It's been a rough day for Gopher Basketball fans thanks to the new Name-Image-Likeness and transfer rules in college sports.
Three of the team's sophomores have decided to leave Ben Johnson's squad.
Big man Pharrel Payne, a 6-9 Cottage Grove native, made the surprise announcement he was entering the transfer portal on Thursday morning. Then just a couple of hours later, Braeden Carrington entered the portal as well. Carrington is a 6-4 guard from Park Center.
On Wednesday, another Gopher sophomore forward, Joshua Ola-Joseph, entered the transfer portal.
All three were members of the U's 2022 recruiting class which guts that entire class for Johnson and leaves the team in limbo for 2024-25.
On top of those losses, freshman guard Cam Christie and leading scorer and rebounder Dawson Garcia are testing the waters of the NBA Draft.
The loss of Payne is particularly difficult. He made a huge leap between his freshman and sophomore years, helping the Gophers to a 10-win improvement, and a trip to the NIT.
Their season ended Sunday in a loss to top-seeded Indiana State, but it was definitely a year of growth at the U of M. Johnson was brought in to help recruit in-state players more than previoius regimes. Now that entire group of in-state players from 2022 is gone.
Now that players can make money off their name, image and likeness (NIL) according to NCAA rules, it has gotten much more difficult to keep players. Almost unanimously, with the money pouring into college sports, players were thought to deserve more of that pie. But current laws and rules have turned that into the Wild, Wild West.
Faced with a wave of state laws clearing the way for college athletes to earn money based on their celebrity, the NCAA lifted its ban on in 2021 while making it clear that its approximately 500,000 athletes are still considered amateurs who cannot be paid to play. NIL wasn’t meant to be a stand in for paying college athletes, but that’s what it has become, with collectives carrying the load while trying to navigate NCAA rules.
Major sports schools with large booster dollars are luring athletes more frequently. Just keeping track of the changes each offseason has become difficult.
“There’s no pretense anymore,” said Rick Pitino, the St. John’s coach who recently made news by proposing a salary cap and a two-year contract for players who negotiate name, image and likeness sponsorships. “Now we’re dealing with professional athletes in the guise of NIL. I’ve tried to think of solutions and ways around it. But any solutions, the courts will just obliterate it.”
For fans, it's become an unstable mess of players coming and going. Now, there's almost no telling what lineup the Gophers will put on the Williams Arena floor next fall.