College Basketball Has Entered Its Most Complicated Offseason
By David Glenn
For most of the past half-century, at the end of March in any given year, a college basketball coach would have a pretty clear picture of his roster for the following season.
Remember those days?
Dean Smith, for example, could simply look at UNC’s existing roster when its season ended, cross off the names of any departing seniors, then add those of the already-signed, incoming high school prospects.
Typically, in a sport with 13 scholarships, that initial snapshot would consist of 10-13 names. There may be some spring tweaking required — perhaps a rare spring signee from the high school ranks, or an even more rare junior college or international addition — but, overall, the coach could enter April with a very accurate vision for the framework of his next team.
Clearly, because of massive, recent changes to the NCAA model, those days are over.
There were some roster complications even in the “old days,” of course, including at UNC.
Under Smith especially, the Tar Heels sent an extraordinary number of players to the NBA. While many of those players were graduating seniors, such that the program knew to plan for their departures, an increasing number of underclassmen (e.g., James Worthy, Michael Jordan in the early 1980s) had should-I-leave-school-early decisions to make.
Famously, Smith often endorsed his top players’ early jumps to the NBA, pointing to the long-term financial stability that came with being a high first-round draft pick, for example. Most of the time, the coach had an early sense of which players would leave, and when they would depart, so he could adjust his high school recruiting based on those educated projections.
There were occasional transfers, too, both inbound and outbound. The NCAA rules in place at the time, though, required all major college transfers to sit out their first season (they were allowed to practice but not play in games) at their new school, and that served as an impactful deterrent for an overwhelming majority of players.
The “new world” of college basketball is infinitely more complicated than the picture outlined above, and it’s not an exaggeration to say that planning for the 2025-26 season offers a truly unprecedented set of circumstances.
From left to right: R.J. Davis, Jalen Washington and Ian Jackson stand in front of UNC’s bench in the final minutes of the Tar Heels’ loss to Ole Miss in Milwaukee. (Photo by Todd Melet/Chapel Hill Media Group.)
Here in the final week of March, for example, UNC coach Hubert Davis has true clarity on only a small fraction of his roster for next season.
One of the few fundamental similarities between the “old way” and the “new way” is that coaches know, with plenty of advance notice, who is out of eligibility.
For the Tar Heels this year, that means legendary guard RJ Davis, forward Jae’Lyn Withers (a part-time starter) and forward Ty Claude (a deep reserve). Each was a five- or six-year college player who took advantage of the NCAA-approved, COVID-related bonus season of eligibility.
In addition, generally speaking, coaches still can rely on the arrival of their high school signees.
For UNC this year, that means prep All-American forward Caleb Wilson (a top-10 player in the Class of 2025), combo guard Isaiah Denis (top-50) and combo guard Derek Dixon (top-50).
This is where things get really, really messy.
Sophomore Elliot Cadeau, UNC’s starting point guard for the past two seasons, put his name in the transfer portal earlier this week. (This year’s NCAA portal window for men’s basketball runs for only 30 days, from March 24 through April 22.) Junior forward Jalen Washington, a part-time starter this season, did the same.
Meanwhile, UNC freshmen Ian Jackson and Drake Powell — the Tar Heels’ two prep All-American signees from last year — have even more options. There’s always the transfer portal, of course, but there’s also the possibility of an early jump to the NBA.
While neither Jackson nor Powell is viewed as a likely first-round NBA pick this year, there are recent second-round picks who have negotiated for $6 million (over three years) in guaranteed money in the professional ranks. That’s not exactly chump change.
Making matters even more complicated, there is an enormous, brand-new layer to all of these stay-or-go calculations, and this unprecedented wrinkle applies to the decision-making processes of both the school and the player.
While the concept of Name-Image-Likeness money already has been a part of college sports for four years now (All-ACC center Armando Bacot made more than $2 million in NIL compensation during his time with the Tar Heels), it’s about to take on a next-level degree of importance.
To this point, all NIL money has come from outside university athletic departments. Starting in July 2021, for the first time, college athletes could accept money from third parties (e.g., hotel chains, shoe companies, auto dealerships, restaurants) for endorsements, personal appearances, autograph sessions, social media posts, etc., without jeopardizing their amateur status or college eligibility.
So what’s new? Well, as long as a proposed NCAA lawsuit settlement is approved (the presiding judge has set that monumental court date for April 7), NIL money also will be permitted to flow — for the first time — directly from university athletic departments to its own athletes.
Think of the various questions involved here, because the answers (which will vary by school and by team) will directly and dramatically impact coaches trying to build their rosters.
Will a particular school allocate the NCAA lawsuit settlement’s maximum permissible amount, which is estimated to be roughly $20-21 million per year? At UNC, this answer is expected to be a resounding “yes,” but not all Atlantic Coast Conference schools appear willing to spend to what essentially serves as an internal salary cap of sorts.
At a school willing to “spend to the cap,” how much of that $20 million-plus will be designated for the football program, the men’s basketball program and other sports? One ACC school is expected to give approximately $15 million to football and about $4 million to men’s basketball, with the remainder divided among the other varsity sports on campus.
Remember, too, that third-party NIL money will remain an enormous part of this picture. One ACC men’s basketball coach has been told that his program will have access to about $4 million per year in NIL funds from his school’s athletic department (some are calling this internal money “revenue sharing”), but that he’s expected to cultivate boosters for another $4 million per year in third-party NIL money that can be used to attract and retain his team’s players.
At UNC, Davis and his modernized support staff, including general manager Jim Tanner, assumedly have answers to all of these internal questions from athletic director Bubba Cunningham and his staff.
Even after you know your NIL budget, though, complicated decisions must be made.
It’s no longer enough that a coach likes a player (whether a potential returnee or newcomer) and how he fits a particular school/program/culture/need. Now it’s a true salary-style negotiation between a player and a program.
In the National Football League and other professional sports leagues that have “hard” salary caps, a player’s true value is evaluated as a combination of his expected productivity compared to his compensation level. In other words, the same star player that you might love to have for 10 percent of your salary cap might be viewed as too expensive if he demands 20 percent of your salary cap, because you may become concerned about your ability to surround him with a quality team, given your reduced remaining resources to attract other high-quality players.
At UNC, it was not just a question of whether Davis and his staff wanted Cadeau back for a third season as the Tar Heels’ starting point guard, and whether Cadeau wished to stay in Chapel Hill. (That was the “old way.”) In the “new way,” those same things remain in play, but with the additional complication — assuming there is mutual interest — of negotiating the right price.
Meanwhile, a less-discussed aspect of the NCAA’s lawsuit settlement is the likely change from the organization’s long-held scholarship limitations (e.g., 85 in football, 13 in men’s basketball) to a simple cap on roster sizes (e.g., 105 in football, 15 in men’s basketball). Each school would have, at its discretion, the ability to offer full scholarships up to those maximum amounts.
Putting UNC’s three high school signees aside, does that mean Davis, Tanner & Co. will aim to complete 12 individual player negotiations, all within the next 30 days?
Juniors Seth Trimble and Ven-Allen Lubin have said they want to stay in Chapel Hill, but at what price? Might UNC’s new revenue-sharing cash give Powell and/or Jackson enough incentive to make the NBA wait for at least one more year? Can Davis, who places great value on his ability to develop deep, personal relationships with his players, thrive in a transfer portal environment that turns the traditional multi-year recruiting process into a month-long (or less), basketball-style version of speed-dating?
By the end of April, Davis likely will have an infinitely better idea of the framework for his 2025-26 UNC basketball team. Here in the final days of March, though, that framework looks a lot more like a skeleton, as the Tar Heels dive into the most complicated offseason in NCAA history.
David Glenn (DavidGlennShow.com, @DavidGlennShow) is an award-winning author, broadcaster, editor, entrepreneur, publisher, speaker, writer and university lecturer (now at UNC Wilmington) who has covered sports in North Carolina since 1987.
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