August 1, 2014
There are five senior scholarship players on this year's roster. That large recruiting budget will come in handy.
Three of our seniors are bigs:
Clark Nolan,
Donnie Pope, and
Lewis Hewett.
Dana Broughton is a wing, and
Willard Davis is a point guard. Nolan and Broughton are the only members of the Class of 2015 who have played significant minutes.
I try to maintain a good positional balance among our scholarship players, and I used to simply recruit direct replacements for our graduates. But now I'm thinking about recruiting in a more nuanced way. I look more closely at the players in our freshman and sophomore classes. How many players do we have in those classes who are good enough to start? Are there positions where we don't have a starter-caliber player who's that young?
Our projected starting five includes three juniors, a sophomore, and a freshman. SF/SG
Alvaro Kinard and SG/PG
Joe Lien are our underclass starters. I'd like to have ready replacements for
James Sanders,
Venceslás Castillo, and
Hubert Song in the fall of 2016. If we recruit them THIS year, they'll have a year to develop before we ask them to start.
It's clear, then, that we need to recruit two post players and one guard this year. If we see a third big man we like, we'll go after him, and I'll look at a wing player for the fifth scholarship.
Among the first players I've evaluated is
Roderick Gove, from Levittown, NY. He initially caught my eye because he's making 97(!!) percent of his free throws. But Roderick can do more than sink charity tosses.
HTML Code:
#15 PG Roderick Gove
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Height: 6-1
Weight: 180
High School: Douglas Macarthur High School
Hometown: Levittown, NY
GPA: 2.70
Test Score: 960
Rating: ***
Attributes:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Type INS JPS FTS 3PS HND PAS ORB DRB PSD PRD STL BLK QKN STR JMP STA
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Current: 47 34 84 48 45 14 29 46 26 56 17 13 89 41 87 97
Potential: A A A A C F C C B B F F
Season Stats:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PTS OREB REB AST TOS A/T STL BLK PFS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
16.6 1.1 3.5 2.7 3.2 0.86 1.5 0.2 1.7
Shooting Averages:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FGM FGA FG% FTM FTA FT% 3PM 3PA 3P%
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.9 14.5 .476 1.6 1.7 .970 1.2 4.6 .261
Recruiting Notes:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Qualified: Yes
Current interest in Lafayette: High
Rankings: East Region #52 Overall, East Region #9 PG
High School Awards: None
Top 5 Schools: *Manhattan, Lafayette, Fordham, Iona, Hofstra
Roderick seems to be interested in staying close to the Big Apple, and he holds an offer from Manhattan already. But there's no way I can pass on a player with potentials like that. If those ratings are CLOSE to accurate, Gove is an elite scorer in the making, a superb athlete, and the kind of defender I like to recruit. He's not a pure point guard, but I don't care. I take every possible recruiting action with Roderick: a scholarship offer, an invitation to our campus, and a visit from
Graham Sims and
Steven Manion.
I see several intriguing big men, too. One of them is
Johnathon Blouin, the first player on our list when I sort them by Interest level.
HTML Code:
#23 C Johnathon Blouin
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Height: 6-9
Weight: 211
High School: Allentown High School
Hometown: Allentown, NJ
GPA: 2.41
Test Score: 1180
Rating: ***
Attributes:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Type INS JPS FTS 3PS HND PAS ORB DRB PSD PRD STL BLK QKN STR JMP STA
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Current: 28 21 40 2 37 41 63 46 43 14 32 35 23 56 35 23
Potential: C B B F C B B C C D B D
Season Stats:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PTS OREB REB AST TOS A/T STL BLK PFS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
12.6 3.0 11.7 1.2 2.4 0.51 1.1 1.8 2.8
Shooting Averages:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FGM FGA FG% FTM FTA FT% 3PM 3PA 3P%
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5.4 8.8 .611 1.9 3.2 .578 0.0 0.1 .000
Recruiting Notes:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Qualified: Yes
Current interest in Lafayette: Very High
Rankings: East Region #21 C
High School Awards: None
Top 5 Schools: Rider, Lafayette, Seton Hall, Massachusetts, Northeastern
I like the fact that Johnathon makes a high percentage of his shots, grabs rebounds, and blocks shots. None of his scouted ratings leap off the page at you, but I sense there's a solid player there.
Alphonse Johnson, from Long Island, is an old-school center who treats the paint like it's his personal property.
HTML Code:
#25 C Alphonse Johnson
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Height: 6-9
Weight: 216
High School: Babylon High School
Hometown: Babylon, NY
GPA: 2.68
Test Score: 920
Rating: ***
Attributes:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Type INS JPS FTS 3PS HND PAS ORB DRB PSD PRD STL BLK QKN STR JMP STA
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Current: 25 21 22 0 20 25 39 21 64 23 26 45 29 71 46 66
Potential: C C D F D B C D B D C A
Season Stats:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PTS OREB REB AST TOS A/T STL BLK PFS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
14.8 3.3 9.2 1.6 2.6 0.60 1.4 3.6 1.9
Shooting Averages:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FGM FGA FG% FTM FTA FT% 3PM 3PA 3P%
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.4 11.4 .557 2.1 4.0 .532 0.0 0.0 .000
Recruiting Notes:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Qualified: Yes
Current interest in Lafayette: High
Rankings: None
High School Awards: None
Top 5 Schools: Columbia, Army, St. Peter's, Fairleigh Dickinson, Stony Brook
In high school ball, he's an opportunistic scorer, but his potential as a force at the defensive end that catches my eye.
Raleigh McGinty is not as highly regarded as the players you've just met. He's a one-star recruit, possibly because he's not an elite athlete. But Raleigh understands that the basketball team that scores the most points wins the game, and he's very, very good at scoring points.
HTML Code:
#15 C Raleigh McGinty
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Height: 6-10
Weight: 242
High School: Lenape Valley Regional High School
Hometown: Stanhope, NJ
GPA: 2.72
Test Score: 1060
Rating: *
Attributes:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Type INS JPS FTS 3PS HND PAS ORB DRB PSD PRD STL BLK QKN STR JMP STA
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Current: 45 32 49 41 28 27 24 28 21 52 21 22 10 75 31 50
Potential: A D C A C D D C D C C D
Season Stats:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PTS OREB REB AST TOS A/T STL BLK PFS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
27.4 2.5 7.5 1.7 1.6 1.06 1.3 1.5 2.2
Shooting Averages:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FGM FGA FG% FTM FTA FT% 3PM 3PA 3P%
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10.5 18.3 .573 5.8 8.6 .669 0.8 2.9 .263
Recruiting Notes:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Qualified: Yes
Current interest in Lafayette: Very High
Rankings: None
High School Awards: None
Top 5 Schools: Lafayette
Right now, Raleigh is our secret. I'm going to offer him a scholarship and rush him hard. Let's see if we can lock up one member of our class right away.
We might have found another hidden gem in
Richard Leak, a playmaking guard from Massachusetts.
HTML Code:
#54 PG Richard Leak
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Height: 6-0
Weight: 189
High School: Ludlow Senior High School
Hometown: Ludlow, MA
GPA: 2.67
Test Score: 990
Rating: *
Attributes:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Type INS JPS FTS 3PS HND PAS ORB DRB PSD PRD STL BLK QKN STR JMP STA
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Current: 15 12 22 34 66 44 19 44 21 41 16 27 71 33 68 25
Potential: D C D C B B C C D C D D
Season Stats:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PTS OREB REB AST TOS A/T STL BLK PFS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10.5 2.7 6.1 9.4 1.8 5.22 1.3 0.8 2.4
Shooting Averages:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FGM FGA FG% FTM FTA FT% 3PM 3PA 3P%
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4.5 11.8 .379 1.0 1.9 .541 0.6 4.5 .135
Recruiting Notes:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Qualified: Yes
Current interest in Lafayette: High
Rankings: None
High School Awards: None
Top 5 Schools: Lafayette
Richard drops dimes all day long and takes care of the ball. He doesn't show signs of being much of a scorer, but the scoring guard role at Lafayette looks to be in
Joe Lien's hands for the next four years. We have the cash to splash on an all-out recruiting effort for Richard, too, complete with a scholarship offer.
I decide to offer Johnson and Blouin, too. Let's see if the early bird can catch some worms.