Hi everyone. New to college Bball so wanted to know. In order to use the transfer pool do I have to have a free scholarship? Im looking at my team and I have 4 scholarships and I am recruiting. Do I need to consider leaving some available for future transfer pick ups or do transfers not count against scholarships?

Thanks in advance.

If all 13 scholarships are filled, you will be unable to go after transfer players.

You also may lose players yourself in the transfer portal which would immediately open up a scholarship - one of the best things about the game is that there are so many ways to play so everyone finds a style that works for themselves largely through trial and error. Some people might purposely leave a scholarship open for the transfer portal. Others only use it when they lose a player. There is no right answer here - just whatever works best for building your program.

Welcome to the game!

Curious to see... Has anyone ever tried a "transfer only" dynasty? I know it's not realistic but it sounds like a fun/tough challenge.

Also to add in that if you have a player declare early (happens in Feb/March timeframe), that will open up a fresh scholarship to use on players you’ve still actively recruited or for the off season portal.

This was a feature Gary added several versions back after feedback. Just an example of how great he is at active engagement with the community!

I have run an association in the the DDSCB22 version of just going after high recruits and mostly not getting them and then using the transfer portal to build my team. I was using East Tennessee State in the SOCON and was able to go from below .500 team to winning the conference and go to the NCAA losing in the first round. I did it in 3 years. Gary was aware of how it could be abused to do this and DDSCB23 now you can take a hit on your Prestige trying to abuse the portal. While I haven't had time to test the differences in 22 to 23 and how much effect it has. But if your Prestige takes a hit, you should have less good players interested in your school during the transfer portal in theory.

It's a BIG hit if you cut a player before the end of the transfer period.