Montana State transfer RaeQuan Battle being courted by several schools in the portal
Montana State transfer RaeQuan Battle has had no shortage of suitors when it comes to the transfer portal this offseason. He’s been hearing from a near endless list of schools. The highly coveted small forward recently told college basketball insider Jon Rothstein that he’s heard from over 15 schools: Georgia Tech, Alabama, Kansas State, California, Texas Tech, Oregon, UCLA, Wake Forest, Texas, Oklahoma, Memphis, LSU, Loyola Marymount, Clemson, South Florida, Utah State, Louisville, and Georgia.
Check out the tweets below from Rothstein.
The junior averaged 17.7 points per game this year for the Bobcats. He played a huge role in propelling Montana State to a 2023 Big Sky Tournament Championship over Northern Arizona University, 85-78. Montana State fell to the No. 3 seed Kansas State Wildcats in the first round of the 2023 NCAA Tournament, 77-65. Battle poured in 27 points and grabbed three rebounds in the loss.
Before spending the last two seasons with the Montana State Bobcats, Battle spent his first two seasons of college basketball with the Washington Huskies.
In the 2019 cycle, he was one of the most coveted players in the country. Battle was ranked as the No. 71 overall prospect in the nation and a four-star recruit, according to the On3 Industry Rankings.
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.