The closest that college basketball gets to free agency is the transfer market as hundreds of Division I players transfer every year, and this season is no exception. Just look at players like Kentucky guard Quade Green, TCU guard Jaylen Fisher and Arizona forward Emmanuel Akot, who are all transferring.

Here’s a list of more than 100 players who have announced their decision to transfer since the start of the season.

The hope for players who transfer is to find a school where they can carve out a significant role on a winning team.

We examined transfers from Division I schools who are now – at the very least – rotation players in their first season playing for a new school that is currently ranked in the top 25 of the AP poll or on kenpom.com. In short, these are key players for the best teams in the country.

In October, we named the top 25 transfers who will make an impact this season and 13 of them play for current top-25 teams, as defined above.

Here are the 33 transfers in total who are playing in their first season for a current top-25 team, along with their offensive rating and usage rate, which add context to the roles and impact of these players.

They range from a First Team All-American candidate in Kansas forward Dedric Lawson to Louisville reserve guard Khwan Fore, who plays roughly 45 percent of the team’s available minutes and uses just 11.8 percent of the Cardinals’ possessions when he’s on the floor – the lowest of this group of players.

There are 15 schools that are in the latest AP Top 25 Poll or the top 25 of kenpom.com that have at least one new transfer in their rotation (as of Tuesday afternoon). Nine top-25 teams have multiple transfers in their rotation, including NC State (five), Nevada (five), Louisville (four) and Kansas (three).

In the scatter plot above, you’ll notice that most of these transfers have become efficient role players on their new teams. An offensive rating around 100 to 105 is considered average and 24 of these transfers have an offensive rating of at least 100, using data from kenpom.com.

The website defines a role player as someone who uses between 16 and 20 percent of his team’s offensive possessions when he’s on the floor, meaning the possession ends in that player making a shot, taking a shot that is missed and rebounded by the defense, or turning the ball over. Fourteen players listed on the chart above have a usage rate between 15 and 20 percent, while players like Kansas’ Dedric Lawson (28.9%), Iowa State’s Marial Shayok (28.2%) and Gonzaga’s Brandon Clarke (23.7%) have become focal points on offense in their first season playing for their new schools.

Check out the breakdown of each player, his usage rate, his offensive rating and his points per game average.

Player	School	Usage Rate	Offensive Rating	Points Per Game
Braxton Key	Virginia	17.60%	128.3	7.6
Brandon Clarke	Gonzaga	23.70%	133.5	16.5
Geno Crandall	Gonzaga	19.10%	84.8	5.1
Evan Boudreaux	Purdue	23.20%	119.6	7.1
Dedric Lawson	Kansas	28.90%	114.7	19.5
Charlie Moore	Kansas	16.10%	86.9	3.3
KJ Lawson	Kansas	17.10%	112.1	2.7
Matt Mooney	Texas Tech	22.20%	94.0	10.7
Tariq Owens	Texas Tech	17.80%	113.1	8.1
Reid Travis	Kentucky	21.10%	119.4	13.0
Marial Shayok	Iowa State	28.20%	112.1	19.8
Michael Jacobson	Iowa State	21.80%	120.1	13.1
Samir Doughty	Auburn	15.80%	123.1	8.4
Akoy Agau	Louisville	24.80%	95.7	2.2
Steven Enoch	Louisville	21.70%	114.0	9.6
Christen Cunningham	Louisville	18.50%	121.2	10.4
Khwan Fore	Louisville	11.80%	92.0	3.3
Trey Porter	Nevada	18.60%	112.5	6.9
Nisre Zouzoua	Nevada	19.90%	65.9	1.6
Jazz Johnson	Nevada	14.20%	140.8	11.2
Tre’Shawn Thurman	Nevada	15.00%	108.0	6.7
Corey Henson	Nevada	13.70%	111.5	4.1
Kavell Bigby-Williams	LSU	17.60%	125.6	7.5
Ed Morrow	Marquette	23.10%	100.3	5.9
Joseph Chartouny	Marquette	15.40%	96.5	4.3
Dejon Jarreau	Houston	29.50%	100.3	8.1
Brison Gresham	Houston	14.10%	107.9	3.8
Joe Cremo	Villanova	14.80%	106.9	5.4
Devon Daniels	NC State	23.10%	98.2	10.5
Blake Harris	NC State	22.20%	98.9	3.8
CJ Bryce	NC State	19.20%	125.3	12.2
Wyatt Walker	NC State	14.80%	114.7	5.9
Eric Lockett	NC State	15.50%	127.2	5.8

 

Keep this data in mind, especially in March, as we hit the annual cycle of college basketball players announcing their decisions to transfer – an occurrence that some label an “epidemic” – because more than half of the teams currently in the top 25 dipped into the transfer market to fill at least one key role in their rotations.

Some schools, like Kansas and Iowa State, have even landed their best player this way.