Since the NCAA transfer portal's inception in October 2018, it has been a divisive topic in the world of college sports. The whole situation was exacerbated when the NCAA mandated that athletes could receive a waiver to play immediately upon their first transfer. Conferences quickly followed suit in respect to intra-conference transfers.

Longtime Michigan State head men's basketball coach Tom Izzo is among the portal’s detractors. Joining ESPN’s 102.5 The Game — a Nashville, Tennessee, radio station — Izzo outlined his concerns over the modern college basketball landscape, with a particular focus on the transfer portal.

“I don’t think it’s great for the game and I think there’s drawbacks,” Izzo said. “I think it’s bad for the kids. … I think kids are making a lot of bad decisions because we’re teaching them that the minute something goes tough, to get the hell out of dodge. I saw Clark Kellogg on the TV the other day said something great. He said, ‘To grow, it takes rain and sunshine.’ If you translate that, it means, if you just have all sunshine, the plant doesn’t grow. If you just have all rain, it doesn’t grow. You’ve got to fight through some adversity. You’ve got to have some tough times. You’ve got to have some rainy days. Those are illegal now. If there’s a rainy day, I’m getting the hell out of dodge. Then we’ve got kids transferring and they don’t even know where they’re transferring to. The problem is when they do transfer — though somebody transfers to Michigan State and then all of a sudden I get two more transfers.