Transfers are a part of the softball landscape that are here to stay. The NCAA’s transfer portal has become a super highway that allows players to move from program to program in a very easy and seamless way that wasn’t the case just a couple years ago.
I’ve talked about these changes several times over the past couple years and while I’m not a fan, it has created a whole new reality for players, coaches and potential players looking at the schools they hope will recruit them.
I posted a question on Facebook the other day: Now that Hope Trautwein (former North Texas superstar) has entered the transfer portal, how many more mid-major and D2 stars will join her? After watching a bunch of conference championships and NCAA regionals, I’ve started a list of about 20 players that I think are prime candidates for powerhouse schools to target as potential transfers or in other words, cherry pick.
Now, I know it’s a violation for a school to contact a potential transfer player before she enters the portal, but if anyone really believes that this practice doesn’t exist, they’re fooling themselves. With relationships, players already on a team, and the potential transfer or relationships between college coaches and travel-ball coaches, the ability of a high-powered college coach to let a potential transfer know they may have a spot for them is pretty easy to see.
I’m not going to share the list of players I think are low-hanging fruit that the powerhouses will pick, but I do know when it happens it’ll be great for the player who gets to follow her dream to a national championship and will devastate the team they leave behind. You know how I feel about the collateral damage done to the teams left behind, but no matter how we feel, transfers are here to say.
Here’s the prediction you have all been waiting for: Hope Trautwein will be continuing her career in the state of Oklahoma.
Just a guess from an old coach.
