(08-11-2012 09:11 AM)hilltopper Wrote: Akron transfers in 6'11" center Pat Forseyth from West Virginia.
You are correct hilltopper, I input that on a different thread and forgot about it...
Here is the ESPN Insider take on impact transfers headed into this season:
Impact transfers in 2012-13
Alex Oriakhi and Larry Drew among best faces in new places
Updated: August 6, 2012, 4:41 PM ET
By John Gasaway | ESPN Insider
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AP Photo/Timothy D. EasleyAt UConn, Alex Oriakhi made rebounding look easy. He'll do the same for Missouri this season.
Maybe it was that whole saga surrounding Jarrod Uthoff trying to transfer out of Wisconsin, but I swear I've been hearing way more than what's customary about transfers this offseason.
Very well, let's talk transfers. Just how much help will these guys really be for their new teams?
I propose taking an alphabetic look at a few high-profile transfers for this season, a surprising number of whom will be playing in the Big East. Just for fun and future mockery, I'll toss out an ostentatiously detailed prediction on how well each player will perform with his new team.
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Keion Bell, Missouri
During an injury- and suspension-shortened junior season at Pepperdine in 2010-11, Bell carried a role in the Waves' offense that was more or less equivalent to what Jimmer Fredette was shouldering that season for BYU. Bell wasn't nearly as efficient as Fredette, but say this for the young man from Los Angeles: He can really get to the line. He'll compete for backcourt possessions and minutes alongside the likes of Phil Pressey and the severely underrated Michael Dixon.
Prediction: Bell is a career 31 percent shooter from the perimeter, but his fondness for attacking off the dribble should be a good fit for the offense Frank Haith installed in Columbia last season. I predict the combo guard from the West Coast will draw a stellar six fouls per 40 minutes.
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Rotnei Clarke, Butler
Brad Stevens is renowned as a straight-arrow guy, but last season even he had to be thinking of selling his soul to some demonic character if it would have given his team an occasional made 3-point shot. Those were in short supply in Indianapolis, as the Bulldogs were, easily, the worst 3-point shooting team in Horizon League play. Clarke will change that. In three seasons at Arkansas, he made 42 percent of his perimeter attempts, and he did so while playing an increasingly large role in the Razorback offense. Clarke is the proverbial pure shooter.
Prediction: As Butler makes the jump to the Atlantic 10, Clarke single-handedly stretches opposing defenses by draining 44 percent of his 3s. He'll account for a quarter of the shots that the Bulldogs take during his minutes.
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Larry Drew, UCLA
You might remember Drew was Wally Pipp to Kendall Marshall's Lou Gehrig at North Carolina in January 2011, as the latter replaced the former at point guard in the Tar Heels' starting lineup. Now Marshall is in the NBA, and Drew is in Westwood. Drew's issues in Chapel Hill were two-fold: He posed no scoring threat and was turnover-prone. Then again, we saw Drew for just 21 games that season, and once upon a time he was a McDonald's All-American. (The same year as Tyler Zeller, Greg Monroe, Jrue Holiday and DeMar DeRozan -- Drew is old!) Is it possible we're looking at a delayed-reaction explosion a little like what Kenny Boynton pulled off at Florida?
Prediction: The Bruins will be notably deep and talented this season, but Drew is going to have every opportunity to be the man at point guard. He should function as a pass-first floor general, taking 18 percent of the shots that UCLA attempts during his minutes, while bringing his turnover rate down to an acceptable level.
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Luke Hancock, Louisville
Hancock was a scoring point guard in a shooting guard's body on Jim Larranaga's last team at George Mason in 2010-11 -- and he was really good at it. The bulk of Hancock's scoring production came inside the arc, and he did an excellent job dishing for assists to the likes of Ryan Pearson and Cam Long. Those high-assist days are likely gone, however, as Hancock joins a loaded roster that already has Peyton Siva and Russ Smith. Instead, he'll likely compete with Kevin Ware and Wayne Blackshear for minutes at the 2 and wing positions. Note that Hancock is recovering from a shoulder injury.
Prediction: Hancock picked a good team if he wants a shot at the Final Four but a bad one if he wants large blocks of uninterrupted minutes. Assuming he is healthy, Hancock should average 24 minutes a game and make 52 percent of his 2-point shots.
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Ryan Harrow, Kentucky
On Sidney Lowe's final NC State team in 2010-11, Harrow shared point guard duties with senior Javier Gonzalez. Purely as a floor general, the then-freshman was quite impressive. The problem came when Harrow the point guard gave the ball to Harrow the would-be scorer. The freshman's success inside the arc was about what you would expect from someone listed at 5-foot-11, and he shot just 22 percent on his (mercifully) rare 3-point attempts.
Prediction: Harrow will get a few starts and average in the low-20s in minutes while serving as a capable pass-first point guard.
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Wally Judge, Rutgers
Last season, Rutgers' problem -- and it was a big problem -- was that it couldn't score. While returning players such as Eli Carter and Myles Mack try to change that state of affairs, Judge will be asked to get some rebounds and play some defense. No one, least of all Judge himself, knows how the onetime McDonald's All-American will perform outside of a "foul first, last and always" setting like a Frank Martin-era Kansas State frontcourt. As a freshman, Judge averaged an astounding nine fouls per 40 minutes.
Prediction: Judge will commit fewer fouls (five per 40 minutes), get more playing time (23 minutes a game) and team with Kadeem Jack to give the Scarlet Knights a respectable presence on the offensive glass.
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Trent Lockett, Marquette
Lockett was marooned on some weak Arizona State teams so no one noticed -- well, next to no one -- but the 6-4 combo guard has long shown an ability to attack the basket and score efficiently. Even though Lockett's turnover rate jumped up last season (he'll be eligible to play for Marquette immediately), I don't expect that to be an issue in Buzz Williams' perennially effective offense.
Prediction: Lockett's apparently a smart young man, jumping from Tempe to Milwaukee just as Jae Crowder and Darius Johnson-Odom left the program. There will be shots available in the Golden Eagles' offense. Lockett will take his share, and he'll drain a borderline-remarkable 55 percent of his attempts inside the arc.
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Korie Lucious, Iowa State
"Korie Lucious" is a bad phrase to Maryland fans, but during his career at Michigan State, he missed his fair share of shots while committing his fair share of turnovers. Be that as it may, Cyclones coach Fred Hoiberg says he'll look to Lucious to be the "traditional point guard" that ISU was lacking last season. Perhaps Hoiberg should have said "traditional scoring point guard." Royce White and Chris Allen are gone, and Lucious will be expected to pick up a good deal of the slack on offense.
Prediction: He won't be a paragon of efficiency, but Lucious will have the highest scoring average of anyone on this list.
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Mark Lyons, Arizona
When Lyons decided to play college ball at Xavier, Sean Miller was the head coach, and the player and coach will be reunited in Tucson. As my colleague Eamonn Brennan pointed out a few weeks back, current Musketeer coach Chris Mack doesn't seem terribly broken up by Lyons' departure. "During our meeting, certain expectations were outlined for his fifth and final season," Mack said of his end-of-year meeting with Lyons, "areas in which I believe needed improvement. Mark did not recognize these areas as being important."
Prediction: I'm guessing during that meeting that Mack said something along the lines of "Please stop shooting 118-of-266 on your 2-point attempts." But that's in the past. At heart a combo guard, Lyons will be asked to function as a point guard on an Arizona roster blessed with an abundance of young talent. I predict a big reduction in shots -- accounting for 22 percent of the attempts the Wildcats record in his minutes -- and a modest increase in assist rate.
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Aaric Murray, West Virginia
Murray is a great addition for the Mountaineers in the wake of Kevin Jones' departure. Like Jones, Murray is used to functioning as his team's featured scorer. (He had that gig at La Salle.) Like Jones, Murray crashes the glass at both ends of the floor. And like Jones, Murray draws four or five fouls per 40 minutes and is a reliable shooter at the line. Murray won't be another Jones, but at least he'll be a rough approximation thereof.
Prediction: Murray's accuracy from both sides of the arc will stay more or less where it was in the A-10, but he'll get a lot of ink for the "big leap" he takes in scoring because his minutes will increase markedly.
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Alex Oriakhi, Missouri
If you watched Connecticut win the 2011 national championship, you know what Oriakhi is capable of doing on the offensive glass. Last season, he was odd man out as Andre Drummond arrived in Storrs one year earlier than anyone had expected, but generally speaking, players don't forget how to get offensive rebounds. Oriakhi is a fantastic get for Haith.
Prediction: The chances that Missouri can shoot as well from the field as it did last season are infinitesimal, but with Oriakhi pulling down 15 percent of the Tigers' misses during his minutes, the drop-off in team scoring won't be all that great.
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Juwan Staten, West Virginia
The Mountaineers will be blessed with a wealth of transfers this season. In addition to A-10 types such as Murray and Dayton transfer Staten, Bob Huggins can also call on Boston College transfer Matt Humphrey. The young man is a transfer trend unto himself, having already played for Oregon and BC before coming to Morgantown. As for Staten, his stat line as a freshman point guard with the Flyers in 2010-11 was uniformly striking, in ways both good (incredible assist rate) and bad (inaccurate shooting from the field).
Prediction: As it was in the A-10, Staten's assist rate will be highly impressive, more so than his accuracy from the floor.
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Trey Zeigler, Pitt
When he was a recruit coming out of high school, Zeigler said no to the likes of Michigan State, UCLA, Arizona and Michigan to attend Central Michigan and play for his father. Then his dad was fired, and Zeigler was granted a waiver by the NCAA to play immediately for Jamie Dixon at Pitt. When an elite recruit plays for what might have been the MAC's second-worst team, the results are likely to be indecipherable. Zeigler, not unreasonably, tried to do it all for the Chippewas and, not surprisingly, missed an astonishing number of shots (525 in two seasons). All that collective and individual suffering actually masked a measurable improvement registered by Zeigler as a sophomore.
Prediction: Zeigler is going to be surprisingly solid as a Big East scorer, making half of his 2-point shots. Unfortunately for Panther fans, his percentage from the free throw line will be similar.
John Gasaway covers college hoops for ESPN Insider. First covering college basketball in 2004, he has written for Basketball Prospectus since its inception in 2007, and his work has appeared in The New York Times. You can find his ESPN archives here and follow him on Twitter
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College Mens Basketball Transfer Update
