'Plan for chaos': Roster upheaval dominates college hoops

Bobby Hurley knows what’s coming.

At some point in the months ahead, one of his Arizona State players will walk into his office with surprising news.

“There’s a guy on my team right now that mostly likely is going to transfer that I won’t even think that he’s going to transfer,” the coach said.

Just like that, it will be time to rework roster plans and search for a potential replacement. And that scenario is playing out across college basketball in the transfer portal era, illustrating how roster management has become a major challenge for coaches facing abrupt — and sometimes drastic — changes in a wild world of free agency.

“Coaches love to control things … control offense, control defense, control everything in your program so it doesn’t go haywire,” said coach Scott Drew of fifth-ranked Baylor. “And roster management is the hardest thing to control because you never know from one year to the next who will transfer, who will turn pro.

“It used to be most college (teams) were dealing with three, four new players a year," Drew added. "Now more and more are dealing with six, seven, eight new players.”

The days are gone of confidently projecting how a team will look after a few years of players developing together. Instead, it's a guess now that players can freely move to chase minutes or endorsement opportunities elsewhere — especially if they have an extra year of eligibility because of the pandemic.

That has created a new coaching routine: spend the season essentially re-recruiting your own players to stay, then dive into the portal afterward to fill inevitable new roster holes.

“It’s more work intensive than ever in the spring,” said Hurley, who has four transfers and two scholarship freshmen as the season begins....