West Virginia transfer Joe Toussaint also weighing potential Nebraska visit
West Virginia transfer Joe Toussaint has a new location in mind. On Tuesday, Jon Rothstein announced Toussaint will be visiting Nebraska as he weighs his options in the transfer portal.
Nebraska is one of several potential landing spots for Toussaint. The West Virginia graduate student also plans on visiting Texas Tech and Kansas State this week. Additionally, Toussaint intends on taking a day trip to Alabama and fielding ZOOM calls with both Gonzaga and Miami.
This past season, Toussaint averaged 9.4 points and 2.8 rebounds per game for the Mountaineers. Furthermore, the 6-foot guard finished the season with 89 assists and 29 steals. Prior to joining West Virginia, Toussaint played for three seasons at Iowa.
Toussaint is one of several transfers leaving West Virginia after Bob Huggins was arrested for a DUI earlier this month. Toussaint’s former WVU teammate Tre Mitchell announced he will be joining Kentucky on Monday. Toussaint’s decision will surely follow suit soon.
To keep up with the latest players on the move, check out On3’s Transfer Portal wire.
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.
The portal has been around since Oct. 15, 2018 and the new calendar cycle within the portal begins each August. For example, the 2021-22 cycle started Aug. 1. During the 2020-21 cycle, 2,626 FBS football players entered the transfer portal (including walk-ons). That comes after 1,681 entered during the 2019-20 cycle and 1,709 during the abbreviated 2018-19 cycle. In comparison, 1,833 Division I basketball players entered the portal during the 2020-21 cycle after totals of 1,020 in 2019-20 and 1,063 in 2018-19.