RMCMB/NECMBB offseason run down

--Lee Kunkel
--@Kunkel5

Can you believe it? July is almost over. Only about a month left before the dorms and classrooms will fill up on the campus of Bobby Mo. With that, another step closer to the NCAA basketball season. Compared to the past few off seasons, it's been pretty quiet. There have been a few transfers around the league, but nothing too shocking. Schedules are leaking out slowly (including Robert Morris).

For the first time in a long time, there were not any coaching changes in the league, (nor any teams leaving after Quinnipiac and Monmouth left a year ago). This is probably the biggest reason that the league had a relatively stable offseason. Andy Toole and Jamion Christian both had their name attached to a few vacancies but both ended up staying put. Each will have a team capable of getting back to the NCAA tournament, and neither had an offer that was too appealing to pry them away from the two top programs in the NEC last season.

Jones will look to lead the Colonials
in 2014-2015 (p/c Post Gazette).

The guys over at NYC Buckets broke down the NEC transfers this off season. Give it a read. There were a few small surprises, and Wagner was probably hurt the most. They lost lengthy big man Mario Moody and sharp shooter Jay Harris. Both would have been starters from the Seahawks, who lost quite a bit of talent to graduation as well.

EJ Reed of LIU was maybe the biggest surprise. Reed, an athletic forward with solid skill, was a major part of the Blackbird attack last year, and was expected to once again been a top tier option for LIU. Reed is heading to the DII level.

As for the Colonials, three players have moved on, but none are too surprising. Britton Lee and Jeremiah Worthem were dismissed from school in January, and neither will return. They would have had to sit out the entire first semester before they could even step foot back on campus, so they likely would not have been able to play for RMU much at all this season. Worthem is no doubt a tough loss, as he had NEC POY written all over him and would have been a major part of the team this season. 

Desjuan Newton also left the team, but he also did not play for RMU in 2014 after stepping away from the team after Christmas. Worthem and Lee are at Junior College this season and could be back at the D1 level in 2016 (Surely Worthem will be). Newton is at a DII school.

As for recruiting, RMU had a lot of movement. With three players leaving via transfer, a few scholarships left over from the year before, and the graduation of Karvel Anderson and Ant Myers Pate, coach Toole had a lot of spots to fill throughout the roster.

For highlights and a detailed breakdown of each player, check out the class breakdown here.

The Colonials added  freshman forwards Andre Frederick (Detroit, Mich.) and Elijah Minnie (Monessen, Pa.), freshman guards Jafar Kinsey (Syracuse, N.Y.) and Marcquise Reed (Laurel, Md.), junior forward Lionel Gomis (Dakar, Senegal ), junior guard Rodney Pryor (Evanston, Ill.) and sophomore guard Jairus Lyles (Washington, D.C.). They also added freshman preferred walk-on Ryan Skovranko (Pittsburgh PA.)

Minne and Skovranko are the highlight names on this list (simply because of location). The local duo chose to stay home and play for Toole after winning two state titles in high school at Lincoln Park. Minne had a lot of high major interest and is an incredible defender and athlete. He will surely produce a few highlight dunks at the Chuck. I expect him to have a role this season. Skovranko is a lengthy shooter, and one to track for the future.

Gomis may make the biggest impact out of the gate for RMU. He's 6'9 and a legitimate 220. RMU has NOT had many forwards that are "big" (Usually undersized and strong as hell: Tate, Aaron. Or tall but skinny: Hawkins, Stephan). He's big, and knows how to use his frame. He played a year at Siena before going to Community College for a year. Gomis has two years of eligibility left and will look to anchor down the paint and push Stephan Hawkins at the center position.

Kinsey, Reed and Frederick are the future of the program, but all three will have a chance to get minutes right away. While Frederick will have quite a battle in a crowded front court, Reed and Kinsey will have a very good shot. Andy Toole will need a group effort to replace Anderson at the two guard, and Reed has the makeup to take some of those minutes. He can shoot and score it with anybody. It's the other parts of his game (particularly defense) that will decide just how much he plays year one. Kinsey will be penciled in to play the backup point behind Kavon Stewart. 

Pryor could be the biggest steal for RMU. The 6-4 swingman has battled injuries his whole career including a torn ACL just before the start of the 2013-2014 campaign. He has the size and talent to be a very good D1 player if he can stay on the court.

The last member of the recruiting class, Jairus Lyles, is a transfer from VCU. Any time a player comes from that type of program, you know he has talent. Lyles will have to sit out this season, but should be a major part of the 2015-2016 plans.

Some other notes/thoughts:

Lucky Jones had a very big offseason/summer league. He is primped to have a big senior season, and could win NEC Player of the Year. He was also named to NYC Buckets very early first team All NEC. Jones has accomplished a lot at RMU, and will once again have a huge season on both ends of the court, but is still missing that one elusive accomplishment. Winning the NEC tournament.

Once practice "officially" starts, it will go-go-go for the Colonials. Andy Toole has a lot of talent, a lot of depth, and a lot of questions heading into year five of the Toole era. Only Jones and Stewart are "expected" starters and there are many roles that will need to be filled. Will the Colonials play man-to-man or go with the 2-3 zone again? Who replaces Karvel? Can the freshmen adapt? and many more....

With the season quickly approaching we will have a full roster breakdown, more on the schedule, predictions and much more. Don't forget to get updates on the summer league, which concludes this week with a couple colonials playing in the title game.

Pro-AM semi's: discussing Chuck, Tate

The Greentree Pro-AM summer league is winding down to a halt. When I’m not breaking my back sitting on the bleachers I get sad about this. I love basketball. I love watching, analyzing, looking for tendencies, critiquing the awful coaching, and joking around with the other writers. But there are also nights like tonight, where there was some less-than-stellar basketball being played.

Today was the semifinals of the league. Game one featured the seven seed Shale Attorneys featuring Chuck Oliver squaring off against the number two seed South Hill Audi old guys. I added the last part on, but the players really are a bunch of former collegiate players still trying to ball out. Take former WPIAL star and Nebraska guard Lance Jeter for instance, who can definitely still get to the tin but also looks like he ate Raymond Felton.

Anyway, Chuck didn’t look too bad. He showed up for a 7:15 game at 7:14, meaning he put exactly zero shots before the game. Unsurprisingly, his jump shot wasn’t on but he showed effectiveness getting to the rim, especially using his left. I also thought he passed very well in the transition game and moved well without the ball. Summer league basketball is a lot of one-on-one action, so moving without the ball doesn’t necessarily mean your teammates are feeding you open looks, but it didn’t go unnoticed here.

There was a nice ongoing discussion during the game about Chuck and the expectations the general fanbase may have for him. I like Chuck’s game and enjoyed watching him get to handle the ball a little bit in this game. However, I don’t think anyone should expect to see more than 25 minutes a game from him. He’s pretty average defensively and doesn’t have a very diverse offensive game. It’s a lot of spot up three’s and baseline floaters.  I really think Marcquise Reed is going to push him for minutes because of how pesky Reed is defensively. It’ll be interesting to see what Rodney Pryor brings to the table too.

Chuck’s team did win to go to the final which is kind of incredible in its own right. Along with Oliver  there is Duquesne guard Rene Castro (who, along with a lot of other Duquense guards, has looked really good) and Pitt forward Aron Nwanko, but other than that the roster is littered with two West Liberty wing players, a Cannon wing, and Pitt walk-on Joshua Ko (who’s awful). Good for them.

Game two featured Lucky Jones on team PGT versus Aaron Tate and Marcquise Reed of team System 1. It was a pretty awful game when you consider the level of talent playing. Lucky Jones started things off nice by hitting a deep elbow three then a dirty step back three at the top of the key. He also squared off defensively against Pitt’s Michael Young, an athletic forward with a significant size advantage. Even when there were times Lucky was overmatched in the low post, he did a great job with his positioning which allowed him to poke away the ball a few times. Young also gave us the most excitement in the night when him and Duquesne’s Darius Lewis got into it and received double technicals.

Much like we’ve seen with Lucky in the past, his jump shot wasn’t always there but he got to the line a ton. That’s what makes Lucky a special player; the ability to effect the game in so many different ways.

Marcquise Reed didn’t see the floor a lot and when he did didn’t do a whole lot. He nailed an easy three when a defender didn’t step up off a pick and roll. I think he finished with seven points.

I’ve really enjoyed watching Aaron Tate play this summer. He’s shown up to almost every session and has shown an ability to at least try a few things, like working out of the low post. I doubt we’ll see it much (if at all) during the season but when he gets the ball in the low post on the right he hasn’t looked bad trying to move and finish with his left. Also, I am fully convinced he would be an Olympic-caliber volleyball player if he wanted to be. He has UPS.

Tate and Reed’s team went on to win the game and will face Chuck in the championship game on Wednesday. Overall, it was another relatively bland night of hoops, but these things happen. I’m not sure if I’ll go to the championship game Wednesday, but will try and run a story later in the week no matter what.

Until next time!

--Chris Cappella

--@C_Cappella

7-9 summer league journal: Kavon, Kinsey, and Karvel Anderson

Welcome back! T’was a really fun night of Summer league basketball. Those things tend to happen when the life of the party (me) shows up to do some reporting. Anyway, there were a lot of guys missing tonight but that didn’t stop me from having A LOT to say:

-Kavon Stewart made his summer league debut tonight and he was a lot of fun + tried to do new things. That’s what can make summer league fun to watch. You could tell Kavon wasn’t moving all too well and admitted afterwards his knee was still bothering him. Also, he had a pretty nasty cut on his hand from Lucky Jones in a pickup game.

Kavon took four jump shots in the game and only one of them came kinda close to going in. He tried stepping into two three’s at the top of the key, airballing one and bricking the other. He took a corner three, which wasn’t a bad looking shot, and took a midrange jumper off a crossover which also caught all of the back iron.

Kavon said afterward he’s focusing a lot on repetition, especially with the consistency of his hands and elbows. He said sometimes his arms will be where they want to be and it feels good but then the next shot it will be something completely different. Bottom line is this: even if it doesn’t always look pretty, him having a shot that is comfortable and gives him a chance at success is what’s most important. For example, how in the name of all the basketball gods did Michael Kidd-Gilchrist get into the NBA with a shot like this? But you know what… it works for him. Same with Kavon. Just get comfortable and consistent. In my opinion, he could also work on his timing a little. His high jump creates for timing issues (much like Anthony Myers-Pate) and too often the shot will be released just a split-second late.

Besides that Kavon looked like Kavon. He used his left very effectively but went to his right a ton in the second half and was looking to create rather than finish. He had some nifty passes and was a pest defensively. I’m just going to throw this out there now and tell you Kavon Stewart will win an NEC defensive player of the year award before he graduates. He is ANNOYING defensively. His hands are so quick and he has a pretty wide frame for a point guard.

-Game two featured Lionel Gomes, Jafar Kinsey, Andre Frederick, and Karvel Anderson. Kinsey, a point guard, started off shooting the ball really well stepping into a three off the pick and roll and hit a few corner threes. He clearly has a better shot than I think anyone really imagined. I will continue to say that he understands how to read the defense off the pick and roll really well, knowing when to attack, create, take a jump shot, and most importantly peel back and start over. He looked really, really good again.

-Lionel Gomes also impressed me. Gomes is a big man who sometimes just wants to brawl underneath the basket. He also uses his body really well on rebounding and can rebound out of his position. The only thing he’ll struggle with is adjusting to the size of the game. Gomes is big but definitely has the frame to add on and can sometimes get stuck to his man when trying to rebound.

Offensively he was pleasant to watch. Gomes always seems to have a plan when he has the ball. I hate to pick on Aaron Tate (mostly out of a fear that he’ll kill me) but Tate touches the ball and freezes. Gomes gets the ball and can square up and shoot a mid-range jumper or can work with his back to the basket. He definitely has some body control issues, but there’s more to like than dislike.

-Andre Frederick gave everyone a scare when he appeared to tweak his knee (on which he wears a brace for) and stayed down before limping off. To be honest, I still have no feel for Frederick’s game. He took a few mid-range jumpers that looked nice but I can’t give you much more than that.

-Lucky Jones and Marquice Reed also played tonight but I did not watch any of their games. Lucky apparently put on a show early and Reed continues to get after it defensively. I will maintain the thought that the starting two guard position is more up in the air than people think.

Leftovers

-Hat tip to Andrew Chiappazzi who pretty much decked Pitt’s Cameron Wright a la Ray Lewis vs. Dustin Keller when Wright came Chiappazzi’s way. The legend grows…

-Kavon Stewart did some pretty serious trash talking that definitely lead to some angry opponents by games end. I always enjoy a good trash talker.

-There were some kids out there who I am convinced are not better than me. Someone put in a word to get me a jersey.

-Karvel Anderson went all Karvel Anderson in the last game with his team down seven and two minutes left, scoring something like 13 of the last 15 points. The ending was also incredibly spectacular, where he hit came down the court and hit a deep three with a hand in his face. After missing the front end of a one-and-one (YGTMYFT!!!), he came down and did the exact same thing which really riled up the crowd. Then, with ten seconds left, Karvel let the ball roll up-court where he picked it up, took a few dribbles, spun out of what appeared to be a foul attempt and drained another three to tie the game. It was incredible. His team actually went on to lose off a buzzer-beating put back.

Which brings me to my last point, and this will probably be the last time I make it: I still have no idea how Karvel Anderson didn’t even get a summer league invite. No calls. Nothing. Although I could be wrong, I’d be willing to bet most mid-major conference players of the year at least got summer league invites. Hell, even Sacred Heart’s Shane Gibson got one last year! I know there is the position change and the height, but when you can shoot the ball like that… It just doesn’t make sense to me. It never will. There are other things I love about his game, but I’ll stop there.

Hope I didn’t rile you all up too much there. Sometimes you just have to stand for something.

Until next time.

--Chris Cappella

--@C_Cappella