Potential Grad Transfers?

No clue who JB is looking at but here are some names that popped out to me.

Canyon Barry 6-5: Wing who averaged 20 before shoulder injury and shoots free throws underhand.

LG Gill 6-8: 10 and 6 at Duquesne, read he can hit the three but didn’t see stats.

Que Johnson 6-5: from Michigan averaged 11 at WSU, sounds like mostly a shooter

Junior Lomomba 6-5: only averaged 5 and 3 but started for Providence and was a team captain. Played for The Family and think he is an alright defender.

Merrill Holden 6-8: 8 and 5 for Louisiana Tech, from Chicago looked like the best stats at PF besides Gill.

Interesting to see if JB looks to Europe or any potential 17 reclassification potential recruits as well.

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Barry was one of the top names on the transfer list – wouldn’t mind looking at him. Didn’t know about those other guys but some of them look pretty good, esp Gill.

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Appreciate the list. Ever since the Mullins miss, been wondering who else could be a viable grad target

I also like the idea of looking at Europe. He would have had great success with Robin B. and Wagner is a nice find.

All of the potential grad transfers from above have committed elsewhere so hope JB has some other targets lined up.

Not sure we’d have a ton of interest but Tim McCormick’s son Kellen is transferring from Western Michigan. 6’8", shot 46% from three last year but only played 15 minutes a game.

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I’d at least kick the tires. There’s no downside to a fifth year transfer unless the kid is disruptive or has an expectation he’s going to play minutes way out of line with reasonable expectations, and there’s no indication whatsoever that either would be the case here. A 6’8" shooter to compete for backup minutes at the forward spots on a team which just lost two forwards and is not bringing any in this year, and a Michigan basketball legacy to boot–seems like a reasonable match to me.

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He hit at a rate of 42% which is really good for 243 threes taken in 3 years. For comparison, Spike shot 191 threes in his first 3 years and made 40%.

But I’m guessing that’s where the good ends.
Negative Ast/TO ratio
76% of his shots taken in his career were 3 pointers.
139 rebounds in 3 years - at 6’8" playing in the MAC…Spike had 144 rebounds in his first 3 years at 5’10" playing in the Big 10

If the scholarship is going to sit empty, then I’m all for it. Local kid, Michigan ties, 6’8" shooting specialist…sounds like it would fit in for a freebie year.

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Too bad we were never linked with Jordan Mathews (Cal). I wonder if he would want more minutes than we could reasonably promise him.

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I agree, much better than an open scholarship or taking a long-shot 2016 (Baruti). With 5 returning starters, we might just not be a desirable destination for the upper tier of grad transfers.

Without any actual knowledge, I’d bet that there have already been discussions with Michigan about their interest. Not a big impact guy who’ll push Zak or Duncan to the bench, but a pretty perfect guy to bring in to compete with DJ for the back-up forward minutes and as insurance. And I’m sure his dad would be pretty thrilled to see him in the maize and blue.

We don’t promise minutes.

Project* sorry for the error in semantics. But my point is still the same: the best grad transfers want to start, and we return 5 starters.

I agree with your general conclusions, but the comparative rebounding stats for Spike and McCormick are misleading IMO. Spike’s 144 rebounds (in his first three seasons) were garnered in 1853 minutes; McCormick’s 139 were hauled down in 1137 minutes, or just a touch over 3/5 of the time. Yes, Spike played at a higher level, and McCormick’s per 40 minutes rebound stats are bad, but I don’t think the pure number of rebounds tells the story.

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Obviously we would all love an immediate impact grad transfer, but at this point it’s pretty clear that’s not going to happen. McCormick seems like the perfect fit to take pressure off our backup 4s for one year and still leave plenty of options to bring in more talent in 2017. If he can at the very least provide what Max Bielfeldt gave Indiana off the bench this year at the 4, I would be happy to give him a spot for 2016.

Correct. As with any stat, it’s not going to tell the whole story. I was simply making the basic point that he’s clearly not a good rebounder if at 6’8" playing in the MAC he only could grab 139 rebounds…even if it’s 3/5 of the minutes as Spike.

Even using minutes could be misleading IMO. I mean, you did not define the rebounding philosophy of each team. Nor did you provide the rebounding statistics of others around them. Nor did you provide the average height of others on the court. Nor did you include the proficiency in rebounding of the opponents played. Nor an analysis of the individuals on the court during those minutes. Etc Etc Etc

Agree, and I wasn’t trying to be snarky–if it came across that way, I apologize.

Don’t know much about McCormick, but other than three-point shooting nothing stands out about his statistics. He only attempted 20 2PA to 93 3PA and (as has been discussed above) looks pretty average on the glass. He also played only 35% of available minutes at WMU.

Doesn’t sound like McCormick would be much an upgrade over the 3 preferred walk ons.
Without more insight, I’d rather give the scholarship to Dakisch, Lonergan, or Hibbitts.

The only walk on who would be an option for a scholarship would be Dakich since he is a senior. Lonergan is a redshirt junior so he would hold the scholarship for 2 years and Hibbitts a redshirt freshman has it for 4 years. If we do not use the scholarship I believe it will go to Dakich. It would suck for him though because he could have had his last 2 years under scholarship if that does happen (Last years open scholarship).

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