When Mike Rosario committed to Rutgers and its then head coach Fred Hill in 2008, it was supposed to be the rebirth (or I suppose, more accurately, birth) of the Scarlet Knight basketball program. Rosario, a McDonald’s All-American and standout at St. Anthony’s in Jersey City for legendary head coach Bob Hurley, chose Rutgers over several other Division I suitors because he wanted to put Rutgers basketball on the map, and because he wanted to be the “prince of New Jersey.” With that four-man recruiting class joining freshman Corey Chandler in Piscataway, the future looked bright for Rutgers. Two years later, all four of those players from the 2008 class have transferred elsewhere, including Rosario who announced in April his decision to transfer to Florida, and Chandler is gone as well. Of course, not surprisingly, the coach who did such a great job putting together that recruiting class, but then failed to get any of them to live up to their potential, is gone. Hill resigned after the season (albeit after a long drawn out affair during which athletic director Tim Pernetti seemingly could not pull the trigger). In his stead, Pernetti hired Mike Rice, a hot name after Rice’s Robert Morris squad gave Villanova everything it could handle in the NCAA Tournament. That’s the good news for Rice. The bad news? Just six scholarship players remain. However, Rice was able to keep Hill-committed recruits Gilvydas Biruta and Austin Carroll, and has garnered commitments from Mike Poole and JuCo transfer Tyree Graham. The talent on the roster is still underwhelming, but at least they’ll be able to scrimmage once practice rolls around, provided there are no injuries or further defections, of course.
So, what does remain for the Scarlet Knights? Not a lot, but they do have one returning full-time starter and three other guys that got their share of starts over the season as well. Jonathan Mitchell, who once transferred from Florida to Rutgers, is the guy who started all 32 games last season. He is a big wing with three-point range and can be deadly when he gets an open look. Beyond that, he is a good fundamental player, doesn’t turn the ball over, doesn’t commit dumb fouls, rebounds pretty well for his position, but is not a game-changer by any means. The three others that got some starts in last season are senior point guard James Beatty, senior combo guard Mike Coburn and sophomore forward Dane Miller. Miller, a great athlete and a major finisher, has quite a bit of potential. He averaged almost ten points a game last season, even more impressive considering very little offense was ever run for him, and he rebounds particularly well for his size, especially on the offensive glass. He is not a good shooter, whether from the field or from the line, but has the mechanics to improve with work. Coburn and Beatty are both decent at the point, nothing special, but between them they can hold down the one spot. Beatty is the better shooter and better defender, but Coburn is capable of the drive-and-dish for open shooters. Then there’s sophomore Austin Johnson, a power forward with the skills to score inside or step out and knock down an 18-foot jumper. While he has yet to make much out of those skills, he’s still got plenty of upside and he will get playing time this season. Frankly, he’ll have to.
As for the recruiting class, Biruta is the prize. He is an athletic aggressive finisher who can shoot from the perimeter and also bowl people over down low. He has a good chance to step in and start immediately for the Knights, and he has plenty of upside. The rest of the class is a mixed bag, but given Rice’s need for bodies, they’ll do fine. Carroll is a good secondary player, not a creator by any means, but a good passer and capable of stretching defenses with his range. Poole, a 6-6 small forward and Graham, a 6-1 shooting guard and junior college transfer, round out the recruiting class; both were added late in the recruiting process after Rice had already taken the reigns. Poole is an athletic defender with the capability of knocking down some shots, but like Carroll, he is more of a role player than a primary guy. Graham started his career at Texas Tech before heading the JuCo route, and he is an undersized scoring guard with the ability to run some point. All of these guys will have plenty of chances to earn playing time, if only by default.
Things are not good in the Rutgers basketball program right now, but Rice has at least gotten off to a good start with keeping the already committed recruits and adding some bodies to round out the roster, but 2010-11 figures to be a particularly tough season, with the Knights likely ready to battle it out for the basement slot. The good news is there’s absolutely no pressure on Rice or this team this season; expectations are low, the situation is bad, and resources are limited. The good news is, there’s nowhere to go but up from here.
It’s now been just about four months since the Friars played their final game of a disastrous 12-19 campaign that ended with 11 straight losses, but as bad as last season’s results were, these four months have been far worse for head coach Keno Davis and his program. First, it was announced that point guard Johnnie Lacy and center Russ Permenter would be transferring out of the program. Then, a couple days later, Lacy and freshman center James Still were charged with felony assault, with Still having since been suspended pending an investigation of the incident, with expulsion still possible, even likely. A month later, the bright spot in the Friar program was extinguished, when leading scorer and rebounder Jamine “Greedy” Peterson was kicked off the team. About a week later, assistant coach Pat Skerry left to head to Big East rival Pitt, and in the process, severely hurt Providence’s recruiting, with incoming ’10 recruit Joseph Young announcing via his father, that due to an aunt with medical concerns, Young would be looking to stay closer to his Houston home for school. Since then, Davis and Providence have chosen to deny Young’s request to be released from his Letter of Intent, all while taking a (well-deserved) PR hit in the process. To add salt to the wounds, PC’s biggest recruit and the only verbal commit for the class of ’11, Naadir Tharpe, decommitted from Providence and opened his recruitment back up, citing the loss of Skerry as the main reason in his decision. And, all of this came after junior guard Kyle Wright left the team abruptly at the tail end of last season to focus on his academics. Really, the highlight of the offseason so far has been the confirmation that center Ray Hall will be able to return for a fifth season of eligibility. While Hall is a good kid who has overcome injury issues in his career, he is a severely limited big man who is little more than a warm body, averaging a point and a rebound in his 71 minutes of action last season. When that is your good news for the offseason, you know it has been a disaster.
The remains for the Friars do include two returning starters. Power forward Bilal Dixon started 30 of PC’s 31 games during his freshman season (after taking a redshirt the previous year), and was effective, averaging about nine points and eight rebounds a night, numbers which should improve in his second season. Dixon is also a strong interior presence on defense, as he blocked about two shots a game for the Friars. Guard Marshon Brooks also returns after having started 25 games last season. He is a wispy left-hander, capable of scoring from the perimeter or slipping into the lane and scoring in a variety of ways. He’ll likely be the go-to scorer for the Friars. Sophomore Vincent Council got a handful of starts in his first season and is now the only experienced point guard on the Providence roster, so he’ll clearly be counted on for a ton of minutes. Already expected to be the main man replacing departed point Sharaud Curry, the departure of Lacy merely cements Council’s stranglehold on the position. He is a penetrating point with acrobatic finishing ability and a penchant for finding open teammates for easy looks and the Friar offense is in very competent hands with him in charge.
While Dixon, Brooks and Council form a nice nucleus for the Friars, the problem is going to be rounding out the rest of the roster. Probably the most intriguing talent on the rest of the team is incoming off-guard Gerard Coleman, a smooth and lanky lefty that is perhaps a newer version of Brooks with more upside, impossibly skinny, terrific in the open court, improving perimeter game and a very strong and disruptive defender. He’ll be called on for plenty of minutes, and may need to start as a third guard, just to get the best five on the court for the Friars.
The fifth starting spot is wide open, and will likely go to one of a number of bigs. Hall could possibly snatch up the starting center spot (bumping Dixon to his more natural four spot), but if there is any hopes of a successful season for the Friars, coach Davis has got to hope that someone else wins the spot. Candidates include 6-7 redshirt freshman Kadeem Batts and three incoming freshmen: 6-8 Brice Kofane, 6-5 Ron Giplaye and 6-9 Alex Gavrilovic. Batts, Kofane and Giplaye are all strong rebounders and defenders who are varying degrees of raw offensively, but Gavrilovic is an intriguing prospect. A native of France, he possesses the skilled offensive game of the stereotypical European big man, but has a mean streak to pair with it. While he may be a year or so away from really being able to play in the Big East, it would be a nice surprise to see him step up and earn significant minutes.
Depth in the backcourt will be provided by two players: 6-4 sophomore shooting guard Duke Mondy and 5-10 freshman point guard Dre Evans. Evans was the last signee of this year’s six-man recruiting class and is a tiny scoring point who is at his best in transition. Mondy, one of Davis’ seven-man recruiting class from last year (of which it is likely that just three players will suit up for the Friars in 2010-11) is an active and energetic defender with good three-point range.
Technically, Young and Still are still on the squad and will be available for the Friars, but the odds of either one of them seeing any action, even in practice, in 2010-11 are exceedingly slim. If Young does somehow wind up with the team, however, he would be a definite asset. He is primarily a three-point bomber with in-the-gym range, but is skilled enough to get in the paint and score, a useful tool for any team, but even more so for a team like this that is a little undertalented. If Still is exonerated from his felony assault charge and avoids expulsion, he will be in the mix with the bigs for either a starting spot or a role off the bench.
As Davis enters his third season in Providence, the natives are getting restless. After leading his team to a winning record and an NIT berth in his first season, last season and the offseason has been an unmitigated disaster. Hopefully Friar fans are patient, however, because Davis is a very capable coach and an excellent recruiter, and frankly the PC job is not an easy one. There is probably not enough talent on this current Friar squad to compete for an NCAA tournament berth, but if Davis and his staff can settle Tharpe concerns over the make-up of the program, a backcourt of Council, Coleman and Tharpe in 2011 is a pretty exciting prospect. Better days are coming for the Providence program, even if those days are hard to foresee from this current trough.
Last year was supposed to be a bit of a rebuilding year for the Panthers, having lost DeJuan Blair, Sam Young and LaVance Fields from their Elite Eight (and oh so close to Final Four) squad. But Ashton Gibbs had a breakout season as a sophomore, Brad Wannamaker stepped up as a team leader and Pitt got solid contributions from veterans Gilbert Brown (after his academic suspension in the first semester) and the since-graduated Jermaine Dixon. Along the way, Jamie Dixon’s club made a habit out of winning tight Big East games and wound up posting a 25-9 record. With four returning starters and with Dixon the only major loss from last season’s squad, there is plenty of hope around the program that the best this group has to offer is still to be seen.
Gibbs and Wannamker join senior center Gary McGhee and junior forward Nasir Robinson as the four returning starters, but Brown also returns for his senior year, and while he did not start a single game last season, he is a veteran who has already played in 95 games as a Panther and even started a few games as a sophomore before falling back into the role of a key spark off the bench. Brown is an athletic wing that is good on both ends of the court, and would fit right in as the fifth starter for the Panthers. However, regardless of whether he starts or continues in his role as a sixth man, he figures to finish most close games for Dixon.
While McGhee and Robinson are the incumbents along the frontline, each will have to work to keep their jobs, with former McDonald’s All-American Dante Taylor perhaps poised for a breakout sophomore season of his own. Taylor was already the best offensive rebounder on the team as a freshman, and with a year of experience under his belt and his athleticism around the rim, he could take over for the undersized Robinson at the four spot. Robinson, however, won’t let that happen without a fight, given that his scrappy style is emblematic of the Pitt program since the Ben Howland-sparked resurgence began. McGee, for that matter, is also a big man who makes his presence felt mainly through hard work and hustle. A less-than-amazing athletic threat, McGhee is not a huge factor on the offensive end, but can get on the glass and body up against physical Big East post players. Sophomore J.J. Richardson and redshirt freshman Talib Zanna will be counted on to provide depth up front, and both have a lot to prove, but given the history of Pitt post players developing over their career into consistent contributors, an eye should be kept on both undersized players for improvement. Both players have been double-double threats in Pitt’s summer league games thus far.
In the backcourt, things are more or less settled. Gibbs and Wannamaker will be the starters with sophomore point guard Travon Woodall the first guard off the pine and something close to a third starter back there. While Gibbs is the flashiest of the bunch, and will likely be the team’s leading scorer again this season, Woodall is a rising star whose lead –guard abilities mesh well with Gibbs’ ability to play off the ball and make use of his pure shooting skills. Wannamaker, on the other hand, is quiet and solid. While not a great shooter nor a true point, he has developed into an excellent offensive player, scoring, setting up teammates and generally running the offense smoothly, all while being a particularly annoying defender on the other end of the court. With this trio, the Pitt backcourt is in solid hands. As a bonus, reinforcements arrive in the form of two members of the three members of this year’s recruiting class: 6-4 shooting guard Cameron Wright and 6-2 point Isaiah Epps. Epps is a quick little lefty who is a terrific ballhandler and passer with great court vision and the ability to either penetrate or pull-up for the jumper. Wright is a slashing guard whose shooting ability can be favorably described as streaky. Neither guy needs to be counted on this season, but it is likely Dixon will find some minutes for these guys somewhere in order to get a feel for their potential.
Redshirt freshman Lamar Patterson and incoming freshman J.J. Moore give the Panthers additional depth at the three, and both should fight it out for minutes in relief of Brown. Patterson played a handful of games for Pitt last season before severely spraining his ankle and receiving a medical redshirt. He is a versatile athlete whose gifts could help him force his way into Dixon’s rotation. Moore, meanwhile, is the most highly regarded of this year’s three-man recruiting class, another versatile athlete who is comfortable both stroking it from three and slashing to the lane. Given the depth of this Panther squad, it is not out of the question that Moore will also don a redshirt for his first year.
With such a loaded roster, the fact that the squad will be making use of an NCAA rule that allows programs to take one foreign trip every four years with a 12-day six-game visit to Ireland this summer should just provide the team to continue to form into a cohesive unit, before fall practice is even on the horizon. The freshmen will be eligible to participate in the trip provided that the complete at least one three-unit course in the summer session, and at this point it looks like Moore and Wright will be able to take advantage of the opportunity, while Epps will not. Ideally Coach Dixon will be able to get a glimpse at how to work all these talented players into a cohesive rotation, while exploiting the extra practice time that he’ll get to spend with his team. Already the favorite in the Big East, this little bit of team-building could make the difference between a very good team and a great team.
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