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The Mysterious Portal

Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim meets with his team during a timeout.
cuse.com
Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim meets with his team during a timeout.

“The problem with the portal, it was just a money game,” said Syracuse men’s basketball head coach Jim Boeheim on ESPN Syracuse last week. “You know, every good player in the portal last year got paid a lot of money.”

The head man’s comments reflected the state of college athletics. The transfer portal has been a hot topic since athletes could profit from name, image and likeness.

SU has gotten beat by some of the transfers in that portal. Former Illinois guard Andre Curbelo dropped a career-high 23 points as a member of St. John’s on November 23. Illinois brought in Terrance Shannon from Texas Tech. The former Raider led the game with 17 points.

For Syracuse, the most notable transfers in the program all came in last season. Cole Swider, Jimmy Boeheim and Symir Torrence were key additions.

“I think there's a little bit of a philosophy,” said Mike Waters of syracuse.com. “Syracuse still likes to build with high school recruits. And piecing in transfers when and where they need it.”

The only transfer on this year’s squad is center Mounir Hima. The Duquense big man hasn’t scored more than four points in a game.

“He's played well in spurts. He's not going to start. His minutes are going to be based on Jesse's foul troubles. You look at the fact that he's got a couple more years. I think you've got a 6-foot-11 kid who can play,” said Waters.

Syracuse is banking on potential over immediate action. So far it's churned out a .500 record, so it's easy to point the finger at NIL and say, oh, there's an easy solution because Duke and UNC make it work. SU Assistant teaching professor at the Falk School, Dave Meluni, says otherwise.

“When we want to talk about name, image and likeness, the magic word here is collective,” said Meluni. “One collective is called the 315 Foundation. Another collective is called Athletes Who Care.”

These collectives have nothing to do with Syracuse University. SU can't control the funds in these collectives. Therefore, it's a game between recruits and schools for who can bring in the most money.

“Kids are talking,” said Meluni. “There could be a school and the kid goes on a recruiting visit and says, ‘well, you know, I went on a visit to whatever ACC/SEC school and they said their players are making 50 grand.’ That might be far from the truth, but from a collective side, a collective can walk in and say ‘here is what we've been doing.’”

The 315 Foundation, which is predominately for Syracuse men’s basketball, has no data available as to how much money is in that collective. We may never know how much NIL plays into SU’s portal endeavors.

“I will never try to be coached behind and I don't expect him to turn around and say that he's Dave Meluni. There's so much that goes into the recruiting side, so he's looking for pieces that I'm not going to talk about,” said Meluni.

And that's when it comes back to philosophy.

“[They didn’t do well in the portal] because they couldn't get guys in the NIL. The current five freshmen had committed before their senior years of high school,” said Waters.

That could’ve been the main reason why SU’s fallen apart against some non-conference opponents.

“Early in the season, I'll take an old Bryant against a super young Syracuse team,” said Waters.

Only time will tell if SU changes its philosophy down the road.

“You just have to make sure you can get in there and be competitive when you get in there,” said Boeheim.