"Should not penalize people that are winning": Cori Close calls for transfer portal fixes after conflict with March Madness schedule

Cori Close is coming off a historic season with UCLA, leading the Bruins to their first NCAA Final Four appearance. They finished 34-3 before falling to the eventual champion UConn Huskies in the national semifinals.

Close sat down with Ros Gold-Onwude on the recent episode of the "Good Follow" podcast, where she reflected on last season, discussed the challenges of the transfer portal, and looked ahead to the future.

Gold-Onwude, a sports broadcaster and the show's host, asked the reigning Naismith Women's Coach of the Year about her thoughts on the current state of the transfer portal, particularly its overlap with the NCAA Tournament schedule.

"We need to change the date of the transfer portal," Close said (Timestamp: 6:21). "There’s no perfect date — there’s compromise on either side. You can make arguments for when it should be, but my opinion is it needs to be the day after the championship game.

"Yes, there are reasons for both sides, but you're rewarding the wrong things by having it in the middle of the NCAA Tournament. Do I realize that most of the teams are already done? Yes. But I think you should not penalize the people who are winning."

Cori Close added that a three-week window immediately following the end of the season should be enough time for players to make their decisions.

The transfer portal opened on March 25 for women's basketball — three days before the Sweet 16. Although 90% of teams were no longer playing at that point, for teams still playing, their focus was divided between the tournament and player movement.

Cori Close discusses challenges of balancing talent and player expectations

When a team has as much talent as the UCLA Bruins had last season, juggling player expectations becomes a critical task for the coach and may lead to some players being unhappy with their playing time or role.

"I thought I’m a coach that has a pretty good pulse, but honestly, this year I didn’t. It wasn’t as good as I thought it was," Cori Close told Ros Gold-Onwude in the same interview. "In the end, when I look back, we had too much talent. And there was just — someone was disappointed every week, whether it was a family or a player or whatever."

Six players from UCLA's 2024-25 roster transferred to new programs, including Londynn Jones and Janiah Barker. The team's top scorers, Lauren Betts and Kiki Rice, are expected to return next season.