Iup basketball

[blackhawkdown]

Any word on the new recruit that just committed?

[Ship69]

Per the Penn State Twitter world, Dallis is visiting this weekend.

Little reason to think he couldn't play up there. I knew Penn State was in for trouble this past season when Ship put up 48 points on them in the second half of their preseason scrimmage. Even allowing they had let up after getting a big lead in the first half, that wasn't going to cut it in the Big 10.

[IUPalum]

[QUOTE=IUPbigINDIANS;n937731]

Joe does at least have a handful of guys coming back. I only say that because several others have next to nobody coming back. Cal, Clarion, SRU and Seton Hill were completely gutted.

Returning:

Kymani Merraro
Ian Herring
Ralphie Blundo
Bautista Rodriguez
Tasso Sfanos
Harry Keighley

Incoming (signed) Freshmen:

Griffin Straub (SF / Ohio)
Colin Simmons (SG / Canada)

Offered (high school):

Luke Scarff (PF / Pennsylvania)


Merraro, Rodriguez and Herring have a lot of experience. Sfanos easily could have played last season after playing two seasons at UCSB. Blundo projects to be a (slightly) bigger and faster version of Bryce Radford. Keighley is athletic for his 6'9" frame but needs to put on about 30 pounds this offseason.

Of the two incoming freshmen, Straub may play right away. He had offers from about every top program in the Atlantic Region.

I think there's a very good chance they get Scarff.

So, that's (8) officially on the books and (1) pending.

Joe has a lot of room available. These 3-4 transfers he's going to sign are going to tell the tale.

In my opinion, he ABSOLUTELY must sign at least (1) legitimate post player. He can still toy around with the hoards of SFs but he needs a legit banger. I'm not talking about a high school kid. He needs to find a Day 1, ready to roll guy.

There are legitimately thousands and thousands of players available in the Portal.

Question is can he find the right 3 or 4 of them?

Joe will find another Christian Moore type player. There are plenty of them out there that sat on the end of D1 benches that just want to play!

[IUPbigINDIANS]

Per the Penn State Twitter world, Dallis is visiting this weekend.

[IUPbigINDIANS]

[QUOTE=Ship69;n937737]

There are so many teams who could use a post player or at least a strong power forward. Ship certainly falls into that category. The Raiders have a solid guard/small forward core with Markus Frank, Jaydon Smith, and Michael Dickson next season, but they need a banger to help with inner defense and rebounding when the shooting is off. Another three-point shooter wouldn't hurt, either, with the departure of Timmy Conner. But the portal has made strong post players the elusive quest in D2 ball because any big that shows real talent is liable to be scooped by D1. I saw several teams in the PSAC this year that were a piece or two from being really strong, but that last piece can be hard to get.

College ball has changed so much over the years. John Wooden's first championship team at UCLA prior to the era of Kareem and Bill Walton was a run-and-gun pressing team led by Walt Hazzard and Gail Goodrich. Hazzard was 6-2 and Goodrich was 6-1. The tallest player on that team was 6-7. Today they'd be short even by PSAC standards. On this year's final four Illinois team, the shortest player was 6-7.

I'm hoping Chris Fite can pick up a couple of guys to put Ship over the top this season. Getting the right guys could easily add 6 or 7 wins on top of this past season's record. But everybody will be looking. We'll have to see.

Those bigs are out there.

But, you have to find them. I question how well some of our older coaches are coping with recruiting sight-unseen players from the internet. It's a much different world today.

In a couple more weeks a lot of the D1 dreams will be crushed. The phones are no longer ringing and the spots are taken. Then all the sudden our offers look a whole lot better.

[Ship69]

[QUOTE=IUPbigINDIANS;n937731]

Joe does at least have a handful of guys coming back. I only say that because several others have next to nobody coming back. Cal, Clarion, SRU and Seton Hill were completely gutted.

Returning:

Kymani Merraro
Ian Herring
Ralphie Blundo
Bautista Rodriguez
Tasso Sfanos
Harry Keighley

Incoming (signed) Freshmen:

Griffin Straub (SF / Ohio)
Colin Simmons (SG / Canada)

Offered (high school):

Luke Scarff (PF / Pennsylvania)


Merraro, Rodriguez and Herring have a lot of experience. Sfanos easily could have played last season after playing two seasons at UCSB. Blundo projects to be a (slightly) bigger and faster version of Bryce Radford. Keighley is athletic for his 6'9" frame but needs to put on about 30 pounds this offseason.

Of the two incoming freshmen, Straub may play right away. He had offers from about every top program in the Atlantic Region.

I think there's a very good chance they get Scarff.

So, that's (8) officially on the books and (1) pending.

Joe has a lot of room available. These 3-4 transfers he's going to sign are going to tell the tale.

In my opinion, he ABSOLUTELY must sign at least (1) legitimate post player. He can still toy around with the hoards of SFs but he needs a legit banger. I'm not talking about a high school kid. He needs to find a Day 1, ready to roll guy.

There are legitimately thousands and thousands of players available in the Portal.

Question is can he find the right 3 or 4 of them?

There are so many teams who could use a post player or at least a strong power forward. Ship certainly falls into that category. The Raiders have a solid guard/small forward core with Markus Frank, Jaydon Smith, and Michael Dickson next season, but they need a banger to help with inner defense and rebounding when the shooting is off. Another three-point shooter wouldn't hurt, either, with the departure of Timmy Conner. But the portal has made strong post players the elusive quest in D2 ball because any big that shows real talent is liable to be scooped by D1. I saw several teams in the PSAC this year that were a piece or two from being really strong, but that last piece can be hard to get.

College ball has changed so much over the years. John Wooden's first championship team at UCLA prior to the era of Kareem and Bill Walton was a run-and-gun pressing team led by Walt Hazzard and Gail Goodrich. Hazzard was 6-2 and Goodrich was 6-1. The tallest player on that team was 6-7. Today they'd be short even by PSAC standards. On this year's final four Illinois team, the shortest player was 6-7.

I'm hoping Chris Fite can pick up a couple of guys to put Ship over the top this season. Getting the right guys could easily add 6 or 7 wins on top of this past season's record. But everybody will be looking. We'll have to see.

[IUPbigINDIANS]

[QUOTE=EyeoftheHawk;n937725]

It's really hard to predict now. You can't tell how the teams are going to look in the next season.[/QUOTE

You can’t exactly, but by this time you can get a pretty good read on things. Football was successful within the PSAC last year but not regionally, and a lot of those guys have moved on with their life’s work. Very few reinforcements have been brought in and the presumed QB has never played a college game. The other option at the most important position is a true freshman that also has never played in a college game. Their next big opportunity to get players is after spring practices. We’ll see.

Basketball just lost the top prospect they signed two years ago among others. They also graduated their two best players with nobody even resembling them to fill those spots. As of today, there hasn’t been anyone signed. I will say that there’s more time for basketball to add players but I’m not confident IUP is going to attract top guys. They haven’t the last few years and I’m not sure why that would change now. Here’s hoping.

Joe does at least have a handful of guys coming back. I only say that because several others have next to nobody coming back. Cal, Clarion, SRU and Seton Hill were completely gutted.

Returning:

Kymani Merraro
Ian Herring
Ralphie Blundo
Bautista Rodriguez
Tasso Sfanos
Harry Keighley

Incoming (signed) Freshmen:

Griffin Straub (SF / Ohio)
Colin Simmons (SG / Canada)

Offered (high school):

Luke Scarff (PF / Pennsylvania)


Merraro, Rodriguez and Herring have a lot of experience. Sfanos easily could have played last season after playing two seasons at UCSB. Blundo projects to be a (slightly) bigger and faster version of Bryce Radford. Keighley is athletic for his 6'9" frame but needs to put on about 30 pounds this offseason.

Of the two incoming freshmen, Straub may play right away. He had offers from about every top program in the Atlantic Region.

I think there's a very good chance they get Scarff.

So, that's (8) officially on the books and (1) pending.

Joe has a lot of room available. These 3-4 transfers he's going to sign are going to tell the tale.

In my opinion, he ABSOLUTELY must sign at least (1) legitimate post player. He can still toy around with the hoards of SFs but he needs a legit banger. I'm not talking about a high school kid. He needs to find a Day 1, ready to roll guy.

There are legitimately thousands and thousands of players available in the Portal.

Question is can he find the right 3 or 4 of them?

[EyeoftheHawk]

[QUOTE=iupgroundhog;n937721]

It's really hard to predict now. You can't tell how the teams are going to look in the next season.[/QUOTE

You can’t exactly, but by this time you can get a pretty good read on things. Football was successful within the PSAC last year but not regionally, and a lot of those guys have moved on with their life’s work. Very few reinforcements have been brought in and the presumed QB has never played a college game. The other option at the most important position is a true freshman that also has never played in a college game. Their next big opportunity to get players is after spring practices. We’ll see.

Basketball just lost the top prospect they signed two years ago among others. They also graduated their two best players with nobody even resembling them to fill those spots. As of today, there hasn’t been anyone signed. I will say that there’s more time for basketball to add players but I’m not confident IUP is going to attract top guys. They haven’t the last few years and I’m not sure why that would change now. Here’s hoping.

[iupgroundhog]

As of today, I can't say 2026-27 is looking real promising for either Tort or Joe.

That can change in a hurry. But, until it does ...

It's really hard to predict now. You can't tell how the teams are going to look in the next season.

[IUPbigINDIANS]

To go with the two high schoolers he already signed.

As of today, I can't say 2026-27 is looking real promising for either Tort or Joe.

That can change in a hurry. But, until it does ...

[IUPbigINDIANS]

Joe had a recruit visit this weekend so I'd assume the 'retirement' rumors can be put to bed.

You can't really call them 'rumors' because he sure just about said he was retiring at his last press conference. He later said that wasn't what he was trying to say and insinuated it just came out incorrectly.

In other news, Sarp entered the transfer portal. He has two years left and is likely looking for somewhere to play more minutes.

So, of the players we actually thought were returning, he's the only one leaving as of today. Obviously Dallis and Christian are leaving, even though we were all already expecting that they were finished.

Joe has a lot of work to do in the Portal. There are some names flying around but I'll wait until they are concrete. This stuff is so screwed up now the only thing I can say for sure is Joe will have a team on the floor come opening night.

[IUPalum]

IUP is in contact with numerous transfers so it sure would appear Joe isn't retiring.

To go with the two high schoolers he already signed.

[IUPbigINDIANS]

IUP is in contact with numerous transfers so it sure would appear Joe isn't retiring.

[IUPbigINDIANS]

Former IUP assistant Joey Cantens has been named head coach at FIU.

[Ship69]

Try to figure out what charging is this season.

Good luck.

It was a nightmare at times for Ship as most of their players this year were under 6-7 and tended toward thin builds. Bulky forwards from other teams would bang into them, pound them back to the basket, and then go up and draw a foul. It's very hard to defend a bigger player with any degree of skill if the officials are going to let him do whatever he wants.