OMARI

[PointGuard]

Tournament Championships

NCAA: #5 seed Kansas State—75, #1 seed Indiana—66
NIT: #1 seed Wyoming—81, #2 seed Portland—73
CBI: #4 seed Northeastern—78, #1 seed Texas Rio Grande—74
CIT: #1 seed Clemson—65, #5 seed Temple—53

Awards

Lonnie Robertson—SWAC Defensive Player of the Year
Keith Bowie—SWAC Freshman Player of the Year
Omari Aura—SWAC Coach of the Year
Lonnie Robertson—SWAC 1st Team All-Conference
Correy Parker—SWAC 2nd Team All-Conference

[PointGuard]

Staffing

1st Assistant Coach Matt Holt’s contract expired and I didn’t renew it. Matt will be taking an assistant coaching job for Detroit Mercy.

Replacing him will be Sean Decker who will handle scouting for us. He was an assistant the past 3 years at Southern Indiana where I believe his scouting prowess helped the Salukis move from losing 2/3 of their games to a 20-11 record and a trip to the NIT last season.

Scott Davis will continue as our 2nd Assistant in charge of recruiting and Glen Fite remains as our 3rd Assistant handling player development and practices.

Potential Player Transfers

Several players seem to be considering possibly transferring. The most critical one is SF Keith Bowie who was such a key starter for us this season. It appears he may desire to parlay that success toward moving to a more prestigious program. I’ve been working with him and his SF running mate, David Heyward to try to improve their relationships with teammates. I’m also trying to shore up relationships of PG Hayden Conrad, PF Brody Rowland, and C Mark Hartsfield with the coaching staff to fend off their possible transfer. While I got some positive feedback from all of them, and particularly from David Heyward, we’ll just have to see how it goes.

Skinflints

Again the Grambling board of directors has denied my request for a budget increase. I know that finances are tight for the college. So they’re basically averse to spending more money.

[PointGuard]

4th Year Coaching at Grambling

SWAC Change

Texas Southern is leaving the Southwestern Athletic Conference to move to the Western Athletic Conference. That reduces the SWAC to 11 teams. The SWAC’s prestige level is abysmally low. I’d like to have Grambling move to a better conference, but without the administration providing sufficient funding for our program, we’d have a difficult time competing in other conferences.

In fact, we’re going to have a devil of a time doing the recruiting we need this coming season. We need to try to land at least two transfer players (and maybe more if some of our guys decide to take a hike) which will take a portion of our meager recruiting budget. And we have have 4 players graduating after the coming season so need to try to fill those 4 scholarships that will become available. We may have to set our sites lower and go for players who can provide depth rather than be likely starters since we won’t have to spend as much money going after than type of players.

Each year that I’ve coached at Grambling we’ve allocated far less funds than we should have toward training, amenities, and wellness. It looks like this year, we’ll have to reduce that further to move some of those funds to recruiting. That’s not a good way to go, but ya gotta do what ya gotta do. But that means that our facilities (which are C rated) definitely won’t be improving and eventually will deteriorate and our players won’t get the support that I’d like to see them getting.

[PointGuard]

Transfer Portal

We took a BIG hit. 4 players are transferring:

SF Keith Bowie (big loss…he’s a great player who did a fine job in his freshman year)
PG Hayden Conrad (he has some good potential)
PG Mario Kelly (a solid, albeit not spectacular player)
C Mark Hartsfield (potential, potential)

We therefore have 6 available scholarships to try to fill in the Transfer Portal. I’d like to get a PG, an SF, and 2 big men. Anything else would just be gravy…or depth filling.

We had a tough time gaining traction in the early stages of the Transfer Portal and it looked as though we might end up empty handed. But we began hitting gold in the latter stages of the Transfer Portal. We ended up filling 5 of the 6 empty scholarships and we landed some very strong players:

PG Brian Fox, a 6-3 sophomore from Gainesville, GA who transferred from South Florida where he averaged 8.7 ppg, 2.4 apg, and 1.5 rpg while playing just 14.3 mpg. We rate him as an A player due to his excellent mid-range and long-range shooting and strong passing and ball handling skills. He’s very athletic and is strong defensively.

SG Paul Swann, a 6-0 sophomore from Honolulu, HI who played for Sacramento State as a freshman and averaged 13.3 ppg, 3.0 apg, 3.3 rpg, and 2.1 spg. He’s a good shooter from mid and long range and an excellent foul shooter. He’s a pretty solid overall player who was named to the Big Sky Conference All-Conference 2nd Team. We rated him as a solid B player.

SF Ukko Noronen, a 6-5 sophomore from Finland who transferred from Sacramento State and averaged 7.7 ppg, 0.7 apg, and 1.3 rpg while playing just 12.1 mpg as a freshman. He’s an excellent shooter from mid and long range and a good ball-handler. He’s good defensively. We rate him as a B level player.

SF Greg Howell is a 6-6 sophomore from Hampton Bays, NY who played as a freshman for Manhattan where he averaged 18.5 ppg, 2.0 apg, and 3.9 rpg. He’s still developing but is a pretty strong all-around player who we rate as a strong D. He was the MAAC Freshman Player of the Year and was named to the MAAC All-Conference 1st Team.

PF Rico Canty, a 6-6 sophomore from Glasgow, KY who transferred from Queens (NY) and averaged 12.7 ppg, 1.2 apg, 6.2 rpg, and 1.4 bpg last season. He’s a good scorer from inside and outside and a good rebounder. We rate his as a C level player.

These 5 transfer players along with the 3 players we recruited last year (C Aleem Charles, SG Charles Whitney, and PG Jon Benoit} added to our returning players (C Correy Parker, PF Brody Rowland, SF David Heyward, and SG Brad O’Neil) should give us a very strong set of starters and excellent depth as well. I’m feeling ecstatic about our team this coming season. Since our two walk-on players graduated at the end of last season and us having one unfilled scholarship, we’ll bring on 3 new walk-on players to fill out our roster.

We now will have 2 scholarships available to be awarded this coming season to recruits.

Oh, and here’s where the guys who left to take their chances through the Transfer Portal will play the coming season:

C Mark Hartsfield will play for Cal State Northridge;
PG Hayden Conrad has transferred to Maryland Eastern Shore;
PG Mario Kelly will be playing for Wagner next year;
SF Keith Bowie transferred to Georgia Tech. A big step up for him. I just hope he’s not blocked out from playing much by a very talented player…but my check of their roster indicates he may well start for the Yellow Jackets.

I let all 4 players know that I wished them the best in the remainder of their college careers and beyond. Had those 4 players not transferred, Keith definitely would have been a starter for us at SF again, and Mario and Hayden would have battled it out for a starting role at PG. Mark would likely have again been a sub, but would have gotten more playing time. Overall though, I’d say our losses to the Transfer Portal were less than our gains.

[PointGuard]

Pro Draft

There was good news in the Pro Draft. Lonnie Robertson, who started for us at SG, was the 9th player selected in the 2nd round. It would be great if he initially makes the pro team right away, but it’s more likely that he’ll be assigned to the G League to gain experience.

[PointGuard]

Recruiting

We decided to spend some of our limited recruiting budget on attending the JuCo Camp. We focused our attention at the camp on 25 of the top JC recruits. While our evaluation of a few of those 25 was not as good as we wanted, the rest looked good and a few looked very good. Only a couple of the 25 showed interest in Grambling…we’d hoped our attendance at the camp would generate more interest within those recruits. We’ll trim our JC recruits list severely, focusing on those we think could be good fits on our team next season. Although the cost for attending this camp wasn’t high, I felt our results didn’t justify attending this camp, at least for this season.

As the summer progressed we added a bunch of high school seniors to our list of recruits we were following and saw a number of them perform at the Memphis Hoops Summit camp. Unfortunately, there are very few in-state recruits who’ve piqued our interest to actively pursue. We decided to play summer and fall recruiting pretty low key to maintain a decent budget for next March/April. It just looks to me like we’re again going to have a tough time getting recruits sufficiently intrigued about Grambling to land them in September/October. So we’ll keep our powder dry with the intent of being able to use it on recruits who’re available after this coming winter. Without much of a recruiting budget I’m beginning to understand that’s the best course of action for a program like ours.

[PointGuard]

Pre-conference Schedule

We ratcheted up the difficulty of our pre-conference schedule for this season. Strong opponents and just 3 of our 13 games at home. Not many teams want to take us on at our home.

TOWSON
@ Chattanooga
@ Oregon State
@ South Carolina
@ Louisiana-Lafayette
@ Saint Louis
@ Davidson
@ Washington State
@ Mississippi
@ Rutgers
SEATTLE
@ Auburn
NORTH TEXAS

[PointGuard]

Recruiting

Obviously earlier this summer I was too pessimistic about our chances. Because in September and early October we had some good home visits that swayed a few recruits. By October 2nd, we ended up filling both of our available scholarships:

PF Reginald Horton, 6’8” HS senior from Dickson, TN. As a junior last season he averaged 17.0 ppg, 4.6 rpg, 1.7 apg, 1.9 bpg, and 2.3 spg. He’s a 3-star recruit who is ranked as the 298th best recruit, although I think he might rise in those rankings during his senior season of play. He’s an outstanding shooter near the basket. He’s still got some holes in his game and I want him to work hard on defense.

SF Travis Carey, 6’6” JC Sophomore from Cottonwood, AL. Last season in his freshman season as a JC player he averaged 13.6 ppg, 2.7 rpg, 1.6 apg, 0.8 bpg, and 1.6 spg. He’s presently the 172nd ranked recruit and labeled a 3-star. But earlier this summer he was a 4-star who was ranked much higher, so he may move back up as this season plays out. He’s an excellent outside shooter and a good inside shooter with good D and athleticism, but needs to improve his rebounding. He was in the top 25 at the JuCo Jamboree.

I’m happy with both of those guys and they should provide us with some good depth next season. Fortunately these two guys are good students. So I’m sure Reginald will score above our minimum SAT requirement. But we will continue to look at recruits in the event something unusual happens. Plus if we don’t use our recruiting budget, the board will never give us a budget increas

[PointGuard]

Fall Practice

3rd Assistant Coach Glen Fife has organized our fall practice schedule and will coordinate the actions of our other assistant coaches during the next month. That’s going to free me up a bit from my practices activities so I can focus on evaluating our players. 8 of our 12 scholarship players are new to the team and all 3 of our walk-ons have never played for us. This season we have no one who is assured of becoming a starter. We’re just going to see who works hardest and shows the most ability. We’re unlikely to determine our starting 5 until just before the season begins in mid-November. I’m hoping that we see a lot of positive development in our players during the next month and a half. We’re going to need it to be competitive with the pre-conference opponents we’ve scheduled.

October 2nd. With 11 of our 15 players new to our team, I’m seeing some nervousness in practice, but that all will work out. We have a lot to do to develop team chemistry, improve player skills, and get so many new players familiar with our sets and style of play.

October 9th: C Aleem Charles has thus far been probably our strongest player. His JC experience is a big factor in that. Jon Benoit and Brian Fox are going to make it tough to determine which of them should be our starter at PG. Fox seems more intent on winning the competition to become our starter and I’m pretty sure the reason he transferred from South Florida was because he wasn’t starting. But we’ll just have to let things work out over the next 5 weeks. A couple of my assistants have suggested we start one at PG and the other at SG. We have a battle for SG emerging for returning junior, Brad O’Neil and transfer sophomore Paul Swan who was a solid starter as a freshman for Sacramento State last year.

October 16th: The past week battles have heated up for starting at C/PF and also at SF. We have 4 good big men: Correy Parker, Aleem Charles, Brody Rowland, and Rico Canty. Parker started for us last season and Rowland was a good reserve. Charles just finished starting for 2 years at a JC and Canty was a good starter last season at Queens (NY). At SF this season we have 3 players, any one of whom could start for us. David Heyward exhibited good shooting skill for us last season as a highly used sub. Greg Howell was a high scoring (18.5 ppg) for Manhattan as a freshman last year. And Ukko Noronen was a very good sub as a freshman for Sacramento State last season. Thus far none of the 3 has stood out for us in practices.

October 23rd: I spent parts of last week checking on how our two recruits, PF Reginald Horton in Dickson, TN and SF Travis Carey in Cottonwood, AL have been doing as they prepare for their upcoming seasons. Carey will be playing his 2nd and final season at his JC, while Dickson is now a senior for his high school team. Both appear to be developing well and working hard. Back home our practices are going well and we’re focusing this week on our guys becoming familiar with our offensive and defensive sets.

October 30th: Rather than spending money right now, we’re making phone calls and sending texts to players on our recruit list to create or build interest…it’s a painstakingly slow process with minimal positive results.

November 6th: We’ve amped up the intensity level of our scrimmages. This is highlighting differences between our players which is helping us to consider who will be our starters and what roles others will play.

[PointGuard]

It’s GO time

November 13th: The season is about to begin and we have two games this week. We’ve seen some improvement in our players and now look forward to seeing how they perform when going up against our opponents. But I’m concerned that with so many new players, we have too many with limited familiarity with our sets and strategy and that we have a long way to go to coalesce as a team. Pre-conference play could be pretty messy. So now I’m wishing I would have had our AD schedule easier opponents. I just have to hope our team comes together quicker than I anticipate.

I expect we’ll be making adjustments to the starting lineup as our season progresses, but here’s who will start in our early going:

PG: Brian Fox, sophomore. This was a really tough decision, but Fox has slightly more developed skills than junior Jon Benoit. We’ll see which one ultimately handles the position better and is a better court general though.

SG: Brad O’Neil, junior. Brad has the advantage of having played two years for us. Sophomore Paul Swan has shown nearly equal skills and could well be a more prolific scorer. Freshman Charles Whitney has tremendous potential and just needs to gain experience at the collegiate level.

SF: David Heyward, sophomore. David played well for us last season, so we gave him the nod. But either sophomores Ukko Noronen or Greg Howell could win the starting role as the season unfolds. The skill levels for these 3 players are extremely close.

PF Aleem Charles, junior. His abilities appear to be much better developed than our other big men and he could start at either PF or C. Sophomore Rico Canty and junior Brody Rowland provide us with excellent interior depth and will get major play time.

C Correy Parker, senior. He played extremely well for us last season and is a very good inside scorer so he’s won the starting role at C to begin the season, even though others might have better raw skill levels. Aleem Charles will be the primary player to back him up at C.

I think almost all of our 12 scholarship players could start for us at some point this season. While not all will, we’ll definitely be testing different starting lineups during pre-conference play.