By Dave Johnson
W&M Athletics
 
The NCAA transfer portal has been around since the fall of 2018. What completely changed the landscape, and jammed the portal with about 1,400 name in men's basketball alone, was a rule change last spring that allows immediate eligibility for a first-time transfer.
 
This offseason, coaches across the nation have scrambled to rebuild their rosters. William & Mary's Dane Fischer, who is going into his fourth season, is one of them.
 
After four scholarship players expected to return entered the portal, Fischer and his staff quickly added five transfers for the 2022-23 season. Two are graduate transfers who have one year of eligibility. The other three have at least two seasons to play.
 
"We're very excited about the group as a whole," Fischer said. "We were able to address a number of needs we had when our roster turned over.
 
"I give our assistant coaches a ton of credit because they're the ones who scoured the portal for different names and got transcripts to make sure they were good fits academically. Every single guy that's coming in is really excited about coming to William & Mary for the academic prestige."
 
The two grad transfers — 6-foot guard Anders Nelson (St. Thomas) and 6-3 guard Chris Mullins (Rice) — will be enrolling in the Raymond A. Mason School of Business. They are following the same path of guards Tyler Hamilton and Bryce Barnes in 2019-20 and forward Brandon Carroll last season.
 
Also joining the program are 6-8 junior Noah Collier (Pittsburgh), 6-6 sophomore Gabe Dorsey (Vanderbilt) and 6-5 sophomore Matteus Case (Providence).
 
"Both of the grad transfers scored over 1,000 points in their careers," Fischer said. "They've helped their programs win and been able to score when needed and create when needed. Both of them have done a great job taking care of the ball.
 
"There was certainly a focus to have a couple of guys who were a little bit older who could provide some leadership right away. But we also wanted to find some guys who had multiple years to play."
 
Fischer has been through this before. When he was hired in April 2019, W&M had four scholarship players committed to the roster. Two more eventually returned, but that only made six. So Fischer brought in two grad transfers and signed four freshmen by the fall.
 
"We had a similar approach at putting this team together," Fischer said. "We said, we've been in this situation before, let's go out and find guys who want to be at William & Mary for the entire experience."
 
With three incoming freshmen — 6-7 guard Jack Karasinski, 6-10 forward Charlie Williams and 6-5 guard Chase Lowe — eight of the roster's 12 scholarship players will be newcomers. Yet the W&M's situation is hardly abnormal, not with the portal having become as crowded as the malls on Christmas Eve.
 
Consider the Tribe's conference brethren. According to VerbalCommits.com, Northeastern has seven players in the portal. Elon has six, Charleston and Drexel five, and Hofstra four. Among CAA stars changing addresses are Drexel's Camren Wynter (Penn State) and Elon's Hunter McIntosh (Nevada).
 
Keeping a roster together has become a bigger challenge.
 
"It's certainly different than it has been in the past," Fischer said. "The biggest difference with transfer recruiting is how fast it is. You can recruit a high school player for almost two years, and sometimes you're recruiting a transfer for two weeks."
 
Bringing in five transfers in a little more than two months was a team effort. In addition to his staff, Fischer gave credit to his four returning players — senior Miguel Ayesa, juniors Jake Milkereit and Ben Wight and sophomore Tyler Rice.
 
"They spent time with them when they came to campus," Fischer said. "They helped them learn about William & Mary and what we want to be about."
 
Still, getting the players acclimated with each other will be job one. That will begin when they report to campus the final week of June.
 
"They're going to be here to work our camp and start in the weight room," Fischer said. "We'll start and build up slowly, much like we did that first year.
 
"The vast majority of the guys will be new to us, so we'll start from the ground up and build. I know there's an excitement for that from our returning guys and certainly the guys coming in."