BillySee58

Every player comes to a school with the intention of being a starter at some point in their career. For a grad transfer that is only one season. If you read his words, he’s a smart dude. He came off the bench his entire NDSU career. Seems pretty apparent he wants to start in his last college season, and he had quality options. I don’t think Mccasland guaranteed him a starting spot, but I think the only way we would be able to get him is if we can give him something pretty close to that. I think Gibson goes back to the bench. We need bench scoring. Reese allows you to do that. He might be the best rebounder on the roster, he’s tall and athletic, and he has offensive skill. He had more rebounds per 100 possessions than anyone on our roster who played significant minutes, and he had good shooting and offensive numbers. Like I said, he gives you size and skill. Mccasland does not start four guards as his default. If he has a big guy who has the skill to be that stretch four, he doesn’t have to start someone who is 6’3” at the four. Geu gives us that. Its hard to imagine that guys like Bell or Mohamed in their first year at the D1 level could give us the production that Geu had last year. And Geu should not only be improved from that, but should also have an expanded role. If you extrapolate Geu’s numbers last season to be over 25 minutes a game (instead of the 18.3 that he averaged) you’re looking at 13 points and 7 rebounds a game. That’d be a really quality player, and I expect him to make another leap like he has every year in college, especially with his shooting.

Completely agree. Mccasland wants skill out of his four. It doesn’t have to be a guard. And Geu has some quality suitors. I doubt he comes here with the intention of being a backup for his senior season

You just can’t have more than 13 scholarship players when the semester starts

He visited NC Greensboro. They went 29-7 last year. Good recruiting job to get this guy.

Those stats for Geu were from his sophomore season in 17-18

Uh oh. This makes me wonder if the staff has not prepared themselves for making room (i.e. the guys we feel may be on the bubble have not actually been informed that they might not be in the program’s future). Like we’ve said before, the staff giving scholarships to players who had no other offers and didn’t look like CUSA-level players is something they’re paying for now that recruiting has picked up.

Thomas Bell seems like Jahmiah Simmons with a three-point shot. Wonder if that means anything about Jahmiah’s future

Yeah, looking that way.

6’5”. Averaged 17.7 and 7.6. Seems like a good fit for the stretch four role.

But they did burn Alcindor’s redshirt, early in the season during non-conference play. And he picked up 10 fouls in 39 minutes. If the staff is high on Alcindor that scares me that Woolridge really is the one gone.

This is huge. We got our top targets instead settling which is a huge step forward. @Harrythe fact that he has committed makes me think he was pitched with a chance to start after being a stalwart on the bench at NDSU. So maybe not a 4-guard look after all. Also note, his stats were accumulated while averaging just 18 minutes per game. He has the shooting ability to be a stretch four but also could fill the five role when Simmons goes to the bench.

Yes. Looks like Hamlet has two years to play two seasons (already took his redshirt) and Reese has three years to play two seasons (still has his redshirt, though plan would be to not use it)

The first thought many fans had after seeing these signings, and even seeing the offers a while back, was why weren’t we recruiting more big men. And I get that, and also agree that we don’t have the stable of big men that we should. Even if we are going to run out four-guard lineups. But even those these two are not big men, they are going to help out a lot, partially because of their size. A big issue we had last year was creating offense and creating good looks. We would sometimes go long stretches of basketball without getting really any good looks, or take up the entire shot clock and never get a good look the whole possession. This is what led to all of those halves of 25 or less points. Part of the reason we struggled to get good looks is our lack of height. Short guys need more space for an open look than tall guys. Another reason is lack of quality creators. It was really just Woolridge, and Miller to a smaller degree. Smart is a high usage player but he struggled when he put the ball on the floor. Reese and Hamlet will help address this. Reese is listed at 6’4”. He needs less space between his man to get a clean look off than shorter guys like Draper and Gibson. Plus his shooting stats were outstanding, so his ability to convert those clean looks is impressive (80 threes in 34 games, 41.9% from three, 86.6% from the line). Also, starting Reese next to Smart will allow Rose to play the two which is where he has gotten most of his best looks. Smart getting back to anywhere near his sophomore form would make this a very dynamic off-the-ball scoring duo from the perimeter. As for Hamlet, he is no slouch as a shooter either but his game is creating and playmaking with the ball in his hands. Hamlet was very efficient as a shooter (44.8% from three and 83.8% from the line) but his lack of volume illustrates that he isn’t coming here to jack up a bunch of threes, as he made just 26 in 33 games. Hamlet is very good at getting into the lane and pulling in defenders. With guys like Reese, Gibson, and Smart (once he returns to form) on the perimeter, Hamlet will have his choice of quality three-point shooters to find once he collapses the defense. But I think Zachary Simmons may benefit even more from the addition of Hamlet than the shooters. Hamlet does a great job of dishing to his big men once he gets down low, and Simmons is a quality finisher. There has been speculation about Woolridge’s return. Assuming Woolridge comes back, adding Hamlet and Jalen Jackson will give Woolridge much more rest throughout games, and should lead to a much more rested and less worn down Woolridge come conference play and tourney play. But Hamlet is clearly not just here to give Woolridge rest. I think the coaches not only believe they can play together, but I think we may see them use more lineups with two ballhandlers going forward. Having two players who can create offense and create good looks can help prevent these stagnant phases that we saw so much of last year towards the end of the season. So in short, we still lack quality size but these guys do address two very key areas that we struggled with last year, in impressive fashion as they both are quite good at what they do.

Boom. Well done. Hope this is how the staff treats our scholarship openings from here on out instead of giving it to guys who no one else wants after the players other people did want signed elsewhere.

That’s what I was thinking about Hamlet. Even checked Woolridge’s twitter to see if there was anything there haha. I’m not a J Simmons fan. Hurt or not, he’s 6’4” and is a very below average shooter. But it’s pretty clear Mccasland likes him for some reason, so I would be surprised to see him gone too.

If I had to put money on it I’d say we move on from at least two out of Alcindor, Tikhonenko, and Jahmiah Simmons. We were recruiting Deng Geu, a 6’8” grad transfer from North Dakota State. He’d be a good fit. Someone who could play the four or the five. Gotta think that’s where we are going next.

Reese had just visited Colorado State and Murray State. Impressive to get him after what Murray State just did, especially with the guards they have produced recently (Canaan, Morant). Also had an SMU offer

seems like an impressive recruiting job

That’s awesome. Technically we are full on scholarships now but hard to imagine we are done

Commits to UNT!

Brings us to one open scholarship at the moment

Committed today. 6’3” guard from Northwest Florida State College. Averaged 17.8 points/game, shot 44.8% from three http://www.verbalcommits.com/players/javion-hamlet http://www.nwfraiders.com/sports/mbkb/2018-19/bios/hamlet_javion_s356

Recruiting has been bad under Mccasland. What’s even more frustrating is that he has given scholarships to players who don’t seem to bring the program anything yet have multiple seasons of eligibility left. I don’t want to go into next season hoping players are able to do things they have shown no signs of being capable of doing.

Commits to UNT

Difference between those two is Carpenter’s recruitment blew up after he committed. Johnson never officially received another offer after he committed to us and ended up going to play where his high school coach is at. Hope we can convince Carpenter to re-commit but even if we don’t we are stacked at receiver for the future.