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Written by Sean Murawski // SM Sports 

March 28th, 2025

In the first round of this past season’s men’s NCAA tournament, 12th-seeded McNeese took down 5th-seeded Clemson to move on to the round of 32. However, it wasn’t their play on the court that was their biggest story— it was actually their team manager, Amir Khan. 

Khan, given the colloquial middle name “Aura,” went viral in February for leading McNeese out of the tunnel before a game. While donning a beatbox strapped around his neck, Khan strutted out in front of the McNeese players, rapping along to a song by Lud Foe. As McNeese’s national prowess rose en route to an NCAA tournament berth, so did Khan’s.

By the time McNeese hit the floor against Clemson, the Amir Khan legend had been born. He was likely the most recognized person in the arena, signing autographs and posing for pictures with fans. McNeese’s cheerleaders wore graphic tees displaying Khan’s face, similar to something you might see on the rack in Abercrombie with graphics of Tupac Shakur or Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction.

Khan’s status rose to a level greater than some current college players, as he received dozens of NIL deal offers. Companies like Buffalo Wild Wings, Fortnite, and Insomnia Cookies have been reported to have gotten in contact with Khan. Even Topps created an Amir “Aura” Khan trading card. Reports of Khan’s potential deals have reached six figures. When asked to confirm, Khan responded by saying the reports of his deals are “not untrue.”

Will Wade, who entered the tournament as McNeese’s coach, has now taken the head coaching job at NC State following the Cowboys’ second round loss to Purdue. Per several reports, Amir Khan is expected to follow Wade to Raleigh and become the Wolfpack’s team manager via the transfer portal.

If you are looking for a fun but concise summation on the state of the NCAA in the year of our Lord 2025, look no further than Amir Khan.

Despite being exceptionally cool (and somewhat absurd), the above anecdote on Khan could likely be a culture shock to anyone who has not paid close attention to college athletics as of late. Particularly, “NIL” and “transfer portal” are the two common buzz words that have become synonymous with the NCAA over the past few years. 

NIL, or “name, image and likeness,” is a not so fully formed satisfaction to the longstanding debate over paying college athletes. Paying college athletes is not a new issue— I particularly remember writing a story for my high school newspaper in 2019 revolving around the same topic. As the stature of college sports has gradually risen, (specifically college football as a whole and March Madness for men’s and women’s basketball), the argument to not pay college athletes is becoming less and less viable. Conferences have created TV networks while coaches have commanded contract values that rival those of some professional coaches. To top it all off, the College Football Playoff and the NCAA basketball tournaments are consistent money making machines. Up until recent years, college players— in theory— had never received a dime for their efforts.

That theory in question, of course, does not account for the fact that under the table payments have been made, with some even surfacing and drawing consequences. Stemming from a 2018 FBI investigation, a wave of schools, including Arizona, Auburn, and Louisville, were implicated in scandals involving alleged payments to players and accepting bribes on behalf of agents to steer recruits in a certain direction. Adidas was even involved in the cases, as it was alleged that the company was involved in a monetary payment to recruit Brian Bowen during Rick Pitino’s tenure as Louisville’s head coach. 

Even as far back as the early 1990s, Michigan’s touted “Fab Five” era has now become enshrined in controversy revolving around alleged payments from booster Ed Martin. Chris Webber was among the players indicted, and Michigan had wins vacated, as well as Big Ten Championship and Final Four banners torn down. 

Evidently, NIL being introduced was a long time coming. It initially seemed (key word) that NIL would give opportunities for players to make money off of their appearances in ads, their names on jerseys, or their appearance in video games. However, it quickly turned raucous. With no real legislation in place— all 50 states have their own separate legislation regarding NIL— there is truly no policing the way money is being spent on recruits. 

The big change came in May of 2024, when the NCAA and the power 5 conferences (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, SEC, Pac-12— now dissolved) settled to allow schools to directly pay players. As a result of the House v. NCAA Supreme Court case, college players are no longer amateur— they are essentially semi-professional athletes. 

NIL and the transfer portal as standalone concepts are one thing, but it is imperative to assess the points at which they intersect. They must be discussed in tandem, as they directly affect each other. Now that athletes are no longer required to sit out for a year after transferring from one school to another, it opens a slew of opportunities for players to essentially act as free agents. 

St. John’s, coached by Rick Pitino, had a bit of a renaissance this past season. Winning both the Big East regular season and Big East Tournament crowns, the Red Storm earned a #2 seed in the NCAA tournament. Plenty of that was due to the production of Kadary Richmond (12.4 ppg, 6.4 rpg, 5.3 apg). Richmond earned all-Big East second team honors and was a focal point of St. John’s returning to the top of the conference.

Of course, all of this came a year after he transferred to St. John’s from conference foe Seton Hall. In a press conference earlier this year, Pitino openly admitted that if it weren’t for the amount NIL St. John’s was able to offer to Richmond, he would still have been playing for Seton Hall in 2025. Seton Hall, coached by Shaheen Holloway, finished the season 7-25, mustering just two conference wins and finishing last in the Big East. 

A lot of the criticism around the transfer portal is that there is too much freedom for the players, and not enough guardrails. With no sitting out requirement, players are a lot more inclined to test the waters in the transfer portal. Coaches not only have to recruit incoming players and potential additions who have entered the transfer portal, but they also have to re-recruit their own players who may be pursuing other options. 

That is, if those coaches aren’t transferring schools themselves. A common counterpoint to the critics of the portal is that the coaching portal is “always open.” Weeks ago, Darian Devries took the Indiana job just days after West Virginia was announced to have missed the NCAA tournament. He took his son and West Virginia’s best player, Tucker, with him to Bloomington. Sean Miller signed a deal with Texas days after Xavier lost in the second round of the NCAA tournament— and days after defeating Texas in the First Four. As of this writing, Kevin Willard is due to coach a Sweet 16 game for Maryland in seven hours, all while navigating reports of him being in the final stages of a deal to become Villanova’s next head coach once the season is over for Maryland. 

It is important to note that, unlike players who enter the portal, coaches are subjected to contracts. These contracts have buyouts, which go into effect if they decide to void their contract early and move on to another school. Players have not yet had that stipulation put upon them, resulting in a very hectic and hands-off approach to the portal. Players can move every year if they like to— just ask AJ Storr, who is in the portal for the fourth time in four years, after stints at St. John’s, Wisconsin, and most recently, Kansas. 

It isn’t just the players and coaches searching for money, though. The quest for NIL and funding moves much farther up the NCAA ladder. Part of the NCAA’s new regime has also instituted a new revenue-sharing plan to begin in the fall of 2025. The plan calls for a yearly, escalating cap of revenue to distribute to athletes. For year 1, the cap is $20.5 million. The split of that share is up to the schools themselves, which proves to be a slippery slope. 

Discussed in a recent Yahoo! Sports article written by Ross Dellenger, there is plenty of worry among conferences in just how they will divide that revenue. In particular, the big, football-dominant programs will have to leverage their funding with recently successful basketball programs. Specifically, the SEC had a tremendous year on the hardwood in 2025, sending 14 of its 16 teams to the NCAA tournament, an NCAA record. Some of those schools, like Auburn, Alabama and Florida, are historically dominant football schools that now have the luxury— or perhaps the burden— of splitting money with the basketball program, as well.

Particularly for the NCAA basketball tournament, the concept of the “big guy vs. the little guy” is largely believed to be at stake within the NCAA’s million-dollar facelift. For revenue-sharing, some non-football dominant schools can hedge their bets all on basketball, without having to worry about football. Schools like Gonzaga, Villanova, and Creighton can put as much as possible into basketball to help fend off any power 4 programs fighting for dominance. Schools like UConn and Memphis, while historically great at basketball, have had more recent success on the gridiron than in years prior, resulting in a bit more of a conversation. However, the general trend is true: power schools who were previously ecstatic about the notion of tossing dough at recruits are now hesitant about how many eggs to put in each basket. 

The big guy-little guy disparity doesn’t stop at NIL. The transfer portal has proved to be more akin to a minor league-major league channel in its current format. Take Drake, for example. Two seasons ago, Drake was coached by the aforementioned Darian Devries, with Tucker Devries as their star player. This past season, they elevated to West Virginia, before this past month’s move to Indiana. In place of Devries, Drake hired Ben McCollum from Division II powerhouse Northwest Missouri State. McCollum brought his star point guard Bennett Stirtz with him.

Fresh off of their round of 32 appearance in 2025’s NCAA tournament, McCollum and Stirtz jetted off to Iowa after the Hawkeyes fired Fran McCaffrey. For two straight seasons, a fantastic mid-major basketball program has doubled as a triple-A farm team for some of division 1’s power conference programs. 

This is not a new issue. It was just two seasons ago that Florida Atlantic made a miracle run to the Final Four, eventually losing to San Diego State on a buzzer beater. Their three star players— Johnell Davis, Vlad Goldin, and Alijah Martin— are all back in the Sweet 16 this season….playing for other schools (Arkansas, Michigan, and Florida, respectively). Even their coach, Dusty May, is coaching for Michigan on the second weekend, and Goldin is one of his star players in Ann Arbor. 

It wasn’t that long ago where a run in the postseason like that would convince the players to return and run it back. Florida’s 2006 team, with Joakim Noah, Al Horford, and Corey Brewer, all declined to go to the NBA and came back to school to fight for another title. They won it all again in 2007, with the same core group. Miami (FL) also made the Final Four in 2023 with FAU, and then-head coach Jim Larrañaga lamented the fact that his star players from that team entered the portal that offseason. Larrañaga retired prematurely this past season, joining Jay Wright and Tony Bennett as another high profile coach to deem the brave new world of payment and the portal too much to handle. 

What is the worst case scenario for NCAA basketball in this new era? Perhaps it is a slow change evolving into a major 180 degree turn. A huge bulk of the 68 teams in each year’s NCAA tournament can be classified as “little guys”: mid-major conference teams that scratch and claw their way for an automatic bid, hoping to wear the glass slipper. It’s Oakland in 2024, George Mason in 2006, VCU in 2011, and Saint Peter’s in 2022. 

A major concern could very well be the poaching of the little guys for the benefit of the big guys. If all of the best teams with the most money buy the best players, then where do the mid-majors go? Where does a team like Drake, who has lost two head coaches and two star players in two seasons, go from here? We know where some of the low-majors are going already: St. Francis (PA) made the tournament in 2025 as a 16 seed, and after losing their First Four game, they demoted themselves down to Division III. As a school that had exactly zero dollars in NIL funding, St. Francis (PA) had nowhere to turn in today’s NCAA. They couldn’t compete with even the smaller schools, let alone Kansas or Duke. What must other low-majors be thinking? If an NCAA tournament berth can’t save them from the depths of portal and NIL hell, then what can?

With conference realignment resulting in 15+ team super conferences, NCAA tournament selection can very easily turn into a high-major invitational. A proper fear could be the complete overhaul of the NCAA tournament as we know it. For now, the tournament remains itself, but major changes aren’t out of the question. When TV contracts expire, some major shifting could be on the horizon again. 

Without regulations and guardrails, this new era of the NCAA will have minimal structure and maximum chaos. Change is one thing, but complete transformation into something bigger could strip the NCAA basketball world of its charm and allure. Without any proper policing, the NIL and transfer portal have turned the NCAA into the wild west. How they plan to corral that tornado is anyone's guess. 

Sean Murawski is a writer for his own personal sports website, smsports.net. He publishes weekly columns and rankings on men’s college basketball, as well as coverage columns for the MLB.