West Liberty Hilltopper Basketball

[wheelingtopper62]

Verbal Commits shows that the Satterfield kid (long, athletic, good shooter) from Charleston Catholic has officially received an offer from Charleston. I know Satterfield did visit WLU--I saw him in attendance at the Glenville game where WLU dropped about 86 on the Pioneers in the first half. I'll be interested to see if Howlett counters with an offer of his own.

Satterfield is extremely talented!! Would be great in the pressin Hilltopper system. Imagine him on ball with butler hazelbaker McKinney and Robinson

[Columbuseer]

Verbal Commits shows that the Satterfield kid (long, athletic, good shooter) from Charleston Catholic has officially received an offer from Charleston. I know Satterfield did visit WLU--I saw him in attendance at the Glenville game where WLU dropped about 86 on the Pioneers in the first half. I'll be interested to see if Howlett counters with an offer of his own.

Just a jr and captain of class A all state team. Impressive!

[Scrub]

Verbal Commits shows that the Satterfield kid (long, athletic, good shooter) from Charleston Catholic has officially received an offer from Charleston. I know Satterfield did visit WLU--I saw him in attendance at the Glenville game where WLU dropped about 86 on the Pioneers in the first half. I'll be interested to see if Howlett counters with an offer of his own.

[Columbuseer]

Allessondro offers from AB, Georgian Court, OK Baptist, Tiffin, Walsh, Stonehill, Le Moyne
Shiflett offers from Fresno Pacific, Biola, Montevallo, Slipper Rock, Coker, KY Wesleyan

Some good schools! I could see them being successful at many of those schools. Hope they do due diligence on academic and financial footing. Several are on shaky ground.

[wheelingtopper62]

Allessondro offers from AB, Georgian Court, OK Baptist, Tiffin, Walsh, Stonehill, Le Moyne
Shiflett offers from Fresno Pacific, Biola, Montevallo, Slipper Rock, Coker, KY Wesleyan

[Columbuseer]

Incredible passing and all 5 players touched the ball in the sequence.Might have been in the regional.
This year WLU had a sequence where it did not touch the floor (can't recall the game) but not as spectacular as this.

[boatcapt]

What smart, unselfish basketball is all about. One of my favorite wlu highlights...
https://youtu.be/sbZ8cScCnxg

Young players: notice how the guy who blocked the shot kept the ball in play and did not gesticulate to the crowd. He stayed in the moment and instantly went from defense to offense and sprinted down the court. As a result, he got an assist after his block.

WOW!! Five pass fast break from the baseline to the basket! I'm sure it's happened, but I don't recall ever seeing a fast break with that many passes were the ball never touched the floor!

[Columbuseer]

What smart, unselfish basketball is all about. One of my favorite wlu highlights...
https://youtu.be/sbZ8cScCnxg

Young players: notice how the guy who blocked the shot kept the ball in play and did not gesticulate to the crowd. He stayed in the moment and instantly went from defense to offense and sprinted down the court. As a result, he got an assist after his block.

[Dirtybird]

And Stonehill and AB.

[IUPbigINDIANS]

Le Moyne offered him today.

[Columbuseer]

[IUPbigINDIANS]

That's the frustrating part today. These kids want to be stars immediately. In the old days (not that long ago) you'd be lucky to even play as a sophomore.

He won't have trouble finding a home.

[Columbuseer]

He certainly does have a nice skill set, but it never seemed like the right skill set to fit with the WLU system. He doesn't shoot well enough to play guard in the WLU system. And he never seemed totally comfortable banging underneath. In a couple of those post-game sit-downs, Jon mentioned playing the point in high school. I think he's more comfortable being a distributor (and you could definitely see this year that he's a very good passer with a high basketball IQ), but at 6'7" in the WLU system, you're a Center. Or if you're a big guy who wants to play guard, you better shoot the lights out (cf. Seger Bonifant). So, I do think Alessandro will make a useful piece at a lot of D2 schools, he was a bit of an odd fit for WLU's system. I suppose good for him that he recognized that "fit" issue, and here's wishing him the best wherever he lands.

[Scrub]

The other thing not to be overlooked here is that both of the kids who have declared a transfer away from WLU this offseason are "forwards" (at least WLU version of forwards). As has been discussed on here multiple times before, finding "bigs" who can survive in the WLU system (without a recruiting budget to go get a bunch of Eastern European guys who would fit the bill) is a real challenge. So while I'm in agreement with Boat that neither Alessandro nor Shifflett will be hard to replace per se, it does leave WLU pretty thin on the front line with only Moore & Hazelbaker remaining. Now Howlett has to go pound the pavement in search of a "big" who can play WLU-style basketball, and that's never an easy task.

[boatcapt]

Any time you lose a player that had 13 starts, it hurts. While it is difficult to assign traditional positions and roles (starter, guard/forward, 6th man) to WLU's players, you can make a case that Alesandro was WLU's 6th Man. Again, a clear loss. But you also have to look at what he did when he was in the game and that is not very impressive. There are a lot of things that a player is expected to do at WLU but probably the three most important are recognizing when you should take a 3pt shot, taking 3 pt shots when you have an open look and making 3 pt shots. Alesandro was woo-full in all three areas. He averaged 17 1/2 minutes in the 19 games he played and only took 39 3 pt tries...that's 2 3 pt shots per game. But even more important than that, he only made 10 3 pt'ers on the season shooting a paltry .256 on the year. Neither of those stats are going to put you in Ben's good graces. Of course, even though WLU doesn't highlight it, there are other ways to score the basketball. But Alesandro was not a demon in the paint either. In his 19 games he only took 64 shots (3.4 per game avg) making 31 of them for a shooting % inside the arc of .484.

So long and short, losing a sometime starter and 15+ minute guy hurts. But replacing what he actually gave to the team should not be that difficult. On a scale of 1-10, losing Alesandro is probably a 3 or 4.