College basketball’s transfer trends are now touching the last sacred corner of Division I athletics: the Ivy League has officially become a stepping stone for basketball prospects en route to an NIL payday.
Harvard forward Chisom Okpara’s entry into the transfer portal on Tuesday is just the latest evidence of the trend, which has taken hold in the 2024 transfer cycle with players such as Malik Mack (Harvard to Georgetown) Danny Wolf (Yale to Michigan), Tyler Perkins (Penn to Villanova) and Kalu Anya (Brown to Saint Louis).
Does a two-year NIL earnings window outweigh the lifelong benefits of graduating from Harvard? That’s debatable. But even the Ivy League and its fabled group of academically superior institutions is not immune to the roster poaching that is now the norm in college basketball.
As a 6-foot-8 stretch forward who averaged 16.5 points for the Crimson in his sophomore season, Okpara has enough game to play at the high-major level. Two years from now, it’s possible his degree could be from a state university with an acceptance rate of 85% instead of from Harvard. But he’ll profit off his talents in a way that he can’t at Harvard, which does not have an NIL collective.
Chisom Okpara entering the transfer portal is a brutal blow to Harvard.
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Outbound Ivy League transfers are nothing new in men’s basketball. A steady stream of them have made their way to new homes in the sport over the last several years. But that has typically been because the league’s rules not only don’t allow athletic scholarships, but also prohibit graduate students from competing. Thus, some players wanting to use their final season(s) of eligibility had no choice but to leave the conference.
The same thing is occurring this year with Clark Slajchert (Penn to USC),…
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