Add GU’s Oumar Ballo to the transfer list.
7footer, he is young, still only 18 as a RS frosh, reclassified and moved up a year and arrived at GU at barely 17. Raw and project but you can’t teach his size and given his age I could see him develop in to a formidable player.
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Yeah, had a feeling that wouldn’t go well. Probably good to reclassify for his pro career but not good to waste a year not playing at Gonzaga.
Will be interesting to see what level he goes for next.
New WCC transfer to add to the list:
USD guard, Finn Sullivan, 2 years of eligibility remaining.
USD landed a transfer from St. John’s, junior Marcellus Earlington, 6-6 forward.
Appears to be a decent get…averaged about 8pts, 4.5 rebounds in 18mins/game over the past 2 years. Shot 40% from 3 this season.
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Last year was better from 2 and worse from 3. With more attempts.
Torvik had him at 1.2 this year and 1.9 last year. Pretty good for a big boy conference. If he can combine the best of his last two seasons, USD will have quite a player.
Braun was 1.2, albeit in a bigger boy conference and in fewer minutes. Just for comparison’s sake.
Legans at Portland is getting some of his former EWU players to transfer to Portland.
Recently: point guards, Mike Meadows and Jack Perry and wing Tyler Robertson. All were starters or regular rotation guys at EWU.
And Portland’s freshmen forward, Hayden Curtiss had entered his name in the portal but appears he has decided to stay. Plus Legans has landed a couple of 2021 recruits. Portland now with a roster of 7 scholarships players…still a ways to go but better than the Zero they were at a few weeks ago.
Saw somewhere that Legans offered the 12 year old younger brother of the Groves. I guess neither of the older brothers has committed, in fact only Tanner showed on the 247 portal list this a.m. If either went to Portland next year, they will be a decent team, even if mainly a reconstituted EWU @ Portland.
Saw that as well. Clearly Legans has a good relationship with the Groves family and is probably trying to solidify that with offering the little bro.
I’d be surprised if Legans lands Tanner as he has some higher level suitors. Landing Jacob is more likely…but IMO he’s not as good as Tanner, different players, Tanner is a true post and bigger, Jacob is a wing. Jacob’s Kansas game was a career night for him, not sustainable. Jacob could be a good, solid WCC player but not 1st team All-league caliber IMO. Living in Spokane I saw them both play in HS, Tanner was much more dominant, Jacob had a solid HS career but was behind several others in the league and didn’t really stand out.
That’s pretty disgusting, tbh. Offering a 12 year old a scholarship. Hopefully his parents see that for what it is.
Shouldn’t be allowed to offer a kid until he’s at least a sophomore.
Loyola adds another one: CS-Northridge forward Alex Merviladze. 10 pts, 7 rebs as a freshman, not the most efficient though. Probably more of a development piece and bench guy next year.
If Torvik is anything to go by, Robertson looks like one of thebest newcomers in the conference (non Gonzaga division). And a younger transfer. But Ahmad Ali was highly rated and Portland was still terrible. But it’s a good start.
Both of the Groves brothers from Eastern Washington are headed to Oklahoma.
Oklahoma?? That does not seem to me like a good fit for them. I thought they’d end up in an upper Midwest Big10 team, like Iowa.
They want another shot at Kansas?
They’ll be joining fellow March madness rise to fame in the coach - porter moser.
A little surprised for Jacob. I guess Oklahoma was willing to reach for Jacob in order to land Tanner. I don’t see Jacob as a legit Big12 starter but we’ll see…he has improved a lot since high school, maybe that improvement continues.
Feel bad for EWU…they would have had most of their playing rotation back next season but now with Legans’ departure their top 7 rotation guys have all transferred. Their 2nd best player, Kim Aiken (Def POY in the league, good athlete, solid scorer as well) transferred to Arizona prior to Lloyd’s hire. Their best returning player averaged 4pts/2 assists this season.
EWU’s athletic department is seriously in the red. They’ve never been well funded and don’t pay their coaches much which has to be the primary reason Legans left for a somewhat lateral move to place where it’s difficult to win. I suspect Legans was making at or below $200k. There is serious talk of EWU dropping down a division (or two) due to their ongoing funding challenges…would be a shame as they also have perennial top 20 football program. Emblematic of the financial struggles of many athletic programs are facing.
Honestly probably half of D1 would be better off in D3. The only upside to being in D1 if you’re in a lower half league is the March Madness lottery ticket.
And there’s basically no reason for D2 to exist at all. But if everyone was in D3 thta should be, there would be 800 teams in it and then there would be a D4 lol.
Good get for USF, Meeks was a part-time starter for Nevada, 9pts, 6rebs in 22mins/game. Dropped 16pts and 5rebounds on us in our beat down loss to Nevada in Dec.-2019.
With Meeks, Massalski (from USD) and Tape (from Columbia and Duke) USF is addressing their need to get stronger and better in the frontcourt…huge weakness for them this season.
USF also added guard veteran guard Gabe Stefanini, also from Columbia, presumably to replace Bouyea. Was All-Ivy and averaged, 14pts/5rebs/4assists/1.5steals and shot 42% from 3 in 2018-2019. Didn’t play in 2019-20 (injured I assume) and of course the Ivy didn’t play this season.
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