courtside

Alexia Nelson’s transfer commitment to SLU. She arrived with new SLU assistant Ka’lia Johnson from Towson, where she helped lead the Tigers to back to back 20 win seasons, including a trip to the WNIT. https://slubillikens.com/news/2025/4/29/alexia-nelson-signs-with-womens-basketball.aspx

The Oklahoma Women’s Tennis team has a realistic but not easy chance at making the Final Four this year. They had a big season and they took 4th in the SEC. Oklahoma State and Tulsa also made it and play each other first round. As the NCAA prefers to base early round matchups regionally, all 3 are in the same section. Oklahoma also made it on the Men’s side. Baylor hosts the team Championships this year. Georgia hosts the next 2 years. Orlando will host beginning in 2028 after their renovations.

Even in the Men’s game, teams with 2nd and 3rd year players are winning at higher rates than teams that don’t. These can be players recruited from high school in their 2nd or 3rd year. They can be portal or juco transfers in their 2nd or 3rd year as well. Just not first year portal or first year Freshmen. Only the best of the best teams in the country are successful relying heavily upon first year players via high school or transfer. Top talent wins. In Men’s basketball, 82% of Houston’s minutes this season were from returning players. With Florida and Auburn, it was 70%. All 3 made the Final Four. Duke was a talent exception. Over the past four seasons in the era,, 80% of high majors that returned the most minutes, (at least 75% minutes) made the NCAA Tourney. 70% were within the top 30. Two made the national title game, Purdue and Houston. 15 teams. High major teams with the lowest percent of returning minutes? Just 30% made the NCAA Tourney. 20 teams. And half finished outside of the top 100. Only 2 of 6 high major programs with all new rosters made the NCAA Tourney this past season. Kentucky and Louisville. Freshmen? The numbers aren’t good for non top 30 schools that play a high percentage of Freshman. Just 30% of that group made the NCAA Tourney. And half finished beyond the top 75.

What are other A10 programs adding via the portal? And that can be expanded to the good non P4 programs. Big East, AAC, Mountain West, and even the MVC, all leagues better than the A10 this season. What other programs are relying heavily upon Freshmen minutes to be successful? ……………. And it’s even less in other sports. The top 25 SLU Women’s Soccer program has averaged 2 incoming transfers the past 4 seasons under the new rules. That’s 7% of its roster. And that number drops to 3% who actually played significant minutes. It’s definitely a space where SLU would like more resources to be more competitive. Katie has been very vocal about that. It’s very challenging to land high level P4 players due to the league, and, it’s also challenging to land players from other regions, the coasts or South. It needs improvement and growth, but, even with that, it will still be supplemental. SLU has done well to keep its better players. SLU has kept all of its 4 year players that play high minutes. And they were even able to convince several 5th and even 6th year players to stay and play. They have lost just 1 high minute player as grad transfer after 4 years within the program. And we haven’t even mentioned the International space yet which is non-existent thus far, but, is slowly growing elsewhere. There will be roughly a thousand players in the portal. ………….. Back to Women’s Basketball. Only 25 programs had zero players enter the portal. Davidson was one of them. The only A10 program with zero. A10 programs that landed a P4 transfer: St. Joe’s 1 SLU 1 Dayton 1 ……… Rhode Island landed players from SLU, VCU, and George Mason. VCU also has a 15pts a game player in the portal. St. Joseph’s lost Ziegler. ……….. Richmond 8 seed NCAA Tourney team. Doogan, 3rd year program player. Ullstrom, 3rd year program player. Budnik, 5th year program player. Sweeney, 2nd year program player. Hill, 4 Year program player. ……….. Other rotation players: Camden, 2 years in the program. 2 other rotation players that were 5th year low major transfers …………. They lost one portal player to Wofford. They added Simon. …………. George Mason 11 seed NCAA Walton, 3rd year in program. Harris, 2nd year in program. Suarez, 4th year in program. Kaysia, 3rd year in program. Habib, 2nd year in program, juco transfer Mitchell, 3rd year in program. Volker, 1st year in program, transfer from Missouri State. ………… GMU has 6 players in the portal, including 2 rotation players. One was lost to Rhode Island. ………….. Creighton 9 seed NCAA Jensen, 4th year in program, Iowa transfer. Maly, 5th year in program. Mogensen, 5th year in program. Lockett, 3rd year in program. Townsend, 3rd year in program. Brake 5th year in program. Horan, 5th year in program. Creighton had zero players in the portal and they added 1 player from N Iowa. …………. The most successful isolated Mid major programs are adding 2 good additions at most. Green Bay, UNLV, etc…others. Some top level mid major players have moved on to P4 programs. There are still many good uncommitted players still in the portal. Often good Belmont isn’t losing and isn’t adding portal players. Some people may also be surprised at the high major stats for Men’s basketball regarding the portal which can be shared in a different post. Maybe it’s just me but my observation is that some people think to be successful teams need to add high volume good to great portal players annually. The numbers don’t support that. You have to be active in it. And it’s better to land multi year players. But it’s still a complementary piece. …………

SLU will be the heavy favorite to win the A10. They expect to be a similar level to the last 3 seasons nationally, meaning a top 25 level program. Some players will be moving around, changing positions. Many Freshmen will receive some playing time. At least one will be expected to start. They will definitely push some returning players for playing time. Depth quality will be at an all time high for the program this season. A few returning players will need to take on bigger roles next season in order to turn the corner. The other three Spring games were much more competitive, a win, a loss. and a draw. It’s Spring. Everyone plays. It’s a time to experiment personnel, formation. positions etc….The offense is a little bit ahead of the defense at this time. Getting work in while avoiding injuries is the main thing. SLU only had one player essentially sit out the Spring with injury. Other players injured this Spring at least played somewhat. Lots of healthy competition within the team. Last night’s game was a little bit of later start which allowed SLU staff to get to a high school game in the burbs for recruiting, and then back to the city for their game. SLU will explore the Spring portal as they do twice a year. SLU has added Roster limits are an unknown for another 2 weeks, which makes that even more challenging. It’s looking less likely that the 28 limit will be enforced for 2025 season. But that’s the number for now. ………….. It’s helpful to SLU if the A10 is strong. it hasn’t been a strong Women’s Soccer league. And it isn’t expected to be next Fall. It doesn’t need to match P4 leagues but having a longer term goal to be closer to 5th than 10th best league would help. That puts extra pressure on SLU to get results non-conference. Scheduling roughly 4 top 25 caliber non-conference opponents, combined with a few additional top 75-100 programs, finishing off the 8 non-conference games with a few easier games. it would also help if scheduling would change. Men’s Soccer schedules non/conference games throughout the season, not just earlier in the season. Often times, programs like SLU are much better as the season progresses. Dayton stands out as the main competition for SLU next season. They will be solid once again. It took VCU 5 months to hire its Women’s Soccer Head Coach. Zero priority there. Disappointing. They had some good bubble seasons but they will drop off. Nothing against the coach they did hire, but she has zero college coaching experience. GW and GMU made solid hires last year. But it takes a few years to build something. Loyola’s new HC has a chance to make them more competitive in a few years. The Bonnies are a mess. 4 coaching changes in the A10 this cycle. SLU would like these other A10 programs to get better non-conference results. Unfortunately UMass, strong in both Women and Men’s soccer, is leaving the conference. SLU will pick up a new league opponent. Every bit helps with RPI. A10 needs more top 100 programs. And they need more bottom league programs to be top 200.

Today is the last day to enter the Women’s transfer portal. At the beginning of Monday 30% of portal players had committed to a new school. 70% hadn’t. By Wednesday evening that reached 37% of players committed to new schools. The pace has increased, but commitments will be happening long after the portal closes tonight. Total number of players in the portal has surpassed 1500. Commitments have surpassed 550. At the beginning of Monday of this week, players added by conference: A10: 7 teams had added zero players from the portal. 6 teams had added 2 players from the portal. 2 teams had added 1 player from the portal. Comparable leagues. There are a handful of leagues that ranked better than the A10. So let’s use the Big East as an example. Portal additions as of Monday: Big East: 2 teams had 0 players added from the portal. 5 teams had 1 player added from the portal. 2 teams had 2 players added from the portal. 1 team had 3 players added from the portal. 1 team had 6 players added from the portal. Several good teams didn’t add many players from the portal. And they didn’t lose many players from the portal. Roster builds are primarily recruit, develop, retain high school players. The portal is for strategic additions of 1 of 2 players, preferably multi year. Recent coaching changes frequently explain bigger roster movement.

That comment was specific to the transfer portal. There are individual and team soccer deals. In order to recruit in the Men’s or Women’s Soccer transfer portal, players often want to know how much money you have for them. The Women’s Soccer program for example has landed just 2 transfers without a local connection in the past 4 seasons under the current transfer format. It’s very competitive to land a high level national level player from another geography. It’s a priority to be more competitive in that space. I gave a recent example in the WBB thread that a top 25 coach lost a portal recruiting battle for a player because the other school paid $300k for the player. He thought he could land that particular player for low $100k-$125k. He was surprised at the numbers. That brings up the related topic of the new 28 roster limit. Both soccer teams are currently 2 over the limit, not counting the Spring portal. SLU has done well with it compared to others. Some other programs have been a mess with rosters in order to meet the new 28 limit. Many players have been scrambling to find a new school this past year. The federal judge on the $2.8 billion antitrust settlement, said today she would not approve the settlement unless the NCAA would change its proposal regarding roster limits. This judge has taken a big interest in the roster limits part of the case. She wants the limits to be gradually phased in over a number of years. P4 programs want roster limits to make it more difficult for players to transfer elsewhere. It appears that after previously ignoring the judge multiple times regarding roster limits, the NCAA will allow for the gradual phasing of them in order to complete the settlement. As that would be the only thing holding up the agreement. All 28 roster players may receive full scholarships, unlike before when the limits were 9.9 and 14 and money was spread around. Some high level programs expected to he in the 70% plus range of fulfilling that. Previously there have been other types of scholarship money and financial aid, academic, other, etc…to help offset the scholarship limits. There have been 3 new portal transfers playing this Spring. (2 were mentioned) In order to be more successful, all of SLU’s programs need to primarily recruit multi year players, and develop, retain them. The portal is a necessary place to be to supplement the base recruiting with a few impact transfers. And it helps to add multi year transfers. Analytics show that that success is often greater than 1 year transfers. This applies to other programs as well such as Men’s basketball.

SLU has added 5’7 Canadian point guard Jahda Denis out of Montreal, Quebec. She played with the U17 Canadian National Team. She averaged 7 and 3 at the FIBA World Cup in 2024. Strong defender and facilitator. She plays with Capital Courts Academy out of Ottawa. She was an OSBA All Star. And she was named the Defensive Player of the Year. In 2023, Jahda helped Canada to the U16 Fiba Silver Medal. And she helped lead U17 Quebec to the Canadian Championship. She had 15, 5, 4, 3 in the Gold Medal game. She was 8-16 from 3 in the 4 games.

Zya committed Wednesday. She visited Friday. She announced Saturday. I’m not sure how much quicker it can be done. She entered the portal on March 26th What you see less of with SLU Men’s hoops that you see with some other Men’s hoops programs, are the initial leaks by the coach or staff that they have a commitment. Schertz doesn’t do it. The staff doesn’t do it. That’s in part why it may seem to be a quicker process. It’s also apples to oranges comparing the Men’s basketball program to any other program at SLU for a variety of reasons. The resources are much different. And there are rules to everything as well. SLU cannot post the specific name of a verbal commitment. It can post the name of a signed commitment. When you see SLU post a signed commitment. That player often committed long before the signing. Example: Richmond knew for a while that SLU’s Tierra Simon was transferring there before she announced it. They just didn’t announce ahead of time that they had a commitment.

Each commitment process is different for different reasons. This one was commit on Wednesday. Mention it on Friday. Announce on Saturday. That’s a pretty short turn around time. That’s still much quicker than some other sports transfers such as the Spring Men’s Soccer transfers. Those I posted on January 28th. The team will probably post them this Summer with the full recruiting class for Fall. Women’s Basketball is closing in on 1450 players in the portal and 440 commitments. SLU has reached out to more than 35 players in the portal.

SLU has secured a commitment from Zya Nugent in the transfer portal.

Ziegler committed to Louisville today.

All I can do offer what I know what I’m comfortable sharing. There’s plenty of time for SLU to add to its roster. It’s extremely competitive out there. There are a lot of teams that still need to add several players to their rosters. Zya Nugent is a player I’d keep an eye on with SLU. She’s a 5’7 physical guard out of Dallas that averaged 13 points and 5 rebounds a game at Stephen F Austin. She had two different knee injuries in back to back seasons before playing with West Virginia this past season.

Commitment numbers should reach 400 after this weekend. Number of players in the portal has reached roughly 1425.

Situations vary for a variety of reasons whether it’s Women’s Basketball or another program. I first knew about the previous portal commitment on April 1st. I posted about it April 2nd. The team posted about it April 15th. It can take a few days to a few weeks, and, sometimes, more specific announcements don’t happen at all. It may even surprise you that some players once in a while prefer not to announce it. That happens too. And occasionally a player will announce a little too early as well. It varies quite a bit. Teams can’t announce specific names of verbal commitments for example. They can only announce signed players. The Men’s Soccer team for example rarely announces commitments. And in the rare instances when they do, it’s often limited to vaguely saying they received a commitment. Women’s Soccer will often post that they received a verbal commitment. Transfers work differently sometimes. I posted about Elise Le’s transfer March 1st. SLU announced it July 25th. I knew about it long before March 1st. More often than not, it’s a few days to a few weeks. And that will be the case with this 2nd incoming Women’s Basketball transfer this cycle. It’s been less than 24 hrs. Give it a chance. Regarding the Women’s Basketball portal, the list of players SLU has reached out to this cycle is pretty long. And, they have added new names every day this week of players new to the portal that day. 5 days left to enter, and there are still good players entering every day. Many commitments for various programs will arrive well after the portal entry period closes the middle of next week.

STL City 2 had to cancel the game last minute. Maryville was good enough to fill in, and they gave SLU a good game. Maryville has been a successful NCAA Tourney level D2 program in recent seasons. Their former head coach left to be a Big East head coach last year. And they made another good hire after that. SLU played STL City 2 at City 2’s practice facility, during City 2’s preseason.

Regional landscape: Dowell committed to Missouri yesterday after also considering U of A and ASU. They also picked up a Reisma from Cleveland State. Former Dayton Head Coach, and current Illinois Head Coach, Shauna Green, is having a good portal season. She landed Maddie Webber, a good 2nd Team All Big East guard from Villanova. And, she landed Aaliyah Guyton from Iowa. Gift Uchenna, is one of the better rebounders in the country at SIUC, averaging 15 and 13. She recently transferred to Wisconsin. There are still good players entering the portal daily with 1 week left to enter. Total players in the portal closing in on 1400. Commitments are roughly 325.

Example: Last week a Top 25 program hosted a transfer, and, they felt confident they were landing the player. The visit went well. The offer was $100k. The player turned it down because she had an offer for $300k at another school. The somewhat surprised runner up coach for the player happened to know the other “winning” school’s coach in the recruitment, so he called the other coach to verify the offer, which was accurate. The other coach verified the offer and said it was a position of need at the time so we had to spend a little more on that player. The runner up coach then suggested that they may not be able to get to 15 with roster money. Maybe 12. Programs without bigger money need to do everything it can when identifying, recruiting, and landing high school players, The portal is much more of a supplemental place than Men’s revenue sports. and this applies to other Olympic sports as well.

The first question many high level players ask is how much money do you have for me?

SLU has had 1 commit thus far that I posted about on April 2nd. They are active in the portal and they will have other commits. Only 20% of portal players have committed, which is up from 10% last week. Over 1375 players are in the portal and counting which has slowed a lot, but new portal players are still entering daily. There is still a little more than another week for players to enter the portal that haven’t done so yet. SLU has 5 players in the portal. Well over 60 schools have at least 7 players in the portal. A10 portal players: Dayton: 2 Duquesne: 1 Fordham:: 6 George Mason: 5 George Washington: 5 La Salle: 3 Loyola: 2 Rhode Island: 2 Richmond: 1 Saint Joseph’s: 2 SLU: 5 St. Bonaventure: 9 UMass: 5 VCU: 7

NCAA announced: Women’s NCAA Tourney will be pushed back to the 2nd weekend of December beginning in 2026. The playing season will extend two weeks. The Men and Women’s tourney will now be played on the same weekend. The 2026 and 2027 tourneys will be played at Cary, NC. Video review will now be required for all preliminary round hosts of the Men and Women’s NCAA Tourney. This will begin in 2025. Previously it was only required for the Final Four.

Ziegler took a visit to Oregon. Dowell is visiting Arizona State and Arizona. Inadvertently forgot that St. Louisan Saniah Tyler was scooped up by Missouri last week, after playing a reserve role under two different staffs at Kentucky. Maupin committed to Nebraska. Commits have surpassed 250, out of roughly 1360.

The only new player this Spring for SLU is Emma Parker. (Emma and Nimu have split every game this Spring.) Generally speaking SLU doesn’t like to bring in 2nd semester high school Seniors as early enrolled players. It’s popular elsewhere. Katie prefers to incoming Freshmen finish their high school experience, and have them arrive in the Summer. One rare exception was made last year. Ten new Freshman will arrive over the Summer to play this Fall. Between the smaller numbers, some players banged up a little bit, and Freshman who have yet to arrive, that is why you saw Houck and Sawyer play a little bit late first and second half. SLU has 20 this Spring. Four didn’t dress due to injury. They were down to 16, not including AJ, who played well, but she hurt her knee a bit, late first half, and she didn’t play the 2nd half. So there are a lot of players moving around and playing different positions, also experimenting with formations, etc…4-1-4-1 today. Wash U has a good team, well coached, plays hard. They didn’t lose a game all season en route to that D3 National Title.

Zoe Best committed to Charlotte. Some other locals in the portal: Jayla Murray transferred to Ole amiss from Wichita St. Averaged 12 and 5 as a 6 foot Forward. Shannon Dowell, 5’10 guard at Illinois State, had an 18 & 5 season as a Sophomore. She visited Missouri this weekend. Eliza Maupin from K-State is in the portal. ………….. Laura Ziegler from St. Joe’s visited Louisville this week. …………. Contact is allowed during dead periods, just not in person, and no visits. It was a short dead period. There are still 11 days left for any player to enter the portal. Last count was roughly 1350 players and counting in the portal, and 210 portal commits and counting. There are roughly 25 programs with zero players in the portal And that might be less as the portal continues another 11 days.. And there are more than 60 programs with at least 7 players in the portal. (SLU has 5, none have committed elsewhere yet)

George Mason Head Coach Vanessa Blair-Lewis will remain at George Mason. She was a finalist for the head coaching position at Arizona. Buffalo’s Becky Burke was named the new Arizona Head Coach today. Former VCU Coach Beth Cunningham (Missouri State HC) was also a candidate at Arizona. They went through many names, about a dozen. Some coaching targets had financial concerns, available NIL money etc…Cunningham was also a candidate at Wisconsin. Regional landscape: Missouri also was turned down by its first few choices due to financial commitment concerns. They almost hired Jacie Hoyt but ended up with Kellie Harper. Harper is getting $950k base with incentives into 7 figures. $950k staff compensation budget. $100k annual personal family travel budget. That pushes Missouri close to top 25 compensation. All of that is significantly more than what was available for Robin Pingeton, who is now at Wisconsin. (another school turned down by candidates due to financial commitment concerns). Former VCU Associate Head Coach Karen Blair became the new HC at Georgia Tech this cycle. She had a lot of success on staff at Maryland for 7 seasons.