Michigan's National Championship Win Ignites Transfer Portal Debate

Nimari Burnett (C) of the Michigan Wolverines celebrates — Source: SOPA Images / Getty

As Michigan cut down the nets to celebrate the school’s second national championship, there was a debate already going on about the way they won it.

For the first time in college basketball history, the teams’ rotating starters and playmakers were acquired via the transfer portal, leading to a 69 – 63 victory in the championship game in Indianapolis against defending champs UConn.

Guards Elliot Cadeau and Nimari Burnett, forwards Morez Johnson, Jr., Yaxel Lendenborg, and center Aday Mara all came to Michigan this year from other schools. By contrast, UConn retained three starting players. Some believe that that’s what it takes to create a contender in the age of NIL. Others think college basketball is suffering from it.

But the portal also allows players to overcome criticism and early missteps to prove they can be successful on college basketball’s biggest stage. Cadeau was viewed as a big-time bust after two years at North Carolina, and Lendenborg, along with Mara and Johnson, had fallen off the list of top NBA draft picks. Now they’re being projected as first-rounders.

“We all came here for a change of scenery, and we’re just taking full advantage of it,” Cadeau said earlier this year. The five-star recruit out of New Jersey also played for two high schools. “Everyone is pretty much playing a bigger role than they did last year, or a different role, and we’re just having confidence in ourselves.”

Cadeau went on to win the tournament’s Most Outstanding Player Award.

Mara started one game for UCLA last year. Johnson doubled his points per game as a starter after coming off the bench for Illinois, and Lendenborg, who went to both junior college and then played center at UAB, was restored to his rightful position as a wing for Michigan.

Criticism of college teams created via the transfer portal is similar to criticism of so-called NBA ‘superteams’ when players agree to leave in free agency to form squads that can dominate. Arguably, LeBron James did it twice with Miami and then Cleveland. Steph Curry is the league’s longest-tenured player with one team for the last 17 seasons, with his coworker, Draymond Green, following closely behind at 14.

It worked out for James, who won two championships in Miami and one in Cleveland.

But in college, the jury’s still out, and fans and pundits remain skeptical.

A fan summarizes the views of many:

Columnist Zach Braziller, writing for the New York Post said, “This team was bought, a group of mercenaries coming together for one year. The Wolverines, their detractors have said, are everything wrong with college basketball in the transfer portal and name, image and likeness era.”

Michigan coach Dusty May, who won the natty in two years after former head coach and Fab Five member Juwan Howard was fired in 2024, said in February that characterizing his players as just greedy is wrong.

“I know people outside of our tribe will call our guys these derogatory names, (like) mercenaries and whatnot… I don’t know how you would classify them as guys playing just for money.”

May, who took a Florida Atlantic squad to the Final Four in 2023, says he learned from legendary University of Indiana head coach Bobby Knight during his tenure at Indiana in the ’90s. Knight used juco transfers to his advantage, most memorably winning a championship with transfer Keith Smart’s game-winner against Syracuse in 1987.

In all fairness, Kentucky spent $20 million on its team, only to be knocked out in the second round of the tourney by Iowa State. So despite all the money now being spent, there’s no guarantee of success.

One thing we do know: whatever you may call Michigan and this year’s squad, history will only remember them one way – as champions.

See social media’s reaction to the gang of transfers banding together to bring the Wolverines their first NCAA championship in 30 years.