There’s no rest for the wicked. The day after the first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament concluded, the women’s college basketball transfer portal opened to the general public. The portal closed to new entries at midnight on April 22, closing a four-week period in which over 1,000 players entered their names. While no new players can enter the portal (unless they’re a graduate transfer or experience a coaching change), those in the portal can still commit to new schools. With the portal closing to new entries, here’s my assessment of the winners and losers of the 2025 transfer portal cycle.

Winners:

• South Carolina – Not surprising that the team that got the leading scorer in the NCAA this past year, Ta’Niya Latson (25.2 PPG) from Florida State, is on the list of winners, but it’s Latson’s fit at South Carolina that makes this such a big win. The 2024-2025 Gamecocks were an incredibly balanced scoring team, but I think they lacked a player like Latson who can get a bucket whenever you need it. Latson also played AAU with Raven Johnson, who’s returning for a fifth year, so there’s familiarity there. Dawn Staley also filled her other biggest need, a dominant post, in the form of Madina Okot, a 6’6” center who averaged 11.3 PPG and 9.6 RPG at Mississippi State last year.

• Ole Miss – Ole Miss lost seven players to the portal, but no need to worry; they picked up eight. The incoming group is headlined by Cotie McMahon, a first-team All-Big Ten and honorable mention AP All-American selection at Ohio State, and Latasha Lattimore, who averaged 14.3 PPG, 8.2 RPG and 2.2 BPG at UVA. Coach Yolett McPhee-McCuin is no stranger to getting transfers to mesh, so I expect Ole Miss to gel quickly.

• Iowa State – Iowa State makes this list mostly because of their lack of portal activity. On rare occasions, the portal keepeth, too. Bill Fennelly retained sophomore standouts Addy Brown and Audi Crooks. They lost one player to the portal (Lily Hansford, who averaged 1.1 PPG in her lone year at ISU) and picked up one: Jada Williams, a point guard from Arizona. She should fill the void left by the graduation of five-year Cyclone Emily Ryan and bring an added dimension to ISU with her speed and quickness.

• Baylor – Baylor’s 2025 portal class is headlined by Taliah Scott, who’s averaged over 20 PPG in the 23 games she’s been able to play across two seasons, and Yuting Deng, Scott’s teammate at Auburn who averaged 11.8 PPG on .365 3PT%. We’ll see if this group of transfers can get Nicki Collen off the hot seat in Waco.

• Maryland – Brenda Frese wins the transfer portal every year. She should teach all the conferences or seminars or training courses on the transfer portal. This year she poached Yarden Garzon and Gracie Merkle from Big Ten rivals Indiana and Penn State, respectively, and Oluchi Okananwa, the 2025 ACC Tournament Most Outstanding Player, from Duke.

Losers:

• Notre Dame – Olivia Miles shocked the world when she not only chose not to enter the WNBA draft but also decided to enter the transfer portal, and then Kate Koval (LSU), Kylee Watson (Villanova) and Emma Risch (FSU) followed suit. Of course Hannah Hidalgo is still in South Bend, but transfers combined with seniors and grad students running out of eligibility has Niele Ivey in full-blown rebuilding mode.

• Indiana – Between graduation and the transfer portal, Indiana lost essentially their entire rotation. Losing the aforementioned Yarden Garzon, a second team All-Big Ten pick and .407% 3PT%, to conference rival Maryland especially hurts.

• Georgia Tech – This was to be expected after Nell Fortner announced her retirement. A team that was ranked as high as 13th in the AP poll and earned a 9-seed in the NCAA Tournament was set to return Dani Carnegie, Tonie Morgan and Kara Dunn, but instead saw those three–and five others–hit the portal.

• UCLA – UCLA is still probably going to be in the Final Four next spring, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t losers in this transfer portal cycle (it means that they had absurd depth in 2024-2025). Their depth took a huge hit when their entire freshman class, plus Janiyah Barker and Londynn Jones entered the portal. And then Jones rubbed salt into the wound by committing to crosstown rival USC.

• Utah – Utah has graduated almost everyone that has played a role in leading the Utes to their recent success–Pac-12 titles, Sweet Sixteens, etc. The only contributing player set to return, and perhaps the best of the bunch, Gianna Kneepkens, entered the portal and still has yet to announce where she will use her final year of eligibility.

There are still a few notable names in the portal that have yet to commit to a new school, but for the most part, the portal dust has settled. Now we wait until March 2026 to see how everything shakes out. 

Yours in hoops,

Katie