letsgonecks wrote: Thu Mar 25, 2021 2:05 pmThat is HUGE!!!!! Maybe we land another stud via transfer and this team could be very good.
I think transfers are going to be key to a lot of team's gameplans over the next season, but you're right, we could use one more really good player. Keeping in mind that this year was a "free" year, I'll put down the number of years that each player should have available to them going forward, if they want to continue playing.
Of the guys who were the top scorers this last season:
Will Carius, 1 year, 14.7 ppg - coming back
Tamell Pearson, 2 years, 10.4 ppg - have not heard anything to indicate he is not returning
Colton Sandage, 2 years, 9.5 ppg - have not heard anything to indicate he is not returning
Rod Johnson Jr., 1 year, 8.3 ppg - have not heard anything to indicate he is not returning
Ramean Hinton, 4 years, 7.6 ppg - have not heard anything to indicate he is not returning
Justin Brookens, 2 years, 6.9 ppg - has entered the transfer portal
Adam Anhold, 2 years, 6.5 ppg - have not heard anything to indicate he is not returning
Anthony Jones, 1 year, 6.2 ppg - has entered the transfer portal
Cameron Burrell, 2 years, 5.7 ppg - have not heard anything to indicate he is not returning
Assuming the ones that haven't said anything yet are planning on coming back, then the returning players listed above include all the top 5 players in the following categories:
Minutes per game - Carius, Johnson, Pearson, Burrell, Sandage
Rebounds per game - Pearson, Burrell, Johnson, Carius, Hinton
And four of the top 5 in steals (Burrell, Carius, Hinton, Sandage, then Marcus Watson, who is leaving).
I'm also interested to see what's the deal with JJ Flores. Seemed to do ok off the bench in two early games (UT-Martin and DePaul), but I seem to remember someone saying he was banged up a bit, and then we didn't see him afterwards. Limited sample size, but in those two games, shot .429 in FGs, .500 in 3pts, and .750 in FTs. He's a Junior who should have 2 seasons left that he can play.
If VerbalCommits.com is correct (
https://verbalcommits.com/schools/western-illinois), we have 9 players on-scholarship currently,
with 1 verbally committed incoming freshman (Jonathan Dunn), which should leave us with
3 4 more scholarships available. We know that Coach Jeter has targeted at least a couple of transfers so far (
Tyler Poindexter from Tallahassee Community College and
Terrance Thompson from UW-Green Bay), so hopefully in amongst those guys and the other freshmen we have offers out for, we might get another 1-2 really solid players and I think we'll be in good shape for next season.