West Liberty Hilltopper Basketball

[IUPbigINDIANS]

Re: West Liberty Hilltopper Basketball

Much has been said about WLU not recruiting "athletes." The underlying subtext seems to be that WLU's players are "system guys" that excel because of the unique system WLU employs. I've felt that way also. But is that really true? Are WLU's players the product of the "system" and would they suffer elsewere? Starting with Beau Justice, WLU has had a number of quality players either transfer or highly valued recruits chose not to go to WLU. So how are these players performing this year and has WLU been able to replace them? Here are the list of players that have transferred/chose not to attend WLU after signing LOI's:

Dave Dennis, Nova Southeastern, Starter averaging 23 PPG
James Griffin, Univ of HI Helo, Starter averaging 19 PPG
Clay Guillozet, Valdosta, Starter averaging 10 PPG
Beau Justice, Valdosta, Starter averaging 20 PPG
Nick Smith, Nova Southeastern, Starter averaging 7 PPG
Chunky Humphries, IUP, Averaging 1 PPG
Sincere Carry, Duquesne, Starter Averaging 10 PPG

The team of WLU transfers would be averaging 90 points per game! That's pretty good. So has WLU been able to replace these seven players? Yea, yea they have. WLU's current top seven scores are averaging 89 points per game.

It would never happen for sooo many reasons, but had the top five transfers not transferred and we had our current top five, that combined WLU team would be averaging 149 points per game!!!

The really crazy part of this is one person has had a hand in evaluating and recruiting all these players...Ben Howlett! Couple that with the on court performance of the Toppers last year and so far this and that is a pretty good resume stuffer for a second year HC!!!! If he has on court success this year and next and has further equal recruiting success and you have to start wondering how long it will be before D1's start noticing him!

That team would jack up your current team with one more big added to the roster (legit big not a SF).

That would be one of the best guard rotations in the country this year. Carry is just getting started and Justice is an All-American. Put Cobo Diaz on that 'transfer' team and that's your 2018-19 National Champions.

[boatcapt]

Re: West Liberty Hilltopper Basketball

That team would jack up your current team with one more big added to the roster (legit big not a SF).

That would be one of the best guard rotations in the country this year. Carry is just getting started and Justice is an All-American. Put Cobo Diaz on that 'transfer' team and that's your 2018-19 National Champions.

It would be a power house team, no doubt about that! For a lot of reasons they wouldn't average 149 points (not enough minutes or shots in a game to make that happen consistently!) but on certain nights...WOW!! This team would basically be bring All American players off the bench to sub All American players.

Hard to believe that Howlett had an active hand in recruiting and signing ALL of them!!! WOOF...That's some "high heat!!"

[Scrub]

Re: West Liberty Hilltopper Basketball

Since you brought up transfers, Boat . . .

The Guillozet & Dennis transfers (as well as the Nick Smith decommit) made a ton of sense (coaching change, clean break, etc.). Griffin also makes some sense, as he graduated with his undergraduate degree, so basically had a "free" transfer to go anywhere to start his Master's. That's understandable, as WLU doesn't have a ton of Master's offerings yet.

But I've always wondered what might have been with Justice. I didn't go back and look it up, but the kid averaged something like 12 minutes as a Freshman at WLU on an experienced team. Not much more you can ask as a true Frosh. But then he suddenly disappeared and turned into the All-American Howlett obviously predicted him to be when recruiting him in the first place. Wish I understood that one a bit more.

[Columbuseer]

Re: West Liberty Hilltopper Basketball

Since you brought up transfers, Boat . . .

The Guillozet & Dennis transfers (as well as the Nick Smith decommit) made a ton of sense (coaching change, clean break, etc.). Griffin also makes some sense, as he graduated with his undergraduate degree, so basically had a "free" transfer to go anywhere to start his Master's. That's understandable, as WLU doesn't have a ton of Master's offerings yet.

But I've always wondered what might have been with Justice. I didn't go back and look it up, but the kid averaged something like 12 minutes as a Freshman at WLU on an experienced team. Not much more you can ask as a true Frosh. But then he suddenly disappeared and turned into the All-American Howlett obviously predicted him to be when recruiting him in the first place. Wish I understood that one a bit more.

[boatcapt]

Re: West Liberty Hilltopper Basketball

Since you brought up transfers, Boat . . .

The Guillozet & Dennis transfers (as well as the Nick Smith decommit) made a ton of sense (coaching change, clean break, etc.). Griffin also makes some sense, as he graduated with his undergraduate degree, so basically had a "free" transfer to go anywhere to start his Master's. That's understandable, as WLU doesn't have a ton of Master's offerings yet.

But I've always wondered what might have been with Justice. I didn't go back and look it up, but the kid averaged something like 12 minutes as a Freshman at WLU on an experienced team. Not much more you can ask as a true Frosh. But then he suddenly disappeared and turned into the All-American Howlett obviously predicted him to be when recruiting him in the first place. Wish I understood that one a bit more.

I don't think Guillozet and Dennis transfers made a ton of sense since both were major contributors on a really, really, really good program. Now if they wanted to be the lead dog, it wasn't going to happen at WLU were it's more team than star driven. I don't know this to be true but it was widely rumored here that originally both Dennis and Guillozet were supposed to go to Nova but WLU restricted Guillozet's transfer and that is why he opted for Valdosta.

I think the Justice transfer to Valdosta was driven by his brother (How many ways can you say "player tampering"!!??) being at Valdosta. Nice plum for a prospective Assistant Coach to dangle..."Hire me and I can get my brother to come play here!!"

[IUPbigINDIANS]

Re: West Liberty Hilltopper Basketball

If Nova can get a player to visit ... done deal. Nobody else should stand a chance. They have essentially unfair recruiting advantages.

Valdosta is the same way ... just beautiful campuses.

The ladies down South ... that's the big leagues.

[Scrub]

Re: West Liberty Hilltopper Basketball

The beauty of Nova's campus notwithstanding, a coaching change will ALWAYS cause transfers. As much as we don't want to think so, athletes, for the most part, choose schools because of coaches, not teams, traditions, academic programs, etc. So when a coach leaves, players leave too. I may not like that fact--and it stings to see Dennis playing so well at Nova--but it is certainly understandable (which is the idea I invoked).

[Columbuseer]

Re: West Liberty Hilltopper Basketball

If Nova can get a player to visit ... done deal. Nobody else should stand a chance. They have essentially unfair recruiting advantages.

Valdosta is the same way ... just beautiful campuses.

The ladies down South ... that's the big leagues.

We mid atlantic schools have to hope for a tropical storm on their recruiting visit LOL.
Valdosta academic ratings are not in the stratosphere, relative to WLU. That is why I was puzzled by Clay's transfer, as he was a very high GPA high school student.
The rumor in Columbus was that Dennis thought he was D1 material even in his freshman year. He may have listened to that D1 siren song one too many times, and the phone call never came...

Glad Dennis landed at Nova. I think Nova is supposed to be pretty good academically.

In defense of the mid-Atlantic schools, having a school where parents can drive to see you play can be another card we can play.

But I agree, if Crutch wants you and you are willing to step up to play his style, he has an advantage with his location. Looks like he is dipping into Europe for 3 or 4 players (some are D1 transfers).

[Columbuseer]

Re: West Liberty Hilltopper Basketball

FYI nova se beat no. 12 Barry. Dennis had 30 pts. Barry had 20 turnovers nova had 4.
Crutch is back!

[IUPbigINDIANS]

Re: West Liberty Hilltopper Basketball

For jumping ship and taking perhaps the best PG in the country with him ... you guys sure are loyal.

[Columbuseer]

Re: West Liberty Hilltopper Basketball

For jumping ship and taking perhaps the best PG in the country with him ... you guys sure are loyal.

Rumor in Columbus was he was thinking he was too good not be a d1 guard even during his freshman year. I think he would have left after his sophomore year even if Crutch had stayed.
I look at it as "if you don't want to be here, then next man up and good luck in the future.".
I don't think Crutch stole him away- perhaps he just might have thrown him a lifeline when no D1 schools called. That speculation is based on the fact that he got him really late in the summer and Dennis purportedly according to the net had previously visited other schools (like Lincoln Memorial) with Clay much earlier. No first hand knowledge of situation.

[Columbuseer]

Re: West Liberty Hilltopper Basketball

As good as Dennis, Clay are, I think Yahel Hill has a greater upside than Dennis (pays more under control, better shooter, and does not force shots), and Yoakum has more upside than Clay (taller, better rebounder, great shooter as well as finisher at the rim).

Obviously we would have loved to have kept them, as they are several years ahead of Hill and Yoakum with little overlap, but the point is that I believe Coach Howlett is getting better and better athletes who want to play at WLU.

It also highlights the amazing coaching job that Howlett did last year (he got coach of year in MEC):
Lost 2 star players from same class (Justice in 2016 and Dennis in 2017), one to top players from Bolon's class (Clay in 2017) and lost a leader in Brady Arnold (PG with Dennis) to cancer just before the season started in 2017

IMHO, we are still not fully recovered as we are staritng 2 frosh, 2 sophs and senior in the first platoon after a November LOI backed out of his written agreement (Insincere Carry) that caused him to restart recruiting the position in April! But Hill is turning out to be a blessing in disguise, as he rapidly improving his defense, is a great shooter and makes very few turnovers ( he is a shooting guard with point guard skills).

[Scrub]

Re: West Liberty Hilltopper Basketball

Wow--this one with NDC is going to be a dog fight. In addition to NDC being a really high quality team, the referees have imposed their will on this game as well. There wasn't a single NDC foul called until 10 minutes remaining in the first half (at which point WLU had 7 already). I'm not sure how many were called on WLU by the half's end (likely close to 20), but NDC was in the double bonus for a full 6 minutes. There almost appeared to be more off-ball fouls called on WLU than there were total on NDC. Granted, NDC is a physical team that is attempting to play a physical game, so there is likely to be a BIT of disparity on the foul line, but it's been an uphill battle so far. It'll be interesting to see what happens in the second half. If this refereeing crew had somehow gotten lost and accidentally shown up at a PSAC game, they would have had to cancel the game at halftime because both teams would have been out of players. Ugh. No flow--hard to watch.

The bright side is that NDC's play-by-play guy is, in my opinion, the best in the conference. He's a delight to listen to even as an opposing fan (and he's helping a generally un-watchable game get a bit more watchable). He clearly does his homework on the players/teams and generally avoids the blatant homer stuff that you typically see on a home broadcast at this level (don't get me started on those guys from WJU). Real classy broadcast. Looking forward to the second half (I guess).

[boatcapt]

Re: West Liberty Hilltopper Basketball

WLU survives a tough test from NDC to claim a 10 point W...103-93.

[Columbuseer]

Re: West Liberty Hilltopper Basketball

WLU survives a tough test from NDC to claim a 10 point W...103-93.