Polzin: The only way to make sense of Chucky Hepburn's transfer decision is to consider the dollars and cents (2024)

While the question wasn’t posed to Chucky Hepburn, he politely asked if he could have a shot at answering it.

It was March 2, and the University of Wisconsin men’s basketball team just had dropped a 91-83 decision at home to Illinois. Hepburn and his teammates were frustrated by the defeat — the Badgers’ seventh in nine games at the time — and yet able to put the setback into proper perspective.

What mattered most to the Wisconsin program that Saturday afternoon was Howard Moore’s triumphant return to the Kohl Center. His pregame appearance on the court marked the first time he’d been in the building since the tragic May 2019 crash that killed Moore’s wife and daughter and led to complications that have left him severely disabled.

A touching pregame ceremony left fans, coaches, players and, yes, even media members, in tears. After I wondered aloud during Wisconsin’s postgame how the Badgers could focus on a game after Moore’s emotional visit, Hepburn asked to offer his perspective after Tyler Wahl had finished answering the question.

“Just seeing that before the game, seeing everybody’s support makes me really proud to be in the Badger jersey,” Hepburn said. “That’s why I have a Badger tattoo. This is not just a fan base, it’s not just basketball, it’s not just sports. It’s beyond that. It’s a brotherhood. It’s a family.

“That’s why I love wearing this Badger jersey. It means more than just playing basketball, just playing the sport. I’m really proud to be a Badger and will always be proud to be a Badger.”

It was at that moment that I felt confident that Hepburn would be back at Wisconsin for his senior season in 2024-25. I’d had my doubts up until that point, thoughts that admittedly were based on nothing more than the combination of conversations over the course of months, my own observations and the messy landscape that has become college athletics.

Greg Gard and his staff essentially had to re-recruit Hepburn when other suitors came calling following his sophom*ore season. Plus, he looked unhappy at times during a 2023-24 season in which Wisconsin, for the second consecutive season, was limping toward the finish line.

But there was Hepburn in that cramped Kohl Center room, sporting the Badger tattoo while talking about family and brotherhood and how wearing the Wisconsin jersey made him proud. To my ears, that meant he’d be a Badger for life.

How foolish on my part in retrospect to draw that conclusion.

Hepburn announced Thursday afternoon that he plans to enter his name in the NCAA transfer portal, an announcement that came on the heels of the breaking news that AJ Storr, Wisconsin’s leading scorer this past season, is transferring to Kansas.

If you’re scoring at home, that’s arguably the two most valuable players gone from a roster that went 22-14 and earned a No. 5 seed in the NCAA tournament before exiting with an opening-round loss to James Madison four weeks ago.

Gard already was in the process of trying to replace Storr, and he hoped to land Omaha transfer Frankie Fidler to fill that spot. Wisconsin had an in with Fidler; that is, until his high school teammate at Bellevue West, Hepburn, announced he was leaving the Badgers.

Don’t be surprised if the two end up as a package deal at another major program.

The challenging part of trying to digest this Hepburn news is wading through the rumor mill and trying to uncover what’s real and what’s fake. Hepburn, for his part, posted a statement on social media that read like an it’s-not-you-it’s-me breakup letter to Wisconsin.

“As I embark on this new chapter and enter the transfer portal, please know that my decision is not a reflection of anything lacking at Wisconsin,” Hepburn said at one point. “Rather, it is an opportunity for me to explore new possibilities and continue my journey in pursuit of my dreams.”

The natural assumption in this day and age is that Hepburn received an offer he couldn’t refuse. Gard basically confirmed as much in a statement to reporters, saying: “In today’s college basketball, players are making transactional decisions all over the country at every level.”

It was only two weeks ago that Gard was excited to report during an interview on Milwaukee’s 97.3 The Game that his program had stepped up its game in the name, image and likeness department. “We’ve been able to almost triple our NIL collective in terms of men’s basketball in a year.”

Still, that war chest isn’t unlimited and apparently leaves the Badgers well behind other programs with deeper pockets. Multiple sources close to the Wisconsin program said Thursday that Hepburn won’t be shopping around in the portal because he already has a done deal.

And while that sounds an awful lot like poaching to me, good luck snaking your way through the backchannels to prove it. Welcome to college basketball in 2024, where the options for those of us who love the game are to cringe and adjust to a new line of thinking or stop watching.

“There’s no time to complain about the system in place,” Gard said in his statement to reporters. “We’re dedicating all of our energy right now into finding the next fits for our program. In fact, minutes after talking to Chucky about this, I was already pursuing another talented point guard who is in the portal. This is the reality of college basketball today.”

That new reality for coaches includes divvying up a “salary” pool each year while apparently dealing with competing offers.

Iowa coach Fran McCaffery earlier this month told the university’s Presidential Committee on Athletics that point guard Tony Perkins was leaving the Hawkeyes “because he has a market value probably in the neighborhood of $500,000.” McCaffery didn’t have the funds to pay Perkins, who ended up at Missouri.

If Hepburn is a better player than Perkins, it’s not by much. But let’s say that $500,000 is a fair market value for Hepburn, who started 103 games over three seasons, and let’s assume that Wisconsin was willing to pay that.

The tricky part is being forced to up the ante for Hepburn. Is it worth it to pay high six figures to a player who hasn’t been selected to an All-Big Ten first, second or third team during his career? Hepburn has been a dependable player, but he hasn’t been elite.

That said, his departure leaves a significant hole at the most important position on the roster. Gard, whose lack of recent NCAA tournament success has been well documented, now has to scramble to find a veteran point guard in the portal in addition to searching for a scoring wing and an upgrade at the “4” spot previously occupied by Tyler Wahl.

He has a busy and challenging spring ahead of him.

As for Hepburn, here’s hoping this move doesn’t backfire on him. If this was a case of there simply being too much money on the table to pass up, it’s hard for me to criticize a 21-year-old setting himself up for the future.

But I do find myself wondering a couple things:

First, did Hepburn stop to consider the doors that would be open to him for the next few decades while being armed with a Wisconsin degree and legacy as a four-year starter and program favorite?

And how much does it cost to remove a Badger tattoo?