CLEMSON -- For those who watch college basketball as a form of entertainment, this time of year is about brackets and March Madness.

For those who coach and play the game, it's quickly become One Scouting Moment -- coaches scouting players, and players scouting potential destinations.

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"You want an NBA front office type setup," Yahoo's Dan Wetzel said on a recent podcast, "where you are watching other teams' players and saying: 'Who can I get?' ...

"The kids who have gone through (recruiting) and now they're 20 and all of a sudden they're looking to transfer, they're different too. They're like, 'Where do I fit in?'"

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Welcome to the dance behind The Big Dance, the new normal that comes with the presumed advent of the one-time transfer exception.

Clemson's basketball program has been well acquainted with the transfer world for years, and Brad Brownell's skilled navigation of it helped produce a Round of 16 appearance three years ago on the strength of transfers Marcquise Reed, Elijah Thomas and Shelton Mitchell.

But it's much different now because there will be no penalty for one-time transfers. That was hammered home in recent days when Clemson lost John Newman and then Olivier-Maxence Prosper.

Newman's decision didn't feel like that big a deal. Prosper's absolutely did.

Newman, whose playing time dipped dramatically from his second to third season, told his hometown newspaper in Greensboro that he's looking for a school "that's going to win, has a family feel and allows me to play my game to the fullest."

He said the teams that have reached out include Appalachian State, Charlotte, Elon, Liberty, N.C. A&T, UNC-Asheville, UNC-Greensboro and UNC-Wilmington.

"I'd like to go to a program that plays my style -- athletic, fast up and down the floor, defense-minded," he told the paper.

Newman left with the staff's blessings. He put in his time and isn't far from graduating. Fair enough, in other words.

Prosper's departure is much tougher to take. He showed plenty of promise and was in line to start next season. We're guessing he'd still be here if leaving meant having to sit out a year.

If you adjust your thinking on talent procurement away from the traditional method and mold it according to where things are and where they are headed, you could make a strong case that the most prized recruit is exactly what Prosper was: A talented freshman with lots of upside and several years of eligibility.

As shocking as it feels in the moment to see a foundational piece up and leave, the fact is it's happening everywhere and will continue to.

Folks, this is only the beginning.

In Chapel Hill, they are still trying to process the news that Walker Kessler -- another promising freshman -- decided to depart. People who cover North Carolina closely are anticipating more transfers.

It's one thing for Clemson's tradition-parched program to experience a trend of defections and remake itself into one that invests more time and energy into the transfer market.

But North Freaking Carolina? Yeah, it's a new era indeed.

And while it's perfectly reasonable to say college athletics made its own bed with all the wretched excess that allows coaches and administrators to make out like bandits financially in an endeavor supposedly based on amateurism, it's also fair to be afraid of where we are headed and what things are going to look like.

We would argue that a lot of this could be solved simply by maintaining the one-year sit for transfers not including graduates or athletes in some other specific circumstances such as their coach getting fired or leaving for another job.

But it doesn't seem like that toothpaste can be placed back into the tube. This is just where we are: Some estimates say there are already 800 players in the portal, with forecasts of double that by July.

"I think it will be the most significant piece of legislation that's ever happened in college basketball," Roy Williams said. "I'm old school. I believe if you have a little adversity, you ought to fight through it and it makes you stronger at the end. I believe when you make a commitment, that commitment should be solid and it should be to do everything you can to make it work out.

"I understand freedom and I understand it's a new world and I understand they're not my generation. But I do think there's something about making a commitment and sticking with it and fighting through adversity. It's an old-school, deep-down belief: I don't think it's the right thing to do. You have to sit out a year, guys have stayed around and said: 'Hey, I'm really glad that I stayed around.' I'm not sitting on the fence, because I don't like it. But it's what we have and we've got to work with it."

Back at Clemson, will the recent two defections be the extent of it for Brownell's squad? While there's hope it is, there's not exactly strong conviction from what we can gather.

So we wait. And while we watch March Madness for the fun of it, coaches here and elsewhere are watching for much more.

Fans pore over their brackets. Coaches pore over evaluations of someone else's players.

Just call it the college basketball postseason scouting combine.

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