The transfer portal is how championships are won and lost now in the world of college basketball. Players fly in and out year after year, and it has now become just as easy to get a leg up as it has to become five steps behind everybody else.

In the Big East, things are no different and have changed very quickly. What is also interesting about this conference is that each team appears to have a widely different approach to tackling the portal. A team like Marquette has found a way to avoid the transfer portal entirely and stay competitive, while other teams will have to build their entire rosters through the portal this season. But with the portal being as busy as ever, who are the losers of this off-season's cycle of transfers?

The Pirates are stuck in a bit of a cycle where they will be losing a vast majority of their roster to the transfer portal, which forces them to build an entirely new team in the matter of one offseason. This is the same cycle DePaul found themselves in under the previous regime, and now the Pirates are seeing this situation unfold.

They recently hit on a solid transfer in guard Trey Parker from NC State, but they have been unable to turn any heads with their acquisitions. It is impossible to judge how good or bad a roster truly is before we even see them practice together, but the path does not look great for the Pirates.

After a strong portal last year, the DePaul Blue Demons appear to have regressed just a bit after their major hire in Chris Holtmann. They lost six notable players to the portal and brought in some talent such as Khaman Maker from St. John's and Kaleb Banks from Tulane, but there are still holes when it comes to this roster.

The Blue Demons are in a position now where they will have to develop the talent already in the program, so this is a year where we will find out just how good of a hire Chris Holtmann was or was not, but that is yet to be seen. The Blue Demons should still have decent expectations for progress next season, but they did not impress much when it came to the portal process.

Butler finds themselves in a similar position to DePaul, but just not with the already set talent they had beforehand. Losing talent like Pierre Brooks, Kolby King, and Boden Kapke are all decent losses to eligibility and the portal.

Getting Yohan Traore is a huge get if developed properly and given the right opportunity. He had a star season with UCSB, averaging 14.5 points and 5.1 rebounds per game in 2023, but did not see the court as much with SMU in 2024. Now with Butler, he may have more opportunities to show out, which could change the narrative here.

Other than that though, we did not see as much movement from the Bulldogs as one would have appreciated in Indianapolis, so they have some internal development to do here.

The Kevin Willard hire is great, but that only gets you so far as a program these days, the players still have to show up to camp. WIllard brought in Malachi Palmer and Braden Pierce from Maryland, but this is a whole new roster for him unlike other coaching changes.

Duke Brennan and Zion Stanford are solid acquisitions, but this may be a difficult transition period early on in the Willard era, but there was a lot of work to do anyway. Wildcat fans were ready to move on from the Neptune era, but just expect some early growing pains here.

With the lack of financial assets compared to other conferences, we saw more portal disappointments here than in other conferences, but things always seem to find a way to work out for some of these teams. There will be an interesting trajectory to follow as this conference continues to adjust to the new landscape of college sports, and this portal situation shows that.