Transfer portal: Big week ahead for Villanova; big money flying around; and more Big 5 moves

The number of Division I men’s basketball players in the NCAA transfer portal is over 2,000, and the 30-day window to enter your name doesn’t close until April 22.

There are 364 Division I men’s basketball teams, and about a dozen players on each team. The simple math says about half of the players in the population are in the portal.

Locally, the portal’s impact has been felt just about everywhere, but no more prominent than at Drexel, La Salle, and Temple.

Villanova, meanwhile, may not have as many high-impact exits as those schools, but the strength of its 2025-26 roster depends on the portal.

Let’s start this week’s transfer portal notebook with the Wildcats, who have a busy week ahead.

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Now that Kevin Willard is on campus and the recruiting dead period around the Final Four is over, this will be a busy weekend on the Main Line for the Wildcats, who are slated to welcome multiple visitors.

Most notable, Villanova hosted Maryland transfer Rodney Rice on campus Friday. Rice, a 6-foot-4 combo guard, scored 13.8 points per game this past season and shot 37.4% from three-point range on about six attempts per game. Will he follow his former coach to Villanova? Rice also plans to visit Tennessee, where Maryland point guard Ja’Kobi Gillespie, one of the best players in the portal, landed.

Villanova will also host Michigan State transfer Tre Holloman over the weekend. Rice has two seasons of eligibility left, while Holloman has one. The Wildcats are also hosting Temple transfer and West Catholic’s Zion Stanford this weekend, according to sources. Stanford, a 6-foot-6 wing, scored 13.1 points and added 4.5 rebounds per game while shooting 34.9% from three-point range in his sophomore season with the Owls.

On Friday, Field of 68 reported that Villanova will also meet with 6-foot-9 Robert Morris transfer Alvaro Folgueiras, a 20-year-old from Spain who posted averages of 14.1 points, 9.1 rebounds, 3.2 assists, and 1.2 blocks. Folgueiras has two years of eligibility left.

Willard said earlier this week that Villanova had conducted about 120 Zoom calls. With multiple visitors expected on campus over the next week, the Wildcats’ 2025-26 roster could start taking shape soon enough. Villanova already has two commitments with Maryland ties, but with five players exhausting eligibility and four players — freshman guard Aleksandar Gavalyugov the latest addition — in the portal, there are plenty of holes to plug.

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Two commitments on Thursday might have made fans do a double take. Texas Tech forward JT Toppin and Baylor transfer Robert Wright, who is off to BYU, will each reportedly make more than $3 million next season.

For context, the 22nd pick in the NBA draft has a salary slot of just $3.065 million.

Wright, a Philadelphia native who attended Neumann Goretti before finishing high school at Montverde Academy in Florida, will team up at BYU with top incoming freshman AJ Dybantsa, who will reportedly make more than $5 million next season. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints certainly seems intent on fielding a good basketball team.

There seems to be a rush to make some of these big deals before the House settlement goes into effect. According to The Athletic: “NIL deals (for both high school prospects and transfers) signed before the House settlement is finalized and paid before June 30 do not have to go through the clearinghouse.”

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La Salle’s number of portal entrants reached a full dozen Thursday after top scorer Corey McKeithan put his name in.

Speaking of double takes … isn’t McKeithan out of eligibility?

Yes, but he’s hoping for a waiver to get a fifth season. McKeithan and La Salle teammate Jahlil White, who is also in the portal, are making the same case for themselves. They both have played four full seasons, but they were in school and injured during the 2020-21 COVID season.

It seems unlikely they could use a medical redshirt and an extra COVID year tied to the same season, but trying to predict what the NCAA does in any situation is a waste of time. Anything is possible.

The Explorers, meanwhile, continue to build their 2025-26 roster. They got a commitment from Texas A&M transfer Rob Dockery Friday afternoon. Dockery, a 6-foot-6 redshirt freshman, was a three-star recruit from Washington before his time with Texas A&M. Dockery, after redshirting in 2023-24, appeared in one game for the Aggies this past season.

Earlier this week, La Salle lost a commitment from Division II transfer guard Demitri Gardner, but the Explorers are expecting a commitment from Old Dominion transfer guard Jaden Johnson, a source said.

La Salle also picked up a commitment this week from Camden’s Jerome Brewer Jr., a McNeese State transfer who redshirted this season after suffering an injury at the end of a 2023-24 season that saw the 6-foot-9 forward average nearly 14 points and five rebounds per game. La Salle also recently got a commitment from Georgia State transfer forward Justin Archer, who played well under new Explorers coach Darris Nichols previously at Radford.