Coaches are still figuring out the best way to navigate the transfer portal a half-decade into the player-movement era.
Tod Kowalczyk and his lieutenants have found a successful path: players they recruited out of high school.
Central Michigan guard Kyler VanderJagt and Ohio State center Austin Parks are the most recent University of Toledo additions, following the trend of circling back after the Rockets were previously spurned.
“Most of the guys that we’ve had success with, we had prior relationships with, even going back to Rian Pearson, who followed me [from Wisconsin-Green Bay],” Kowalczyk said. “Spencer Littleson is a guy that we knew a lot about.