A popular mantra of recent years is to “Be where your feet are.” AJ Storr is good at that, even if his feet don’t stay still for very long.
“I live in the moment,” Storr says. “I just try to enjoy where I am. It doesn’t seem like I’ve moved this many times.”
Storr is a college basketball player. He is 21 years old and has attended eight different schools in eight different states since 2020, when he was still in high school, hopscotching across the map to chase an NBA dream. He is one of the faces of a Migration Generation of young athletes, navigating an impermanence unlike anything previously seen at the preprofessional levels. Have game, will travel.
The Migration Generation is unbound by NCAA transfer regulations and free to move about the country annually in pursuit of playing time and NIL cash. From 2019–20 through ’23–24, when NCAA transfer limitations were struck down by the courts, Division I portal entrants nearly doubled, from 13,689 to 24,399. Football portal entries rose 138% in that span, while women’s basketball increased 132% and men’s hoops elevated 111%. Final figures are not in for ’24–25, but the expectation is for another significant year-over-year increase in D-I transfers.
The standard line from college sports leaders for years was that athletes transfer less frequently than the general college student population. According to a 2025 study from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, transfers represented 13.1% of all continuing and returning undergraduates. In men’s and women’s basketball, that percentage has been surpassed.
Yet even before reaching college, many athletes are part of a culture that encourages player movement. Transfers have become routine at the high school level as well, particularly among elite prospects looking to maximize their college options—and in some states to take advantage of the NIL opportunities now available. Six of the top seven men’s basketball prospects in the 247 Sports rankings for the class of 2025 transferred at least once in high school, and three of them transferred three or more times. While the majority of top-50 football prospects attended just one high school (per 247 Sports), in boys’ basketball the number who have transferred at least once before heading off to college is 50%. Football and especially basketball players increasingly are itinerant workers.
Within this transient ecosystem, there are rational explanations for many of the stops on Storr’s journey from home in Kankakee, Ill., to Las Vegas to Chandler, Ariz., to Bradenton, Fla., to Queens, N.Y., to Madison, Wis., to Lawrence, Kan., to his present location, Oxford, Miss. The COVID-19 pandemic shut down basketball seasons at both Kankakee High and his next stop, athletic powerhouse Bishop Gorman, in Vegas, where his dad lives. Storr graduated from Compass Prep in Arizona after playing for a stacked team there in 2020–21, but he was only 17 so he took a postgrad year at another prep power, Florida’s IMG Academy.
His first college stop was at St. John’s. Coach Mike Anderson was fired after Storr’s freshman season, so Storr returned to his Midwestern roots with Wisconsin. The 6′ 7″ wing led a 22-win NCAA tournament team with 16.8 points per game, then made a decision that ended badly: He left for blueblood Kansas. Whatever Storr might have gained in NIL money, he lost as a basketball player. His playing time and productivity plummeted as the Jayhawks struggled through their worst season since 1988–89.
Which is why Storr is now at Ole Miss, relocating to the Deep South for the first time after touching all the other major geographic areas of the United States. “It’s a unique town,” Storr says. “It’s literally a college town—that’s all there is. But I like it. I’m just trying to lock in.”
Storr’s latest—and presumably last—college coach does not want the player to be seen as a cautionary tale, pointing out the reasons for his transfers. “AJ’s story is one of the most misunderstood stories ever,” says Chris Beard. “I’ll do my part, making sure everybody understands the truth. Maybe just the one transfer from Wisconsin to Kansas [was questionable], but none of us can live our lives knowing everything. And it’s Kansas. So with AJ specifically, [I have] no concern, because I think he’s hungry for just a home and an opportunity to thrive.”
Storr has managed to do something many other members of the Migration Generation have not—remain at the power-conference level with every move. A 2024 study by AD Advisors and Timark Partners concluded that 65% of D-I basketball portal entrants moved down at least one competitive level or did not find a new home.
The conclusion from a white paper on the subject, by former Auburn athletic director Jay Jacobs and Mark LaBarbera of Timark Partners, states: “The data in this study reinforces a clear reality: the vast majority of NCAA Division I men’s basketball players who enter the transfer portal move down or out. The portal isn’t the place to rise, but it is the place to find more playing time, albeit at a lower level.”
This isn’t just a basketball phenomenon, though. It is a football reality as well. AD Advisors found that 60% of FBS transfers move down a level as well. For every Jared Verse, who went from FCS Albany to Florida State to the first round of the NFL draft, there is more than one Jaden Rashada, whose path has gone from commitments to Miami and Florida to suiting up at Arizona State and Georgia to his current home, FCS Sacramento State (after having attended three high schools).
“I think the issue that we miss is the number of young people lost to the system because of the transfer freedom,” says SEC commissioner Greg Sankey. “We can all report stories of, ‘Wow, wasn’t it great that somebody went from Point A to Point B and it worked?’ But there’s attrition, and there’s academic attrition—lost credits that our young people talk to us about. And then there’s loss of connection, loss of opportunity.
“So it’s not all a bed of roses. There’s a lot of people in the ears of young people telling them it’s going to be better. That’s not data driven. I think one of the underreported realities is really aggregating not only the data but the stories about young people who said, ‘Well, the grass is going to be greener,’ and that wasn’t the case. Or promises or representations that went unfulfilled.”
As Sankey notes, an axiomatic by-product of increased player movement is decreased academic progress. College sports has admirably improved its graduation rates over the last three decades, but the wide-open transfer market will inevitably lead to a statistical downturn.
The tension inherent in the current landscape stems from restraint of trade arguments vs. the educational underpinning of college sports. The NCAA has ceded ground over the years, from its longtime stance that transfers in football and basketball had to sit out a season, to a one-time free transfer rule, to the current reality of constant free agency. That was forced upon the association in December 2023, when seven state attorneys general sued for athletes to have a virtually unrestricted transfer marketplace in pursuit of NIL opportunities.
But what’s theoretically good for business opportunities isn’t suited for academic success—which, once upon a time, was of primary concern (or at least a primary talking point). The latest academic progress rate and graduation success rate statistics from the NCAA continue to paint a positive picture, but the data for that report in November 2024 covers a six-year window that closed on Aug. 31, 2023—a few months before all transfer regulations were effectively tossed out. So the largest fundamental changes have yet to be factored in.
Sources at the national and campus levels in college athletics who have access to some more recent academic data for transfers say a single change of schools usually slows progress toward a degree. Additional changes compound the slowdown, as difficulties transferring class credits multiply. “A second or third transfer can only exacerbate the situation,” one source says. “It can’t make things better.”
Storr says a second transfer meant changing his major from communications at Wisconsin to liberal arts at Kansas. Now he’s “still figuring out” what his major will be at Ole Miss. He’s hoping to graduate in the spring of 2026.
Villanova guard Devin Askew, who is embarking upon his sixth college season at five different schools, received his undergraduate degree in interdisciplinary studies at his third stop, Cal. He studied consumer affairs in 2024–25 at Long Beach State but is vague about his course of postgrad studies at Villanova. “I’m in a certificate program in, uh, I want to say communications?” says Askew.
Speeding down the no-limits autobahn to more revenue, college sports remain tethered to higher education, which sometimes seems like an inconvenient add-on that interferes with aerodynamics. But many athletes, their parents and anyone else in their ear might well be steering along an unrealistic career path long before college.
This spring Project Play, an initiative from the Aspen Institute’s Sports & Society Program, released findings from a survey of youth-sports parents, showing that 22% believe their children will compete in college sports and 11% believe their children will compete professionally and/or at the Olympic level. The reality is that a tiny fraction of those kids will advance that far athletically, but that belief can help fuel a huge investment of time, money and emotion on youth sports.
“There’s nothing wrong with dreaming, right?” says Jon Solomon of Project Play. “But what happens when reality sets in? Especially when there’s this idea of wanting a return on investment over the years? The vast majority of high school athletes aren’t going to reach the next level.”
Sometimes, the response to a lack of success is neither to accept a lesser role at a current school nor to refocus on a different activity. It’s to change schools, change coaches, find some other reason why little Johnny isn’t the starting quarterback or little Janie isn’t the starting point guard.
For high-level prospects in football and basketball, a move doesn’t necessarily mean going to a neighboring school. It means uprooting to attend one of the major prep schools or athletic academies that dot the landscape. In previous decades, boarding schools like Oak Hill Academy in Virginia and a handful in the Northeast were talent magnets. Now it’s the likes of IMG and Montverde in Florida; Link Academy in Branson, Mo.; Sunrise Christian in Bel Aire, Kan.; Wasatch Academy in Utah; and Prolific Prep in Napa, Calif. (which is relocating to Florida).
Here’s the problem: School connectedness, defined as the “belief by students that adults and peers in the school care about their learning as well as about them as persons,” was associated with lower prevalence of every risk behavior and experience examined in a 2021 study conducted by the CDC. While data specifically addressing the high school athlete transfer situation is sparse, it stands to reason that a school change could endanger an athlete’s sense of belonging every bit as much as a student in the general population.
Research indicates that may be the case at the college level. In a 2020 paper titled “College Athletes and the Influence of Academic and Athletic Investment on Sense of Belonging,” researchers from VCU and Cincinnati found transfer athletes “feel a lower sense of belonging on campus than non-transfer student-athletes.” Transferring isn’t a simple process, either: A survey published by Public Agenda in February found that more than half of respondents who have tried to transfer credits reported some degree of credit loss.
Multiple transfers can also disconnect athletes from other advantages to be gained from putting down roots on a college campus such as a friend group built on relationships developed over time and a familiar support network. NCAA literature on mental-health best practices stresses the need for professionals to “foster trust with athletes,” which can be difficult if they are moving from school to school.
“Sooner or later in life, you’re going to need your buddies,” says Michigan State men’s basketball coach Tom Izzo. “You’re going to need your friends. I am worried about mental health. I’m worried about what these [transferring] players are going to do in a year or two. If I’m wrong, that’s a good thing. But if I’m right, that’s sad.”
“I am worried about mental health. I’m worried about what these [transferring] players are going to do in a year or two. If I’m wrong, that’s a good thing. But if I’m right, that’s sad.”
Michigan State coach Tom Izzo
At many of the bigger athletic programs with successful teams, loyal alums are willing to extend job opportunities to former athletes—not necessarily stars, but those who put in four years at their shared alma mater.
“You’re going to be a former player for 50 years, don’t be a fool,” Purdue men’s basketball coach Matt Painter said at the 2024 Final Four. “Understand that your education from Purdue will take you a long way. But also the contacts that you will make and how you treat people will take you a long way.
“If you change [schools] three or four times, you don’t get your degree, don’t become a pro, don’t have any contacts, you didn’t take that opportunity and get any better, then what are we doing for young people?”
For all their movement, both Askew and Storr say they wouldn’t change their paths. Askew entered college young, reclassifying in high school and skipping his senior year to enroll at Kentucky amid the tumult of COVID-19—a time when in-person recruiting was difficult, and many initial prospect evaluations were misguided. He was thrust into a starting role on John Calipari’s worst team and was overwhelmed, then spent a year at Texas before returning to his home state of California. “I’ve learned something every place I’ve been,” Askew says. “I definitely feel older and wiser.”
Storr feels largely the same. He says he doesn’t regret any of his transfers—not even from a starring role at Wisconsin to being the target of fan criticism as a well-paid backup at Kansas. What looked like a one-season springboard to the NBA instead led to a fourth stop in college. Like many other members of the Migration Generation, big dreams have been deferred as the search for the right fit goes on.
“I’ve learned from every step I’ve made,” he says. “Everyone has something to say about it, but it’s cool. It’s totally fine with me.”
Asked what his best move has been so far, Storr laughs and says, “To be continued.”
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