning? That's big for me."

Dave Eminian is the Journal Star sports columnist, and covers Bradley men's basketball, the Rivermen and Chiefs. He writes the Cleve In The Eve sports column for pjstar.com. He can be reached at 686-3206 or deminian@pjstar.com. Follow him on X.com @icetimecleve.

This article originally appeared on Journal Star: Bradley basketball, NIL group navigate NCAA basketball transfer portal