ppeck56 wrote:

Antione Hart's senior season was a surprise.

Love this call.  Personally, there’s no one who really surprised me beyond their first year - but Hart would be the closest.  He always showed flashes his first three years, but the explosion his senior year was definitely not expected (right off the net with a huge game in an upset at top 25 Syracuse).

Also wasn’t surprised by Shawnta because of his recruiting rankings or Castro (other than his passing) because his providence numbers weren’t far off what he did for us.

I would say:

1) Lasan Kromah - he was a late recruit and a local guy with no hype at all.  Don’t think anyone on the board even speculated on him being part of the rotation - and then he comes out as a freshman and is our best guard (and eventually is 6th man for a national champion).  I think he’s a clear #1 on this list.

2) Mike King - his arrival was highly anticipated so he had some hype, but his first extended minutes in the Xavier game were the stuff of legend.

3)  Yegor - yeah, we heard we had a PF from Belarus coming in, but the first time he touched the ball in the preseason, he spun his man and dunked it on him. I thought, woah, so it’s gonna be like that!   Big surprise that he was that athletic and that skilled.

4)  SirValient Brown - we knew we had a guy who went to a bunch of high schools, but I don’t think anyone on the old Herve board knew he was going to be the kind of player that could almost lead the nation in scoring as a freshman. 

5) JR Pinnock - this is a stretch because one recruiting service had him ranked in the top 70 recruits, but all the hype and excitement was about Ricky Lucas (also a top 70 recruit by other services) and some on the board openly questioned the point of signing Pinnock when we had Lucas. Little did we know he’d be that exciting.

6) Christian Jones - I don’t think any of us thought he would be good enough to take over for Jacoi or to completely transform

One of the things that held us back this year was the lack of shooting around Castro.  That we were able to get him the ball so well despite mediocre at best shooting was really incredible. 

So one of the goals this season had to be to get more shooting around Castro - and it feels like we’ve done it really well.

At times next year, we’ll surround Castro with:

Dinkins 38% (on 76 made threes)
Autry 38% (62)
Benjamin 36% (43)
Johnson 40% (49 in just 22 games)

That’s about 8 threes a game at 38%.  It’ll be really hard for teams to collapse on Castro because every one of them will make it if left open. 

That is to write off the others.  Will need Jones’ defense to key our defensive attack and his playmaking (and maybe his shooting will improve).  We’ll need Aranguren’s all around game, and he can shoot some, too.  Marshall gives us size and can also shoot (especially if he reverts to his soph year form). And We know Bevins will make a defense pay for leaving him in the corner.

But I’m loving that we’ll be able to field legit lineups with 4 shooters around Castro. 


Obviously Jones and others will get heavy minutes too, but when that lineup is on the floor, it will really open things up for Castro. 

If we can maintain the defense and hit the boards hard, this team could take another big leap forward.

Julian Reese portal.   

He’d look great as the 4 for us. 😂

moneybox wrote:

How many roster spots left?

Normally 2, but the settlement calls for expanding rosters to 15 so potentially 4 (though I doubt we’d use all 15 anyway).

Big Sunday night news! 

GW lands Jean Arunguren from Hofstra.  https://x.com/tobias_bass/status/1914146539343147443?s=46

He’s a 6’3” combo guard from Venezuela who put up really nice all around stats. 14.5 points, 5.5 rebounds, and 4.2 assists.

His 29.9 assist rate was 71st in the nation. He shot 40% from three as a freshman at Iona, before shooting 33% on higher volume last year at Hofstra (and his two point shooting fell from 52% to 44%, but again with higher volume).  He won’t have to take the most shots for us next year, so I’m guessing his efficiency goes back up.  He also had a 35 point, 10 rebound game against Northeastern last year.

One of our weaknesses last year was guards who could create and score, and we’ve now picked up 2 of them in Aranguren and Dinkins who had the highest shot % on their team last year.

Love this pick up!

Florida Colonial wrote:

If he's meant as depth to back up Castro and slide into a big line up, he seems like a good get. I think we cam learn from Castro, that stats can be deceptive.
Things will become much more clear when we see who else is added to the front court.
 

I think that’s a little unfair to Castro. His aggregate stats didn’t pop because of playing time. But his advanced metrics in the time he did get were not that far off what he was this year. 

His Ortg was 110, effective FG% 68%, combined rebounding rate 29.9, block rate 4.9, steals rate 1.4.

All of those improved this year (except FG), but those were outstanding rates already in limited time. 

Hunger’s numbers are not like that, but I suspect there’s a lot of untapped potential that can hopefully be realized dropping down a level.

Brutal news.  And really screws us because I’m assuming the money we had committed could have been used on any number of other players who probably committed elsewhere while this dragged on.  Now we’re scrambling to figure out a plan (I’m assuming).

GWRising wrote:

GW0509 wrote:

Thinking we might get our first commit this morning…

We already have one in theory. Hopefully, the folks across campus will understand that we can't compete if we follow their byzantine admissions rules for athletes.

Was it Dinkins to whom you were referring as already having in theory or someone else?

Loyola also signed Xavier Amos from Wisconsin, who I think is really good.   They’ve lost a lot, but (with lots of playing time to offer) they’ve singed some very solid players.  Will be interesting to see how it goes for them.

GWRising wrote:

A decent number of kids (more than 7) visiting GW over the next few days thru the weekend. Should have some answers soon.

Is that HM power forward you mentioned earlier off now or still likely?