With the Sweet 16 set to begin this Thursday, Duke legend Christian Laettner made it abundantly clear that he’s not fond of the current landscape of college sports.
During an appearance on Mike Greenberg’s radio show, Laettner expressed his concerns with NIL and the transfer portal.
Laettner believes it’s tough to build a culture when players are constantly entering the transfer portal to see what NIL offers are out there. His solution would be to wipe that aspect of college athletics out entirely.
“They gotta take out the NIL. They gotta wipe that out,” Laettner said. “They gotta change the transfer portal. I know everyone’s saying the horse is out of the barn and you can’t take stuff back. But how can you establish any type of culture at a school when you’re getting new kids every year? That would mean every year was like my freshman year at Duke. And you’re so much better your third, your fourth year when you’re under one system, one program, one coach, one specifically defined culture. The way you want to play offense. The way you want to play defense.”
Laettner definitely isn’t the only former athlete who feels this way about the NCAA. It just seems like the transfer portal is overflowing with talent every offseason.
Even former college coaches like Nick Saban stated his concerns about NIL and the transfer portal.
Only time will tell if the NCAA finds a way to tighten its guidelines and minimize the amount of chaos we see every year.