The Michigan Way in the Age of the Transfer Portal: A Risky Bet on Bigs

As the final buzzer sounded on the 2025-26 NCAA basketball season, it not only signalled the end of an excellent March Madness but also a massive change in traditional roster construction tactics throughout college basketball. The Michigan Wolverines obviously utilized the transfer portal to spur themselves to their second-ever national championship; the team-building strategy that got them there is what made their approach one that will reshape the positional value of transfer players throughout the country.

When the stakes are highest, college basketball is a guard's game. Of the last 10 players to be named the Most Outstanding Player of the NCAA Tournament, nine have been guards. Despite that, Michigan focused on adding big men in the portal, landing forwards Morez Johnson Jr. and Yaxel Lendeborg, as well as center Aday Mara. In a landscape typically dominated by guard play, the Wolverines built a championship roster around three elite big men, a decision that promises to skyrocket the value of bigs across the nation as teams seek to emulate what Michigan already created. However, that desire might prove to be misguided in a game where speed, spacing, and guard play have long remained the winning standard.

The State of the Transfer Portal and Positional Values

With the recent introduction of the NCAA revenue-sharing rules, the transfer portal is now more similar to open-market free agency in a professional sport than any past iteration of collegiate roster moves. A couple of weeks after the Wolverines took down the nets on April 6th, more than 2,700 players entered the transfer portal, hoping to find a new, presumably more profitable, home.

The obvious consequence of this new development appears in roster-building philosophy across the NCAA. Every season is another opportunity for top-shelf teams to reload the cupboard and pay top dollar for elite talent. Recruitment and player development are no longer the quickest road to a championship. The portal is.

But what type of player benefits most from this seismic change in college basketball's landscape? Prior to the 2025 season, it was largely guys who could handle the ball and score in isolation. BYU forward AJ Dybantsa topped the list of NIL valuations at nearly $7 million, rounding out a top-five group that included two point guards. Dybantsa's AVI Index, a measure of on-court production and brand recognition, nearly broke the scale at 100, indicating just how valuable his individual play became during his final season on campus.

Of the top 20 players on that list, 11 were the primary ball handlers and scoring threats for their teams. If not for Michigan's success, that trend would likely continue into the 2026-27 season, but the Wolverines and their usage of the portal have changed the perception of positional value in college basketball.

The New Premium on Big Men

Like in all markets, scarcity creates value. That scarcity is one of the primary drivers of the value surrounding college forwards and centers. Naturally, there is a much wider pool of players with guard dimensions, as it is much more common to come across a talented 6-foot-1 player than a 6-foot-11 high school kid with solid basketball skills. Finding a big man who fits modern basketball is even more rare. The vast majority of college bigs, and professional ones for that matter, lack the ability to fit into the pace-and-space style of play that dominates NCAA basketball, making the ones who do even more valuable.

That same obsession with small-ball lineups is the second major factor that will skyrocket the NIL value of skilled big men in the transfer portal. Strategy in basketball, and most other team sports, is cyclical. The prominence of smaller lineups provides an opportunity for big men to come in and impose their style of play on teams that have fully committed to the opposite approach, leaving themselves without the necessary tools to handle skilled, athletic bigs.

With his versatility, a talented forward can plug and play in any system while creating mismatches against the most common style of play in college basketball today. The ability to defend four or five positions, shoot, and play in the post makes guys like Michigan's Yaxel Lendeborg the most valuable asset on the market now that the Wolverines have provided the rest of the nation with a winning formula.

The Michigan Way

Wolverines head coach Dusty May managed to get the most out of his trio of transfer big men, consistently putting Johnson, Lendeborg, and Mara in positions that best utilized their skills.

For Morez Johnson Jr., that meant getting him in the thick of things on defense. At 6-foot-9 and 255 pounds, Johnson provided the Wolverines with the athletic profile that teams around the country covet. The forward had the physical strength to handle opposing forwards and centers while maintaining the foot speed necessary to switch onto guards, making it extremely difficult for opposing teams to find an advantageous matchup in pick-and-roll situations. That defensive versatility helped form the backbone of Michigan's success, keeping Mara out of switches and allowing the center to contest shots closer to the rim.

At 7-foot-3, defensive versatility was essentially impossible for Aday Mara. He played a classic role on that end, leading the Wolverines with 2.6 blocks per game, the most in the Big 10. Offensively, Mara's interior scoring is excellent, but he truly excelled in the passing game. Frequently playing in the high post, Michigan trusted Mara to facilitate the offense from the free-throw line, often finding cutters for easy buckets since opposing centers were absent from the restricted area. Through his court vision, Mara differentiates himself from the vast majority of college centers, adding a new layer to an offense that hardly needed one.

Last up is Lendeborg. The All-American forward is the definition of a do-it-all player, posting 15.1 points, 6.8 rebounds, and 3.2 assists per contest while playing a central role in Michigan's title run. Standing at the same height as Johnson and weighing 25 pounds lighter, Lendeborg shot 37% from deep on 4.5 attempts per game, numbers that are more fitting for a shooting guard than a forward. Lendeborg embodied everything that makes versatile big men such a valuable asset: elite shooting, physicality to finish through contact, and the defensive presence to lock down guards and meet opposing players at the rim when necessary.

Each of these players represents a different archetype of a modern, versatile big man. Johnson's defense helped erase mismatches across the board, and Mara provided a fantastic passing touch from a position that usually plays with its back to the basket. Finally, Lendeborg combined both facets of play to create the prototypical modern big, giving the Wolverines shooting, switchability, and tough interior play in a single package. It is no surprise that Johnson and Lendeborg both scored a perfect 100 on the AVI Index, while Mara came close behind with a 91. The three players combined to account for nearly $7 million in NIL funding, as well.

How Programs Are Buying In

All high-level sports are copycat leagues, and teams around the country have already begun attempting to copy Michigan's team-building blueprint. Five of the top eight transfers in the portal are forwards, and four of them fit the athletic profile of Johnson and Lendeborg. In ESPN's eyes, former Iowa State stretch-four Milan Momcilovic is the best of them. According to his AVI index, Momcilovic is set to bring in over $1.5 million in NIL funds, a massive boost in value from last season. That stark increase is an excellent example of how the priorities surrounding player types have changed.

While Momcilovic is a good indicator of positional value, Allen Graves is an even better one. The Santa Clara transfer is almost exactly Lendeborg's size, while bringing equivalent shooting and defensive versatility to the table. In short, he is as close to a Lendeborg clone as teams can get. Graves' AVI Index projects an excellent payday of nearly $1 million, largely because of the recent success of players fitting his profile. His above-average statistical production certainly plays a role in his increased value, but Graves' physical and stylistic similarities have helped draw in attention and potential funding from those looking for their own version of Lendeborg next season.

The Risks of Copycat Tactics

This approach to roster construction is not without its downsides. Part of what makes players like Lendeborg and Graves so valuable is their aforementioned scarcity. Big, athletic forwards who can shoot are nearly impossible to find, and the desire to find the next diamond in the rough could lead teams to overvalue players who fit that athletic profile, regardless of their actual basketball skills.

There simply are not enough Graves-like players to go around, but teams will likely be happy to gamble on a player's athletic ability while hoping the skills come along later. In an era of extreme roster discontinuity and capped NIL spending, those gambles could prove to cost programs entire seasons if the archetype they chase turns out to be more of an athlete than a basketball player.

The practice of constant transferring only serves to multiply that risk. Players who are in line for big money elsewhere are seldom happy to stick with their team, which means that programs must see a return on their investment within a single season or risk losing that investment to another team or the NBA. For the hundreds of forwards in the portal, only a few will be able to bring the immediate impact that Michigan's big men did. The rest are high-risk, high-reward rolls of the dice that will be on campus one year and be gone the next.

Making the Most of A Seismic Shift

Strategic shifts in college basketball are always modeled after winners, and the prominence of versatile forwards is no exception. The Wolverines put the blueprint out into the college basketball world, and with a wide-open transfer portal, any and all teams can attempt to copy it. The run on players like Lendeborg and Johnson represents a change in team-building philosophy, one that has the chance to define the transfer portal and NIL spending for the foreseeable future.