Former Cinderella Story Now the Face of Transfer Portal Era at 2025 NCAA Tournament
The 2022-23 Florida Atlantic Owls gave college basketball fans one of the most memorable Cinderella stories in decades when they reached the Final Four as a No. 8 seed.
Two years later, the impact of that team is still being felt in a major way at the 2025 NCAA tournament.
The Owls went 18-16 this season and lost their NIT opener to Dayton, but three key players from that 2022-23 squad are still standing in the Big Dance and have made their presence felt for teams eyeing their own trip to the Final Four.
Their success after moving from a mid-major upstart to major conference contenders serves as a fitting snapshot of life in the transfer portal era.
Center Vladislav Goldin and guards Johnell Davis and Alijah Martin each returned to Florida Atlantic for the 2023-24 season, and that team checked in No. 10 in the preseason AP poll, but they ended up falling short of expectations and losing in the first round of the NCAA tournament as a No. 8 seed.
FAU head coach Dusty May was the first notable member of that team to jump ship, taking the Michigan job shortly after his team was eliminated from March Madness, and those three standouts quickly followed him out the door and into the transfer portal.
Goldin ended up following him to Michigan where he has teamed with fellow transfer portal pickups Danny Wolf (via Yale), Tre Donaldson (via Auburn) Roddy Gayle Jr. (via Ohio State) to lead the Wolverines back to the Sweet 16 after they missed the NCAA tournament entirely the last two years.
The 7'1", 240-pound center averages 16.8 points, 7.0 rebounds and 1.4 blocks, earning first team All-Big Ten honors. He had 23 points, 12 rebounds and three blocks in Saturday's win over No. 4 seed Texas A&M.
Davis was one of the top-ranked players in the portal after averaging 18.2 points and winning 2023-24 AAC Player of the Year honors, and he was a major pickup for John Calipari as he made the move from Kentucky to Arkansas and rebuilt almost the entire roster on arrival.
The 6'4" guard averages 11.4 points, 3.3 rebounds, 1.6 assists and 1.5 steals, and he tallied 18 points in the first round against Kansas and 13 points on Saturday against St. John's.
The upstart Razorbacks roster also features D.J. Wagner, Zvonimir Ivisic and Adou Thiero who all followed Calipari from Kentucky to Arkansas during the offseason, along with big man Jonas Aidoo (via Tennessee) who had a 22-point game against Kansas in the first round.
Martin joined his two former teammates and his former coach in punching his ticket to the Sweet 16 on Sunday afternoon, helping the Florida Gators survive a scare from No. 8 seed UConn with 18 points, four rebounds and three assists in a 77-75 victory.
He has joined Walter Clayton Jr. and Will Richard to form arguably the best trio of guards in the country, and while both of those players were on the Gators roster last season, they similarly started their college careers at mid-major programs with Clayton coming from Iona and Richard from Belmont.
These three are just a small sampling of the profound impact that the transfer portal has had on this year's NCAA tournament and on college basketball in general, and the mass exodus of experienced mid-major talent to major conference programs could be part of the reason we have seen so few major upsets in this year's bracket.
PJ Haggerty (Tulsa to Memphis) and JT Toppin (New Mexico to Texas Tech) earned second team All-American honors after moving up a level in competition via the transfer portal, or they might have been leading their mid-major teams in the NCAA tournament.
The same goes for Chaz Lanier (18.1 PPG, 41.0 3PT%, 120 made threes), who effectively replaced Dalton Knecht as the Volunteers go-to scorer after spending last season at North Texas.
Scooping up talent in the transfer portal is not a guarantee of March success, but the ability to add experienced veteran players to complement an already strong roster at the major conference level has further expanded the gap between the teams that can afford those players and everyone else.
Will one of those former Florida Atlantic stars get their national championship wearing a different uniform two years after shocking the college basketball world with a trip to the Final Four?
It would be a fitting representation of how much the sport has changed in just a few short years.
.jpg?w=600 "Post-Lawrence Trade Mock Draft 📝")
