Stanford & the portal

[BRS24]

Weekend article on Stanford, challenges with transfers, and looking ahead to 2024 and beyond:
‘Very challenging at Stanford’: Transfers force Tara VanDerveer to adjust

 

[jdote33]

Thanks for the link. Looks to be behind a paywall. But it's an interesting topic that's come up. Is Stanford somewhat uniquely impacted by the portal, being a Power 5 school with such high academic standards.

 

[BRS24]

Thanks for the link. Looks to be behind a paywall. But it's an interesting topic that's come up. Is Stanford somewhat uniquely impacted by the portal, being a Power 5 school with such high academic standards.

Yeah, sorry about that. I had to open a private window and click reader view to see part of it, and then ended up reading it in AppleNews.

 

[saywho]

The biggest challenge in regards to the portal for Stanford is getting admitted. Stanford does not accept transfers of any kind after Sophomore year. So, any transfer has to have completed only two years, or be a grad transfer. But if a grad transfer, generally they need to apply by November of their senior year. So, this definitely puts Stanford at a huge disadvantage beyond just having tough admissions standards.

 

[BRS24]

A few interesting comments from the article (I posted it in another transfer thread):

"VanDerveer said Stanford will go with a 12-player roster next season, down from 15 this past season, in order to get everyone playing time, something she believed was a factor in losing players.

Going with the smaller roster is a risk; injuries would leave almost zero depth. Unable to field a roster big enough for intrasquad scrimmages, Stanford will use male practice players for the first time in recent memory."

 

[UConnCat]

The biggest challenge in regards to the portal for Stanford is getting admitted. Stanford does not accept transfers of any kind after Sophomore year. So, any transfer has to have completed only two years, or be a grad transfer. But if a grad transfer, generally they need to apply by November of their senior year. So, this definitely puts Stanford at a huge disadvantage beyond just having tough admissions standards.

Nothing new here, right? Stanford's disadvantage with transfer admissions is only now relevant because this off-season showed that Stanford can lose players to the portal just like other schools. Few women's basketball players have transferred out of Stanford over the years, likely because the benefits of sticking it out and getting the degree outweighed concerns about playing time, distance from home. etc. The portal (immediate eligibility) and NIL appear to have changed the equation for some players. Player retention is now more important than ever for Tara.

 

[TheFarmFan]

Tara basically vocalized what many fans have long fretted about: the 1+2+3 punch of the transfer portal, no one-year transfer sit-out period, and NIL-related recruitment leaves Stanford at the losing end of the seismic changes in WBB. We basically can almost never recruit from the portal, but with NIL money and no one-year wait, there's endless opportunities for other coaches to try to poach our players. (And this is to stay nothing of the Pac-12/10's issues...)

As sad as it is to say, I've personally just become consigned to the fact that Stanford has probably seen its last sustained stretch of being a Top 10 team for the foreseeable future. I just don't see how we compete in this landscape.

Thankfully (or not), since I also find all the transferring and NIL money rather distasteful, I'll confess that I'm losing a bit of interest in WCBB, so this doesn't burn as much for me as it would have had I known this back in April 2021, or what I will henceforth refer to as "the g'olden days."

And honestly, I'm just so thankful for that 2021 championship season - Tara got the monkey off her shoulder, and I got see my team win a championship. Not a perfect storybook ending, but I'll take it.

 

[YKCornelius]

Tara basically vocalized what many fans have long fretted about: the 1+2+3 punch of the transfer portal, no one-year transfer sit-out period, and NIL-related recruitment leaves Stanford at the losing end of the seismic changes in WBB. We basically can almost never recruit from the portal, but with NIL money and no one-year wait, there's endless opportunities for other coaches to try to poach our players. (And this is to stay nothing of the Pac-12/10's issues...)

As sad as it is to say, I've personally just become consigned to the fact that Stanford has probably seen its last sustained stretch of being a Top 10 team for the foreseeable future. I just don't see how we compete in this landscape.

Thankfully (or not), since I also find all the transferring and NIL money rather distasteful, I'll confess that I'm losing a bit of interest in WCBB, so this doesn't burn as much for me as it would have had I known this back in April 2021, or what I will henceforth refer to as "the g'olden days."

And honestly, I'm just so thankful for that 2021 championship season - Tara got the monkey off her shoulder, and I got see my team win a championship. Not a perfect storybook ending, but I'll take it.

Farm Fan, like others, I was not able to get past the paywall where, perhaps, your consternation is explained. That said, can you please explain what is stopping Stanford from recruiting from the portal, other than an internal decision to not do so?

Don't you still have the inside track to all of the extremely bright, excellent players who would love to walk away with a Stanford diploma in addition to playing for a Final Four caliber program? Why can't your coaches approach portal players from the Ivy League, as well as the Dukes, Northwesterns, Vanderbilts, and Notre Dames (to name just a few of the top academic universities), especially now that the admissions department can evaluate whether or not prospects can meet Stanford's academic demands after cutting their teeth at these other institutions?

Why can't Stanford reassess their NIL opportunities and get their alumni to create a NIL based environment that attracts those extremely bright, elite players who value NIL $$ to the degree that it would tip their hand to look elsewhere?

Here's the bottom line from my perch: The portal is forcing top coaches to re-evaluate how they conduct their respective programs. More specifically, it forces them to reconsider how they balance playing time with individual development and team dynamics, and most importantly, how they communicate this balance with each player (and each recruit) from Day One onward.

I don't get the "glass is half empty" outlook. I think Stanford should be salivating at being able to evaluate elite student-athletes without worrying about having them sit out a year. My two cents.....

 

[hoopsnloops32]

Farm Fan, like others, I was not able to get past the paywall where, perhaps, your consternation is explained. That said, can you please explain what is stopping Stanford from recruiting from the portal, other than an internal decision to not do so?

Don't you still have the inside track to all of the extremely bright, excellent players who would love to walk away with a Stanford diploma in addition to playing for a Final Four caliber program? Why can't your coaches approach portal players from the Ivy League, as well as the Dukes, Northwesterns, Vanderbilts, and Notre Dames (to name just a few of the top academic universities), especially now that the admissions department can evaluate whether or not prospects can meet Stanford's academic demands after cutting their teeth at these other institutions?

Why can't Stanford reassess their NIL opportunities and get their alumni to create a NIL based environment that attracts those extremely bright, elite players who value NIL $$ to the degree that it would tip their hand to look elsewhere?

Here's the bottom line from my perch: The portal is forcing top coaches to re-evaluate how they conduct their respective programs. More specifically, it forces them to reconsider how they balance playing time with individual development and team dynamics, and most importantly, how they communicate this balance with each player (and each recruit) from Day One onward.

I don't get the "glass is half empty" outlook. I think Stanford should be salivating at being able to evaluate elite student-athletes without worrying about having them sit out a year. My two cents.....

I'm not Farmfan but from what I understand Stanford as a University doesn't accept tranfers after Sophomore year nor do they accept grad transfers that apply after November so that limits them pretty seriously who they can recruit in the transfer portal. They basically need to be an underclassman from an elite academic university with good grades and have elite D1 skills to fit the bill. I'm not sure how many players coming out of the transfer portal, if any, fit that bill. Players like Hailey Van Lith or Morrow or Owuso aren't options from the jump.

In addition to that the Pac-12 has a terrible TV that severely limits exposure for players in the league outside the west coast which handicaps NIL ability on its own.

I'm sure there are things Tara could do to combat some of this, like playing a more high profile OOC schedule etc etc but overall the program is handicapped and at a disadvantage in the current landscape due to things far outside any coaches control.

 

[TheFarmFan]

Farm Fan, like others, I was not able to get past the paywall where, perhaps, your consternation is explained. That said, can you please explain what is stopping Stanford from recruiting from the portal, other than an internal decision to not do so?

Don't you still have the inside track to all of the extremely bright, excellent players who would love to walk away with a Stanford diploma in addition to playing for a Final Four caliber program? Why can't your coaches approach portal players from the Ivy League, as well as the Dukes, Northwesterns, Vanderbilts, and Notre Dames (to name just a few of the top academic universities), especially now that the admissions department can evaluate whether or not prospects can meet Stanford's academic demands after cutting their teeth at these other institutions?

Why can't Stanford reassess their NIL opportunities and get their alumni to create a NIL based environment that attracts those extremely bright, elite players who value NIL $$ to the degree that it would tip their hand to look elsewhere?

Here's the bottom line from my perch: The portal is forcing top coaches to re-evaluate how they conduct their respective programs. More specifically, it forces them to reconsider how they balance playing time with individual development and team dynamics, and most importantly, how they communicate this balance with each player (and each recruit) from Day One onward.

I don't get the "glass is half empty" outlook. I think Stanford should be salivating at being able to evaluate elite student-athletes without worrying about having them sit out a year. My two cents.....

Just a few quick things:

Stanford has almost no standalone master's programs. Most grad programs are Ph.D. programs and most of the rest are professional degrees (e.g., law, business, public policy) that are extremely competitive. Like top 2-3 in the country competitive. Like, Rhodes Scholars get rejected competitive. Most top undergrads can't get into these programs, let alone student-athletes losing 20+ hours a week to a sport.

To make matters worse, the few standalone master's programs Stanford has have application deadlines in November. You really think you're going to land a transfer portal pickup that way in April? The only recent grad transfer we've landed, Jordan Hamilton, actually applied and was admitted first, and then approached the coaches about grad transferring.

Last, on the undergraduate front, Stanford does not accept junior or senior year transfers, so at most, we could only obtain a rising sophomore from the portal. Even then, Stanford often admits only 20-30 transfer students a year out of over 1500 applications (I know, as I myself was a transfer to Stanford), so it's often even more competitive to gain admission as a transfer than as a freshman.

 

[YKCornelius]

Just a few quick things:

Stanford has almost no standalone master's programs. Most grad programs are Ph.D. programs and most of the rest are professional degrees (e.g., law, business, public policy) that are extremely competitive. Like top 2-3 in the country competitive. Like, Rhodes Scholars get rejected competitive. Most top undergrads can't get into these programs, let alone student-athletes losing 20+ hours a week to a sport.

To make matters worse, the few standalone master's programs Stanford has have application deadlines in November. You really think you're going to land a transfer portal pickup that way in April? The only recent grad transfer we've landed, Jordan Hamilton, actually applied and was admitted first, and then approached the coaches about grad transferring.

Last, on the undergraduate front, Stanford does not accept junior or senior year transfers, so at most, we could only obtain a rising sophomore from the portal. Even then, Stanford often admits only 20-30 transfer students a year out of over 1500 applications (I know, as I myself was a transfer to Stanford), so it's often even more competitive to gain admission as a transfer than as a freshman.

Farm Fan, thanks for the insight. I knew none of what you just conveyed, although I sort of suspected there was something keeping grad transfers away.

That said, it sounds like Stanford's academic screening timelines for undergrad transfers need to be revisited, as well as the position to not accept junior or senior year transfers (out of curiosity, is Stanford's position for all undergraduate students, or just student athletes?).

Finally, as intimated in my first response, I don't understand how/why NIL should be a hurdle. If SEC football program alumni foundations can entice their prospective student athletes to join (or to stay), I would think the Stanfords, Notre Dames, Dukes (and even the Ivys) can follow suit. Thoughts?

 

[sweetspot]

I found it interesting that Stanford wasn’t using a male scout team. How many other big time programs do that?

 

[Dillon77]

Just a few quick things:

Stanford has almost no standalone master's programs. Most grad programs are Ph.D. programs and most of the rest are professional degrees (e.g., law, business, public policy) that are extremely competitive. Like top 2-3 in the country competitive. Like, Rhodes Scholars get rejected competitive. Most top undergrads can't get into these programs, let alone student-athletes losing 20+ hours a week to a sport.

To make matters worse, the few standalone master's programs Stanford has have application deadlines in November. You really think you're going to land a transfer portal pickup that way in April? The only recent grad transfer we've landed, Jordan Hamilton, actually applied and was admitted first, and then approached the coaches about grad transferring.

Last, on the undergraduate front, Stanford does not accept junior or senior year transfers, so at most, we could only obtain a rising sophomore from the portal. Even then, Stanford often admits only 20-30 transfer students a year out of over 1500 applications (I know, as I myself was a transfer to Stanford), so it's often even more competitive to gain admission as a transfer than as a freshman.

Whoa. Veteran posters on the football section ("Rock's House") always complain that's it is very difficult to get an undergraduate transfer into the Notre Dame football program, which is one reason why ND football relies on grad transfers, in part because Notre Dame does have many standalone master's programs.

Is the refusal to allow junior or senior based on an academic "too late?" to get into/finish a Stanford major? So, if the Cardinal are down to rising sophomores only, I'm also guessing that Tara's tendency of filling a 15-person roster plays against that option. Why? Most sophs - particularly those going to a school like Stanford - would give it two years (Betts being a major exception. Tough call. Maybe there could be some loosening on standalone grad program deadlines (most in fall, some in April?) With all due respect, you'd hope some Ivy grads, confined by four years and out, could qualify for The Farm.

Now that I think of it, most of ND's transfers come in three buckets (some of which overlap):

• Accept grad students, including a slew of Stanford undergraduates (Dodson, Sniezek, Brown, etc.), Lauren Ebo and Anna DeWolfe (ND does have a number of standalone grad programs);
• Pursue transfers that they've courted before as high school students. Niele has done this with Maya Dodson and Jenna Brown, reasoning that she knows them and the ND admissions department knows them. Dara Mabrey also falls in this category, as well as this next category:
• Specific rising juniors who do meet ND's academic standards. Mabrey was an All-ACC student athlete at Va. Tech (and at ND), so she fit, as did Jessica Shepard, still ND's most successful transfer. (Shepard grew up in an academic family - Dad was a HS principal -- so McGraw knew what she was recruiting).

Good luck with this one.

 

[TheFarmFan]

Whoa. Veteran posters on the football section ("Rock's House") always complain that's it is very difficult to get an undergraduate transfer into the Notre Dame football program, which is one reason why ND football relies on grad transfers, in part because Notre Dame does have many standalone master's programs.

Is the refusal to allow junior or senior based on an academic "too late?" to get into/finish a Stanford major? So, if the Cardinal are down to rising sophomores only, I'm also guessing that Tara's tendency of filling a 15-person roster plays against that option. Why? Most sophs - particularly those going to a school like Stanford - would give it two years (Betts being a major exception. Tough call. Maybe there could be some loosening on standalone grad program deadlines (most in fall, some in April?) With all due respect, you'd hope some Ivy grads, confined by four years and out, could qualify for The Farm.

Now that I think of it, most of ND's transfers come in three buckets (some of which overlap):

• Accept grad students, including a slew of Stanford undergraduates (Dodson, Sniezek, Brown, etc.), Lauren Ebo and Anna DeWolfe (ND does have a number of standalone grad programs);
• Pursue transfers that they've courted before as high school students. Niele has done this with Maya Dodson and Jenna Brown, reasoning that she knows them and the ND admissions department knows them. Dara Mabrey also falls in this category, as well as this one:
• Specific rising juniors who do meet ND's academic standards. Mabrey was an All-ACC student athlete at Va. Tech (and at ND), so she fit, as did Jessica Shepard, still ND's most successful transfer. (Shepard grew up in an academic family - Dad was a HS principal -- so McGraw knew what she was recruiting).

Good luck with this one.

Thanks for the great Qs and thoughts, @Dillon77! As you well know, Stanford and ND are chief cross-recruiting competition for one another, so always interesting to hear how the sausage gets made in South Bend.

Re: your question and other questions about transfers, Stanford accepts around ~2100 high school senior applicants to fill ~1700 frosh places. Transfer applications are due March 15, and frosh admits must commit by May 1. Stanford then has a sense of its yield, and if/how many spots are open to transfers. Stanford generally does not strive to leave more than a few dozen open seats for transfers. One year, their yield was much higher than expected, and I think they admitted like 10 transfers total. They then continue to fill off the transfer waitlist as a handful of current students file papers to withdraw over the course of the summer. But again, this is a tiny number. For example, for the fall of 2021, there were 3,265 transfer applicants and 55 individuals were accepted.

As to who they admit as transfers, they try to prioritize community college students, non-traditional transfers (think people who had kids young and then returned to higher ed, folks who retired from being professional ballerinas/classical musicians), and military folks. In other words: people who could not have/would not have applied to Stanford out of high school, but who will bring a different set of life experiences. Needless to say, those applicants aren't going to be student-athletes at other top BB programs. Stanford also takes a handful of transfers from comparable HYP type schools, though a very small number. (And I misspoke earlier: we do admit junior year transfers, but they tend to be 1/3 of the total transfer class.)

Given these dynamics, it shouldn't be surprising that the transfer portal doesn't work very well for us - they either have to seek to transfer before the BB season is over (by March 15) or else seek an exceptional application entry through the athletic department, they don't fit the criteria for typical transfer students, and they need basically 4.0 grades from a competitive college. The only undergraduate WBB transfer I can think of was Brooke Smith, and she was admitted as a frosh, chose Duke, and then decided to transfer back home to Cali. And that was... 20 years ago!

 

[Carnac]

Thanks for the link. Looks to be behind a paywall. But it's an interesting topic that's come up. Is Stanford somewhat uniquely impacted by the portal, being a Power 5 school with such high academic standards.

I was able to access the entire article.

 

[visitingcock]

Thanks for the great Qs and thoughts, @Dillon77! As you well know, Stanford and ND are chief cross-recruiting competition for one another, so always interesting to hear how the sausage gets made in South Bend.

Re: your question and other questions about transfers, Stanford accepts around ~2100 high school senior applicants to fill ~1700 frosh places. Transfer applications are due March 15, and frosh admits must commit by May 1. Stanford then has a sense of its yield, and if/how many spots are open to transfers. Stanford generally does not strive to leave more than a few dozen open seats for transfers. One year, their yield was much higher than expected, and I think they admitted like 10 transfers total. They then continue to fill off the transfer waitlist as a handful of current students file papers to withdraw over the course of the summer. But again, this is a tiny number. For example, for the fall of 2021, there were 3,265 transfer applicants and 55 individuals were accepted.

As to who they admit as transfers, they try to prioritize community college students, non-traditional transfers (think people who had kids young and then returned to higher ed, folks who retired from being professional ballerinas/classical musicians), and military folks. In other words: people who could not have/would not have applied to Stanford out of high school, but who will bring a different set of life experiences. Needless to say, those applicants aren't going to be student-athletes at other top BB programs. Stanford also takes a handful of transfers from comparable HYP type schools, though a very small number. (And I misspoke earlier: we do admit junior year transfers, but they tend to be 1/3 of the total transfer class.)

Given these dynamics, it shouldn't be surprising that the transfer portal doesn't work very well for us - they either have to seek to transfer before the BB season is over (by March 15) or else seek an exceptional application entry through the athletic department, they don't fit the criteria for typical transfer students, and they need basically 4.0 grades from a competitive college. The only undergraduate WBB transfer I can think of was Brooke Smith, and she was admitted as a frosh, chose Duke, and then decided to transfer back home to Cali. And that was... 20 years ago!

 

[CL82]

“Whether it’s not enough minutes playing at the end of the year, four of our five games on the road, people got very tired, it wasn’t maybe the experience that people wanted, obviously, we didn’t finish the way we wanted,” VanDerveer said. “So we want to change that.

Stanford has some unique challenges in that it does not accept upperclassmen transfers, so the pool they drawn is underclassmen and grad transfers.

It is a brave New World that college basketball finds itself in and everyone is adjusting to it on the fly. Over on the men's side, Jay Wright decided that it wasn't worth it and retired. We may see some of that in woman's basketball as well.

 

[BRS24]

High Profile Pac-12 Transfers Are Strengthening Other Conferences

Where are Pac-12 transfers going and what might be some of the reasons for the departures?

herhoopstats.substack.com

Welp - “We’re not active in the portal,” Stanford head coach Tara VanDerveer said last August. “I don’t even know how to get into it. It’s not really a part of our recruiting. We’re more into the development of our players, and I think that that’s something that our coaches do really, really well. People that come to Stanford want to be at Stanford...We have phenomenally individually talented players on our team, players that play come off the bench for us and could be starters other places. But they’re willing to pay their dues, so to speak, and be great teammates. And then when it’s their turn, they’re depending on other people to be great teammates for them. So, our younger players, for the most part, are playing a key role in our success.”

 

[Britt87]

Tara basically vocalized what many fans have long fretted about: the 1+2+3 punch of the transfer portal, no one-year transfer sit-out period, and NIL-related recruitment leaves Stanford at the losing end of the seismic changes in WBB. We basically can almost never recruit from the portal, but with NIL money and no one-year wait, there's endless opportunities for other coaches to try to poach our players. (And this is to stay nothing of the Pac-12/10's issues...)

As sad as it is to say, I've personally just become consigned to the fact that Stanford has probably seen its last sustained stretch of being a Top 10 team for the foreseeable future. I just don't see how we compete in this landscape.

Thankfully (or not), since I also find all the transferring and NIL money rather distasteful, I'll confess that I'm losing a bit of interest in WCBB, so this doesn't burn as much for me as it would have had I known this back in April 2021, or what I will henceforth refer to as "the g'olden days."

And honestly, I'm just so thankful for that 2021 championship season - Tara got the monkey off her shoulder, and I got see my team win a championship. Not a perfect storybook ending, but I'll take it.

I agree, but Stanford is definitely a final four team as long as Cam is on the court. They still have enough talent to be a contender. But it's a wrap when she leaves.

 

[Dynastic]

High Profile Pac-12 Transfers Are Strengthening Other Conferences

Where are Pac-12 transfers going and what might be some of the reasons for the departures?

herhoopstats.substack.com

Welp - “We’re not active in the portal,” Stanford head coach Tara VanDerveer said last August. “I don’t even know how to get into it. It’s not really a part of our recruiting. We’re more into the development of our players, and I think that that’s something that our coaches do really, really well. People that come to Stanford want to be at Stanford...We have phenomenally individually talented players on our team, players that play come off the bench for us and could be starters other places. But they’re willing to pay their dues, so to speak, and be great teammates. And then when it’s their turn, they’re depending on other people to be great teammates for them. So, our younger players, for the most part, are playing a key role in our success.”

I like her just just enough, she has won a lot of games and Championships. Now is the time of Aquarius, I mean it’s sadly portal time. As the Farm stated it’s not really a good place for them (the portal), here Tara says she uniquely develops players. Development on that level isn’t what this generation wants… they want “likes”, NIL, and more attention.The portal is for jilted lovers. Stanford is too smart for jilted people.
Until their NCAA decides to go back to work and put SOME restrictions into this free agency , nothing is going to change and loyalty and development go out the window.