Report: LSU lands commitment from Alabama RHP Luke Holman

According to Kendall Rogers of D1 Baseball, former Alabama right-handed pitcher Luke Holman has committed to continue his college baseball career at LSU. Head coach Jay Johnson has been active in the NCAA transfer portal after winning the national championship.

Now, he takes a top pitcher away from an SEC West rival. A big win for the Tigers.

“TRANSFER NEWS: @LSUbaseball has landed RHP Luke Holman out of the portal, @d1baseball has learned,” Rogers said via Twitter. “Holman spent last season at Alabama, where he struck out 87 in 81 innings of work with 15 starts. Holman had a strong summer and has a lot of #MLBDraft helium. #LSU#GeauxTigers“

As Rogers mentioned, Holman threw 81 innings as a sophomore last season for Alabama. Compared to his 87 strikeouts, he walked just 31 batters. Opponents had a batting average of just .186 against him as well.

We have seen Johnson take transfers in and turn them into studs. Everyone in Baton Rouge will be hoping Holman is the next example.

Transfer portal background information

The NCAA Transfer Portal, which covers every NCAA sport at the Division I, II and III levels, is a private database with names of student-athletes who wish to transfer. It is not accessible to the public.

The process of entering the portal is done through a school’s compliance office. Once a player provides written notification of an intent to transfer, the office enters the player’s name in the database and everything is off and running. The compliance office has 48 hours to comply with the player’s request and that request cannot be refused.

Once a player’s name shows up in the portal, other schools can contact the player. Players can change their minds at any point and withdraw from the portal. However, once a player enters the portal, the current scholarship no longer has to be honored. In other words, if a player enters the portal but decides to stay, the school is not obligated to provide a scholarship anymore.

The database is a normal database, sortable by a variety of topics, including (of course) sport and name. A player’s individual entry includes basic details such as contact info, whether the player was on scholarship and whether the player is transferring as a graduate student.

A player can ask that a “do not contact” tag be placed on the report. In those instances, the players don’t want to be contacted by schools unless they’ve initiated the communication.