Asked to sum up the transfer portal in one word during an interview with CBSSports’ Matt Norlander last week at Big Ten men’s basketball media days, Kevin Willard answered: “Pain.” But he’s pulled in some high-level players from the portal during his time as Maryland’s head coach, so why the negative label?

“I use the word ‘pain’ because when you talk about the portal, it goes both ways. So your season ends and then, all of a sudden, you have to see, you’re going to lose guys every year, it’s just the way it is. You’re not going to be able to keep everybody and you’re going to lose some guys that you really want to keep. And then once you lose guys, then you got to say all right, who’s staying?”

Maryland lost five players in the transfer portal during the offseason, none of whom averaged more than Jamie Kaiser’s 4.4 points or two rebounds per game: Kaiser, Noah Batchelor, Caelum Swanton-Rodger, Mady Traore and Jahnathan Lamothe. “

“And then you have to go out and then you have to find guys that you’re going to bring them in. And then you throw in the NIL aspect of it, where it’s all money, I think it just becomes something that you have to be very, very targeted on who you’re going to get. You have to commit to who you want to get and then you have to go in there and try to get them, and make sure that you have the money that goes along with it,” he continued. 

Willard upgraded across the board by signing Ja’Kobi Gillespie, Selton Miguel, Rodney Rice, Tafare Gapare and Jayhlon Young. For next year, he’s added two high school recruits in this year’s senior class, powerful guard Christian Jeffrey and high-flying big man Marcus Jackson. But he might not sign more, because he also knows he can get more proven commodities in the portal. So he’s set a limit on traditional recruits.

“We won’t take any more than three freshmen a year. And everyone says, ‘Well, why?’ I tell them, you have to pay freshmen. They haven’t scored a bucket for you. They’re unproven, as good as they are and I think I have one of the best freshmen in the country. [But] they still haven’t scored for you. So you’re going to go out there and you’re going to have to commit money to them and then at the end of the year, really, they’re all going to transfer because it’s the only way for them to find out what their true value is, is to go in the portal,” he said.

More below from Willard on his recruiting strategy, teams poaching players in-season,