PEORIA — Brian Wardle is accustomed to studying film as head coach of the Bradley Braves.
But he watched a Hollywood blockbuster to gain perspective on his role as an unofficial director of sorts amid all that confronts college basketball programs dealing with the transfer portal and NIL era.
“I watched Moneyball, and I feel like we’re watching that unfold in college basketball,” said Wardle, laughing. “You want to succeed? You have to recruit a team, not talent.
“Like the movie, people think they are buying players. We’re buying wins. The movie really hit home. I showed clips from it to the staff. We got to be smart with character and understand what we have available to spend.
“Time will tell. I’m happy for and a proponent of student-athletes getting financial benefits and getting paid. College basketball and football are multi-million dollar sports, we knew this was coming. There simply isn’t a greater time to be a student-athlete than right now. There are no guardrails, everyone is trying to learn it. We’re finding new things every day.”
Valparaiso is believed to have $2 million to spend this offseason on acquiring players. Murray State is believed to be spending much more than that. On the other side, more than 2,500 players jumped into the 2026 NCAA transfer portal, some to chase opportunity, but most to chase money.
“Where are these young guys gonna be in five, 10 years?” Wardle said. “I tell my players, ‘Money does not grow on trees.’ What will you do after your career? When tough times come and adversity hits, you either fight or flight. With no regulation at all around the portal, we are pushing more flight than fight. We are teaching a lot of young people to choose flight much quicker than they should.
“I’d prefer guys go grind it out. Battle for it. And I’m speaking as a father whose kid (Mya Wardle) transferred. She came to Bradley because she wanted to be closer to home here, so I understood that.”
The Bradley men saw six players head into the NCAA transfer portal this spring. Rival Illinois State was rocked by seven players transferring out of its program.
Wardle signed what may be the final two players for the 2026-27 season on Wednesday night. The BU roster is at 13, with 12 scholarships issued (walk-on Gus Rugaard is non-scholarship).
BU has three vacant scholarships, but it also has to weigh its player budget against the value the team would get from players 14-15 on a roster who would likely also require a portion of NIL money.
The coach says he might look at obtaining a high school point guard, but the player would have to be willing to come in as a redshirt freshman.
Otherwise, “We are comfortable with 13,” Wardle said.
“Hawkins … Les … they’d have had a heart attack”
The transfer portal and increasing money available to players triggered a change in the Missouri Valley Conference this offseason.
While it is not unusual for players to transfer laterally within the MVC in the women’s game, the men’s side rarely ever sees it.
But it has become a big thing in the 2026 portal season, and it might have started with Bradley guard Demarion Burch transferring to longtime rival Illinois State.
Burch’s departure is believed to be the first time ever a player has transferred between the two longtime rivals. At least, to the best recollection of former sports information directors, players, coaches and media whose BU memory goes back decades.
It triggered teasing on social media by both sides, most of it good-natured. After Burch landed at Illinois State, Wardle’s wife, Lecia, joked on X she would not serve her husband “leftovers.”
Murray State head coach Ryan Miller later phoned Brian Wardle – the two are friends – and told him he was posting that he liked leftovers after the Racers signed two Valley players in a lateral move.
“Loved it, get your tickets!” said Wardle, laughing. “Humor is a positive thing in life. If you can’t laugh at yourself, don’t come into this program. Lecia was making a joke about how players transfer all over the country. It’s not that deep. She has a great sense of humor and she loved Demarion. So we’re having fun with it, both sides are. It’s great for sports to have rivalries, great for ticket sales, for the schools.
“Rivalry schools are getting transfers from each other. It’s a whole new thing, and it’s just the new environment.
“If you had told Hersey Hawkins or Jim Les back then that they were going to go to ISU they’d have had a heart attack.”
Why the moves within the Valley?
Burch was trying to land with a team in California before he chose Illinois State.
Bradley saw center Kai Yu go to Valparaiso. And guard Matthew Zobrist head to Belmont.
Murray State bought Belmont power forward Brigham Rogers and Valparaiso center Shon Tupuola in moves within the MVC.
Indiana State forward Bruno Alocen has landed at Valparaiso. Lucas Scroggins, who played in 2024-25 at Valpo and transferred to Saint Peter’s University last season, jumped back into the Valley with UIC.
There are nearly 7,000 players to sift through if a team is in the market as a buyer. About 2,600 of them are in the NCAA transfer portal. Another 400 are in the JUCO ranks and roughly 4,000 high school players are there to be recruited.
With pressure to maximize a team’s player budget with “Moneyball” type results, transfers within the conference have emerged as a trend.
Yu, Burch, Rogers, Tupuola, Alocen and others are known quantities to teams in the Valley. They’ve seen them play, have intel compiled on them, and they may be considered safer bets.
“We consider it a compliment to our program, actually,” Wardle said. “When our players are in demand from other programs in the conference, it reflects confidence in our program, who we recruited, how we developed them, prepared. We’re happy for those guys.
“We just can’t pay all of them.”
Dave Eminian is the Journal Star senior writer and sports columnist, and covers Bradley men’s basketball, the Rivermen and Chiefs. He writes the Cleve In The Eve sports column for pjstar.com. He can be reached at deminian@pjstar.com. Follow him on X.com @icetimecleve.
This article originally appeared on Journal Star: How watching a movie set the tone for Bradley’s transfer portal strategy
Reporting by Dave Eminian, Peoria Journal Star / Journal Star
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
