We brought in 3 players for this years team from the portal. One started, one never played, one was a back up who could contribute a few minutes off the bench and spent half the season injured. The portal can be as much a crapshoot as high school recruiting. It certainly is part of the game, and as you lose players to it, you need to be able to replace them from it. Also, VT is in a great position to be attractive to players from lower level teams looking to move up to greener pastures and to players at higher level teams looking for more playing time. So, VT can potentially really benefit from the portal. But, I still think the foundation of the team will be high school recruits coming with four years of eligibility, instead of portal players coming with 1,2 or in some cases 3 years of eligibility. Portal players are nice add-ons to fill specific needs, but if they become the foundation of your team you are probably in trouble as a program. So I don't think the portal is more critical, however, it has become a necessary part of college basketball so you better handle it well or your program will suffer.