Alderson Broaddus Basketball

[JDonAB92]

Re: Alderson Broaddus Basketball

Another non-conference game set. This one is against a 2017 NCAA tournament qualifier and a regular on the schedule. Bowie State will come in real tested having played Duke in an exhibition, Wheeling Jesuit (my early top pick in the Atlantic region), Shepherd (a team that will make it to the NCAA this year based on what they return) and Bloomfield ( a NCAA team last year that went 22-10). Bowie follows us with IUP (a team that will make the NCAAs again). Say what you want, but Coach Brooks at Bowie goes out and schedules as tough as a non-conference schedule as any one in the country.

http://battlerbeat.blogspot.com/2017...-saturday.html

[JDonAB92]

Re: Alderson Broaddus Basketball

We will host the G-MAC/GLIAC crossover this year. We open the season with Wayne State. They return four of their top five scorers from a year ago off a 16-10 team. We will play Lake Superior State the next afternoon. Another tough challenge as they return their top four scorers as well off a 16-10 team. They only graduated one senior and Steve Hettinga is an excellent coach. These games are set for Friday and Saturday, November 10 and 11th.

The only other non-conference game added is Urbana at home on February 5th.

Good way to open: Wayne State, LSSU, at Glenville and host an always tough Bowie State squad. I am intrigued by these two opening games as these teams will be well-seasoned and we have retooled a lineup....talented but inexperienced. And getting WV Wesleyan back on the docket brings a good home schedule.

[WVFanatic]

Re: Alderson Broaddus Basketball

Schedule seems really good. First semester is pretty tough

[JDonAB92]

Re: Alderson Broaddus Basketball

Lake Superior State returns one of the best overall players in the country in Akaemji Williams who averaged 21.5 ppg and 8 assists per game. He was a 1st-team GLIAC selection but also voted by the coaches as a 1st-team All GLIAC defensive team. His scoring average, assist average and ability to play defense places him in that category. When opposing coaches praise that type of player with defense, I define that as an impressive player because defense is incredibly important. The thing is he will even be better this season as they return their entire lineup minus one player. They return their top four scorers to go along with him. Coach Steve is coming to Philippi to get an opportunity to get some quality in-region wins.

Lake Superior and Wayne State were rated 9th and 10th in the final Midwest Regional Rankings last season. Both teams return a ton of quality players. This will be one of the top crossover events of the upcoming season. I have seen the others. Not too many top this one. These conference work with their member schools to get top matchups in these. Both of these GLIAC schools were on the cusp of the NCAA tournament last year despite having young teams.

I will be at the Elite Camp Part II next weekend. I don't know the names yet, but I don't think you will see quite the caliber of players at this one. I still think there will be some good ones, but remember also that football has started in most states by then. And we also had some big names at the last one. A ton of those guys already have multiple D2 offers and a few have D1 offers now. I will give updates throughout the day on the site again. I talked with Zimmerman last time and he was real pleased with the turn out and quality players that came back in June. My mobility will be limited as I am in a walking air boot/cast whatever. I will get to talk to most players though. The first thing I will do when I get there is post all the names attending on the site. My updates are limited by the wireless being a little shaky.

Polls don't mean much. But I was a little surprised we were 4th in football. I thought we might be lower considering we lost a lot of good players. We also lost our head coach and OC. It isn't a knock on the current group. We have recruited well over the years, but it just seemed to me to be a little high. That first game is tough. 4th place wouldn't be bad it would seem.

[WVFanatic]

Re: Alderson Broaddus Basketball

With the recruiting beast known as July past us, I would say it would be hard to get guys to a camp that already have offers. McMurray, Sunahara, Tipton, Baumgardner, Heath, and Bonner (who just committed to Fairmont state) all blew up with offers last month. Add in guys like Sean Kelly, Justin Curtis and Juan Elmore and that is a solid pool of guys to look at. I won't be able to attend but I will be following your blog the whole day. I'm interested to see if any more offers are put on the table. Tipton came out with his final 5 and we weren't in it, McMurray now has two D1 offers so odds aren't in our favor, and Sunahara has a couple quality offers that will make it hard for anyone to get a commitment out of.

[JDonAB92]

Re: Alderson Broaddus Basketball

Of the guys coming, 18 players have offers from either a D2 or NAIA program so far. I won't get into all the offers at this time. Here are some names:

Justin Curtis of East Columbus HS. 6'3" player with a 20.1 ppg average as a junior.

Jordan Burge of Lutheran East is a nice-looking 6'3" scorer who has nice abilities. University of Charleston has already offered.

Josh Mack out of St. Maria Goretti here in Hagerstown...a private powerhouse. #15 ranked guard in the state of Maryland which says a lot.

Sincere Carry out of Solon HS.....18 ppg

Juan Elmore is coming back.....may get offer.

Jah Bennett of Africentric HS in Columbus. 6'7". He was all-central district. Offered already by Kentucky State

Will Bounds of Haymarket, VA. 6'7" and 16 ppg

Amante Britt of Woody HS is coming back.

Michael Bekelja of Solon HS....14 ppg and class of 2019.

Del and Dy Jackson of Cleveland Central Catholic.....Del had some really big games last season against some quality opponents.

Kaeleb Carter out of Manassas, VA......6'5" with some upside. Good two-sport athlete.

Jake Stephens out of Musselman....was a 3rd-team AAA all state last year in WV. 6'7" and 230 pounds.

One I want to get a good look is Corey Barnett of Martinsburg....6'3" wing/forward....17 ppg and 7 rpg...was a WV 1st-team AAA all state pick for a very good program. It is good he is coming.

There will be some others. The size guys will get good looks as Mitchell and Smith will be seniors. The Whalen kid from the last camp has done well this summer down in the Richmond area. He had some nice write ups and has that 6'7" size. Has been offered by WV Tech. He won't be there Saturday but I throw that out there. The kid from Goretti plays ball year-round.....the privates in Maryland have that advantage. Probably not a need as we are loaded at guard. I am sure Namolik down at Shepherd is recruiting Mack, Stephens and and Barnett as he will have quite a few seniors this season.

Some good prospects to get a look at.

[WVFanatic]

Re: Alderson Broaddus Basketball

That's not a bad list of players especially for this time of the summer. It will be interesting to see who else makes it

[JDonAB92]

Re: Alderson Broaddus Basketball

I will be there tomorrow. I will start updating at 9 AM providing I can get hooked up on the internet. I will start with a full roster of players and schools. Here is where the updates will occur:

http://battlerbeat.blogspot.com/

[Looking For 9]

Re: Alderson Broaddus Basketball

Thanks

[JDonAB92]

Re: Alderson Broaddus Basketball

Real quick:

I will have a lot of stuff on yesterday's camp tomorrow. It was a good camp that added some coaches from other schools which I thought was good. Coach Wamsley put together a good camp.

Darrin Martin of Graham (VA) is a player. I wouldn't look at his scoring average from last year as an indicator. Kid took over in team competition. Not a ball hog. He passed the ball, but in crunch situations, he broke every defender down and scored. He was incredibly impressive. I wish he was at the first one because I rank him in the top five players in the two camps combined. I talked to him and he is well-spoken. Back in the day, he is the type of player that Terry Brown would have recruited to Bluefield State....back when they finished 3rd or 4th in the conference every season. He is a James DeWitt type of player that the Big Blues had in my era....clutch, dominating, but a team player.

Carter kid out of Colgan (VA) was dominating and may earn an offer. Two other bigs I really liked. Kid from Musselman drove 3.5 hours to come even though he couldn't play. He has developed his body from last year. I will definitely follow him this year. Coach Williams and him have a good relationship it appears if you take into account he drove that far and knew he couldn't play. He stayed all day.

The Virginia kids were really the ones that stood out yesterday. Credit to Coach Williams who has a firm handle on evaluating that talent. I talked to him a good bit yesterday as well.

I talked to all the coaches yesterday extensively. That is probably why I didn't have as many updates. I talked to Zimmerman for a long time in the morning probably a good hour. I have info on who is coming back and who is not. One significant player from last year is not returning and another player is coming back to the program who has been out for a few seasons, and his game looks real good as he was there yesterday. Zimmerman stated that he really put in some time last year at AB after not playing but being in school last year. A lot of AB players were there yesterday and the player coming back looked the best of them all (at the current moment). Carmon is a freak of a player. He and Golphin though are going to have to learn the Zimm way of playing basketball and not going 100 mph with the ball.

I have family stuff today, but will post stuff tomorrow.

[JDonAB92]

Re: Alderson Broaddus Basketball

My thoughts on Saturday:

http://battlerbeat.blogspot.com/2017...ights-and.html

[WVFanatic]

Re: Alderson Broaddus Basketball

Nice write up JDon. How many of those guys do you see getting an offer from AB?

[Looking For 9]

Re: Alderson Broaddus Basketball

Great write up... we need more of this kind of info

[glvcpro]

Re: Alderson Broaddus Basketball

AB has about a .000001 chance of winning a title. Usi has a .000002 chance. Kwc somewhere in between.

[JDonAB92]

Re: Alderson Broaddus Basketball

AB has about a .000001 chance of winning a title. Usi has a .000002 chance. Kwc somewhere in between.

Is there a point here because this seems really irrelevant? I guess I will waste my time and play along for whatever reason....

Alderson Broaddus is located in Philippi, WV in a town that has a population of less than 3000 people. The campus enrolls roughly 1050 students. The nearest metro city to AB is Clarksburg (30 minutes away) which has a population of a whopping 16,000 people. It isn't always the most attractive place to come for basketball players.

Southern Indiana has roughly 8500 undergrads and is located in a city of over 110,000 people.

AB had been to one basketball post-season tournament in the 46 years prior to Greg Zimmerman's arrival to campus. He went to 9 NCAA tournaments. He made it to 2 Regional Finals. He has won 74% of the games he coached in despite being at a very rural location. He has won 6 NCAA games for a program that is not and has not been fully-funded in terms of scholarships. He did suffer his worst season this past year after graduating three 1000 point scorers.

USI's coach has gone 1-5 in NCAA tournament games. I would bet USI is fully-funded and is near areas where there are more basketball players to recruit based on population. Despite these advantages, he has a similar overall winning percentage to Zimmerman.

Therefore, my hypothesis concludes with the theory that if it came down to USI or AB as to who has a better chance to win it, I go with AB with having the better percentage chance based on the sideline factor. If he could get AB to 9 NCAA tourneys for a program that had been to only 1 post-season in the prior 46 years and also got to two regional finals and has showed an ability to win NCAA tournament games, then he gets the nod.

5 years ago, AB beat Fairmont State in the WVIAC tournament. Fairmont State was a 12 seed that year....one spot below Ohio Valley. No one gave Fairmont State a chance to win a title or whatever at that point. Five years later, they are hammering the GLVC rep in the NCAAs......I believe they led by 20 points at the half and for all intent purposes, put nails in that coffin at the half. My point is that no one five years ago would put Fairmont State in any "title" category. No one knows where ANY PROGRAM will be in the coming years.