Jeff Borzello[/url][url=https://twitter.com/jeffborzello]@jeffborzello  LSU sophomore Aundre Hyatt has entered the transfer portal, source told ESPN. Averaged 4.2 points this past season. Saw a bigger role late in the season, had 13 points, 10 rebounds and four blocks against St. Bonaventure in the NCAA tournament.

Nate Santos to Pitt.  Don’t think that’s a surprise but thought it should be mentioned here.

Also, fascinated by the post that mentions us in the mix for a JUco kid. I know that just because someone on Twitter says it doesn’t mean it’s real, but I don’t think we’ve take a juco kid since Bernard Barrow over 20 years ago.

Not sure if this was posted elsewhere, but there is a key paragraph in here about Sloan Seymour leaving:  

"The forward explained that he was looking for an opportunity where he could make more of a contribution on the court. Seymour noted that his role at George Washington wasn’t quite what he thought it would be."

Nothing earth-shattering with that.

Transfer update: Wildcats lose Sutherlin, add Seymour (tnhdigital.com)

Last edited by BGF (4/16/2021 9:36 am)

Free Quebec wrote:

Nate Santos to Pitt. Don’t think that’s a surprise but thought it should be mentioned here.

Also, fascinated by the post that mentions us in the mix for a JUco kid. I know that just because someone on Twitter says it doesn’t mean it’s real, but I don’t think we’ve take a juco kid since Bernard Barrow over 20 years ago.

Bernard Barrow  from Harlem, NY,   Part of that lightening quick back court of Brown and Barrow, who was a significant factor in one of my favorite GW wins, vs. Maryland at the BB&T Tournament (or whatever it was called at that time).   Beat a Maryland team who's core went on to win the National championship and graduated a couple of future NBAers.

JonRothstein's avatar
Jon Rothstein  @JonRothstein
1h
Penn State transfer Izaiah Brockington tells me that he's receiving interest from the following programs:

Arkansas
Iowa State
Wake Forest
Boston College
BYU
Providence
LaSalle
George Washington
UMBC

I’ll be interested to see where Brockington plays.  He’s very talented and aggressive.  At times he looks like he wants to be, and can be the alpha on a winning team.  But he excels in transition finisher, off ball cutter/putback machine,  and open three maker - basically a glue guy (albeit a very good one who can score like 15 ppg in that role).

I’ll be very interested to see if he goes somewhere he can be the alpha or if he is content to be an outstanding glue guy/transition threat to show the pro teams what he could do for them.

BP, you make it sound like that's a bad thing.  The coach at any school, for any team other than in a pee-wee league, has a responsibility to put together the players and line-ups that are most likely to lead to success.  It is not that a coach (again, any coach) is dumping a player; but he or she must do what's best for the team.

Does that make it seem like recruiting players who then get little playing time is disingenuous or even rudely inappropriate?  Yes.  Yes it does.

Coaches have a responsibility toward team first and individuals second.  Athletes, in theory, should be the same, but human instinct is of course to look out for number one first.  As a result, coaches make decisions and players react to those decisions.  That has always been the case, but now we're seeing it in a different light due to changes in the recruiting and easy transfer environment.  

If I'm a player, I'm looking for a team where I have a chance to play.  Then it's on me to play well.  If I don't, then the coach won't play me and I'll need to make a choice of whether I'm satisfied being a role or bench player, or whether I want to go somewhere else.  

This is not a GW problem.  It is not a JC problem.  It is not a player problem.  It's life in college athletics.

To play devil's advocate a little bit (not sure how much I actually believe this but it's a half-baked thought that's been bouncing around in my head): Do you think old school recruiting had it all wrong in the past to recruit for need vs. recruiting best player available?  I'll grant you a top recruit may not go to a school where there is an already established starter, and a coach still has to recruit somewhat for need so as not to end up with 14 Gs but no one to rebound.  However, if JC finds out he has a chance to get a top rated recruit or transfer, should he not pursue them because it may hurt a current player's feelings?

I think there can be a distinction made between transfers that occur because the player is unhappy with the coaching/program vs. player's that are unhappy with the competition.  I would put Battle transferring out as a player unhappy with the coaching/program, or at least unsure of the short term direction of things, and that is something we should worry about.  We need to get back to the level where someone can reasonably expect to have a shot at the NCAAs by sticking around for four years.  

JNJ and Brelsford strike me as unhappy with the competition and frankly I don't know how much JC should worry about that when he tries to recruit freshman or transfers to come play at GW.  If JNJ or Brelsford wanted more playing time then they should have performed at a level that merited more playing time.  There will be some who will say well JC brought in Bishop and was going to play him no matter what, but if you're JNJ, why not stick around and show JC how much of an idiot he was for not trusting you and trusting Bishop?  Same goes for Brelsford. 


 

GW0509, I would answer your question by saying that it all depends on how JC values the current player.  When he brought James Bishop, JC had to know on some level that this could ruffle JNJ's feathers.  He could rationalize all he wants on James being an upgrade and the two of them being able to play together but at the end of the day, the original plan to have JNJ learn the point guard position and lead his team for 4 years had changed.  So in this instance, I would have to say that JC saw the skill level between James and JNJ to be great enough to warrant hurting JNJ's feelings as you say or more to the point, to risk his transferring out.

I do think that there is a fundamental difference between the JNJ and Brelsford situations and that was JNJ must have felt he had earned a fair amount of trust given that he played over 30 minutes per game as  a freshman.  No player wants to see his playing time go down and while this is certainly well within a coach's prerogative, players do have egos and it's apparent that JNJ's was badly bruised.  Tyler was not afforded the same opportunity as a freshman that JNJ was as a freshman (largely because he had more talented teammates).  While it's easy to say that Tyler should have wanted to compete for minutes, the fact is that his position became too crowded.  And, JC did not invest 30+ minutes per game, every game in Tyler, so the parting I am sure was far more amicable than JNJ's departure.  

GW0509 wrote:

Justin Byerly @JustinByerly 6m 
Boston University transfer Jack Hemphill has heard from UNC-Wilmington, Montana State, App State, Pepperdine, UC-San Diego, Cal-Fullerton and George Washington since entering the transfer portal.

 

Hemphill to St Francis Brooklyn

https://twitter.com/verbalcommits/status/1388287246881771526?s=21