SoCalHoops Recruiting News

Big West Recruiting: Western
Division Report--(May 18, 2000)

As we said when writing about the Eastern Division, we really like the Big West Conference . . . in fact it may be our favorite conference of any on the West Coast because of the wide variation in styles of play, the quality of the schools and the quick-paced style of that most of the teams like to run.  There aren't as many teams in the conference as deep as say the Pac-10, but there are some who could, on any given day, beat about 90% of the Pac-10 teams. . . Then again, the reputation that the conference has developed among some of the weaker teams just makes it fun to see how and when they'll improve.   And we think there's been improvement in the conference across the board, especially among some of the traditionally weak teams like UCI and Fullerton, which should have dramatically better teams, if not next season then certainly within two years.  Hey, recruiting is a process, just like everything else, and it takes time.

Just as the conference officials have broken the league down into two divisions, we've also split our report in the same fashion.  This installment focuses on the teams in the Western Division of the Big West Conference and how they fared this year in recruiting, what we think they'll likely look like next season, and whether a team has improved it's positioning with it's recruiting class or hasn't. By and large we think just about everyone has improved their teams, but then the only true measure of success is what happens on the court.  But it's fun to try to project. . . Anyway, here's the team by team report.  If you want to jump ahead, just click on the name of a team to jump right to that portion of the report.

Long Beach State

Long Beach St (7)

Fall Signees:  (3)
Cedric Lusk F 6-7 185 Bellflower, California (Cerritos JC)
Kevin Roberts F 6-6 190 Petaluma, California (Casa Grande HS)
Tadeu Souza F 6-8 230 Sao Paulo, Brazil (Mineral Area JC)

Spring Signees: (4)
Vance Lawhorn (6'-8" So. PF) Las Vegas, NV (Dixie JC, St. George Utah)
Michael Darrett G 6-1 200 Evansville, Indiana (Olney (IL) Central JC)
Terrance Watkins F 6-6 205 Inglewood, New York (Bishop Loughlin HS)
Lemi Williams F 6-6 205 Hayti, Missouri (Mineral Area JC)

Long Beach State was the Cinderella team of the Big West last season, finishing 15-1 in the conference and 24-6 overall, and they were the hot ticket in SoCal last season, better and more fun for the most part than watching UCLA, USC, and most of the rest of the Pac-10.  Whether they can repeat again is anyone's guess, but Wayne Morgan has brought in what amounts to a whole new crew of guys to make up for the players graduating and otherwise not returning. And this is an excellent class of recruits. . . unfortunately, we've only see a few of them in person, so we're going to have to rely on what others are saying. 

The most recent signee was Vance Lawhorn out of Dixie Junior College in St. George, Utah has signed a National Letter of Intent to play basketball at Long Beach State. Lawhorn (Forward, 6-8, 215, Junior) is originally from Las Vegas, Nevada. Lawhorn averaged 18.6 points, 7.5 rebounds and 1.2 blocks per game last year and was named first team All-Scenic West Athletic Conference. Lawhorn shot .653 (230-352) from the field and .606 (152-251) from the free throw line, while averaging 34.6 minutes played per game. Dixie was 22-11 last year and advanced to the finals of the Region 18 Tournament before falling to Southern Idaho, 84-76.  The week before Lawhorn signed with the 49'ers, Morgan inked three other guys: Michael Darrett (6'-1" So. G) from Olney (IL) Central College, Terrance Watkins (6'-6" Sr. F) from Inglewood, NY Bishop Loughlin HS, and Lemi Williams (6'-6" So. F) , 205, Jr., Mineral Area JC). We've never seen any of these guys play, but here's what the press release info had: "Darrett comes to LBSU from Olney Central College in Illinios where he averaged 14.6 points, 4.0 rebounds and 6.0 assists per game. Darrett shot .474 from the field and .362 from the 3-point line on the year and was named first team all-conference and first team all-region. Olney finished the season at 23-7, won the Great River Athletic Conference championship, but lost in the first round of state regional action. Darrett hails from Bosse High School in Evansville, IN where he participated in the Top 20 High School All-Star Game after his senior season.  Watkins is a true freshman out of Bishop Loughlin High School in Inglewood, New York. Watkins was rated as the fifth-best player in the state this season   Williams averaged 18.0 points, 4.0 rebounds and 4.0 assists per game last year at Mineral Area (MO) JC in leading his squad to a 19-13 record and a second place conference finish. Williams shot .460 from 3-point range and .530 from the field overall in earning unanimous All-Region 16 and All-MCCAC honors as a sophomore. Mineral Area lost in the semifinals of the regional tournament this past year. As a freshman Williams averaged 13.0 points and 3.0 assists per game and was a first team all-conference selection. Williams hails from Hayti, Missouri and prepped at North Pemiscot High School."

The other signees who inked in the fall were Cedric Lusk  (6'-7" So. F) from Cerritos JC, Bellflower, CA/Bellflower HS, Kevin Roberts (6'-6" Sr. SG/SF) from Petaluma, CA/Casa Grande HS, and Tadeu Souza  (6'-8" So. F) from Mineral Area (MO) JC, Sao Paulo, Brazil, and most of them are pretty much a mystery to us. . . . well,  all except Roberts who we saw a little bit last summer, and then again at the Dada All-Star Classic where he was particularly effective. But whether these guys will be enough to make up for the loss of the graduating seniors is the big question.  Long Beach loses Antrone Lee     (6'-7" Sr. F/G), D'Cean Bryant (6'-6" Sr.F), Mate Milisa (6'-11" Sr. C), Richie Smalls (6'-8" Sr. F) and Charles O'Neal (6'-3" Sr. G). . . in other words, most of their offense.  Oh well. . .

Here's the roster of returning players.  Again, just add a year to the current class to project where they'll all be next season:

Santa Barbara

Total Signees: (3)

Fall Signees (3)

Jacoby Atako G 6-1 175 Santa Monica, California (Santa Monica HS)
Casey Cook F 6-8 210 Sacramento, California (El Camino HS)
Branduinn Fullove F 6-5 200 Simi Valley, California (Simi Valley HS)

Spring Signees (0)

Santa Barbara loses Derrick Allen (6'-0" Sr. G), Erick Ashe (6'-2" Sr. G), and Larry Bell to graduation, who take with them a combined 22.7 points and 11.5 assists a game, but they pick up three equally talented, perhaps more talented players, not to mention that the Gauchos already have a pretty potent attack with returning backcourt players like Brandon Payton, LaRon Bryant and B.J. Ward. . . oh, and don't forget that the Gauchos will be activating freshmen redshirts like Nick Jones and JJ Todd. Three signees is not an overwhelming recruiting class, but these are three very special players who will fit right in and bring the level of play up another notch, and hopefully help Santa Barabara avoid having to rely on a late season surge again. After winning 10 of 13 games to at the end of the regular season, the Gauchos just ran out of gas when they lost to Nevada in the first round of the conference tournament, so coach Bob Williams will need to be able to coax a bit more stamina out of this group of players.   Admittedly, the team's early season lackluster performance wasn't helped at all by the embarrassing suspension of two of their players as a result of the unauthorized use of someone else's telephone credit card, and this actually required Williams to activate B.J. Ward a year earlier than he had planned.  But the recruits and the returning personnel should provide plenty of athletic ability and consistent scoring.

Branduinn Fullove and Casey Cook both played together last summer on the Pump N Run Gold team.  Fullove had a great senior season with Simi Valley, and he's not only tough physically, but mentally as well (he'd have to be to have been as successful as he was with all the distractions this year at Simi with the Shaun Michel-Christian Aurand fiasco).  Fullove is not tremendously quick but he's a deadly shooter, a big-bodied 6'-5" player who has gotten more development and fundamentals from all of the training workouts than anyone else we can think of.  Fullove is just a workhorse, a hardworking, tough player who will run through a wall if need be. The only question mark going into D-I for Branduinn is whether he'll be effective at containing some of the big wing guards like himself at that level, but frankly we personally think he'll not only have no trouble, he's the kind of player who could be the toughest defender on the floor.   And he's just a deadly accurate shooter which means that he'll also draw some defenders away from others, and with a scoring average at more than 25 ppg over the course of the last three seasons, Branduinn is a very effective offensive player.   Casey is more of a wing player, a big-bodied inside-outside player who likes to step out to shoot rathern than drive to the basket, but underneath when he's in the paint will be a tenacious rebounder.  We haven't seen Casey since last summer (but then again, neither have most people in SoCal) but we're sure that he'll be hard at work this summer on the weights and in a training regimine.   Atako is intriguing because he's so multi-faceted:  He can run the point easily but also has more of a scorer's and shooter's mentality than say B.J. Ward whose first instinct seems to be to penetrate and dish or to feed the open man.  Not as quick as Ward, Atako gives the Guachos the ability to throw a completely different look at teams, and should be very effective in half-court offensive sets.  Atako was probably not as heralded as his Rockfish teammate Russell Lakey (who signed with Vanderbilt)---Russell went to ABCD, while Jacoby did not, but we think that with Santa Barbara, Jacoby has definitely found the right coach and a system which will best suit his style of play. Other returning players will be Mark Hull and Adama Ndiaye who were pretty effective but who we'd expect to share time with Cook, as well as with reserve forwards Juliano Jordani, Mike Vukovich and Ross Carmichael. The big question will be what Williams does with J.J. Todd, who has been working on his post-forward skills throughout his redshirt season.

All in all, Santa Barbara could have signed some bigger "names", but they'd be hard pressed to have really gotten a more effective and potentially cohesive group of players than the three they signed.  An excellent recruiting class, which should fit in well with the rest of the guys who are returning (see below):

UC Irvine

Total Signees: (4)

Fall Signees: (2)

Dave Korfman (7'-1" So. C) Boulder City, Nevada (Mira Costa CC)
Stanislav Zuzak (6'-9" Sr. F) Chodov, Czech Republic (Czech Under-20 Ntl Team)

Spring signees (2)

Mike Hood (6'-3" So. G) Beaverton, Oregon (College of Southern Idaho)
Albert Miller (6'-3" So. SG) Gardena, California (Los Angeles City College)

Irvine keeps getting better and better.  Two seasons ago, they were 6-20.  This past season they were 14-14 overall (7-9 in conference), made the conference tournament, and were the No. 3 seed.  Not bad for a program that many said was too young and just not good enough to make much of an impact.  Even if they got blasted out of the tournament in the first round by New Mexico State, they still had to be proud of the play of guys like Jerry Green (15.6 ppg) who also led the team in scoring as a freshman, Sean Jackson (10.1 ppg), Zamiro Bennem, Malachi Edmond out on the perimeter, Ben Jones, J.R. Christ , Greg Ethington (All-Big West), Matt Okoro, and Jens Jensen.  Not all of them will be returning (apparently Greg Ethington is going to take his Mormon Mission next season, and according to reports we've received, Bennem and Jensen have left the program within the last month), but there will be some good players returning, including Aras Bauskaskas who will become a scholarship player next season after walking on last year.  The Anteaters also lose Marek Ondera and Adam Stetson to graduation, which will be a hit, but not a fatal one.  Ondera averaged 12.1 ppg and 6.3 rpg, while Stetson was mostly a role player off the bench and hopefully, Pat Douglass will be able to turn this team into more than a .500 club next season.  At least that's the game plan with the addition of some excellent players.  

As for the fall signees, we haven't see either Dave Korfman, a 7-foot-1, 260-pound JUCO transfer or Stanislav Zuzak, a 6-9 forward from the Czech Republic, but if they are all they have been advertised to be, the frontline should be pretty solid for the next two years.  Korfman 9 points and 7.5 rebounds, and 2.6 blocks overall at Mira Costa two seasons ago, and in conference games only, he averaged 12 points, 9 rebounds, and 3.3 blocks en route to honorable mention All-Pacific Coast Conference.  Zuzak plays for ASK Chomutov (a Czech team) where he averaged 15 ppg and 8 rpg. Zuzak was also a member of the Czech under-20 national team and he will come in as a freshman with four years of eligiblity remaining.

We've seen both of the spring signees over the course of the last few years, and Douglass picked up two excellent wing shooters in Hood and Miller. Albert graduated from Westchester HS and was a member of the State Championship D-I team along with David Bluthenthal (USC), Brandon Granville (USC), Tony Bland (Syracuse), and Chris Williams (Boise State) as the starting five. Miller himself signed initially with Washington State but then failed to qualify and spent this past season averaging 15 ppg, 5 rpg, and 2 assists per game at Los Angeles City College, where he earned first team All-South Coast Conference. Albert is a very athletic, strong player, with good quickness and he'll bring a lot to the Anteater program, including an excellent work ethic. Hood is originally from Beaverton, Oregon, where he was an all-state and all-metro player as a senior on the state-championship Beaverton High School team. This past season he averaged 11.3 points, 4.8 assists and 2.8 rebounds this season for the College of Southern Idaho, which finished 29-7 overall and advanced to the NJCAA tournament before losing to eventual national champion Southeastern Iowa in the quarterfinals. Hood averaged a team-high 23 minutes per game for the Golden Eagles and shot 53 percent from the field, including 48 percent from three-point range on 57 of 120. He also recorded 62 steals on the season for Southern Idaho, which won the NJCAA Region 18 championship.

Here's what the returning roster from this year (excluding the graduating seniors) will look like:

Pacific

Pacific (3)

David Bunts    6'-1" So. G     San Francisco, California (College of Marin)
Maurice McLemore    6'-2" So. G    Suisun City, California (Solano CC)
Jono Metzger-Jones    6'-1" So. G    Sacramento, California (West Valley JC)

Pacific has one of the youngest teams in the conference, and coach Bob Thomason was hoping to bolster that youth with his recruiting class this season, and the  Tigers missed out on the one recruit they had been desperately seeking for most of the past two years, Phillip Ricci (6'-9" So. PF) who signed with Oregon State's new head coach Ritchie McKay; Ricci, the Co-State Player of the Year was recruited heavily by Pacific and sort of on and then off by UCLA.  While this is obviously a blow to Pacific's recruiting, Coach Thomason has been around the block more than once, and in his 12 years he's seen players come and go, won and lost recruiting battles, and while we're certain he would have preferred to sign Ricci, it's not the end of the world either.   What could be the end of the world for him is a repeat of this last season. . .   with all the talent the Tigers had last season, they struggled to their worst record in more than 10 years, ultimately finishing out the season in the conference tournament to Utah State, a game in which the Tigers scored their lowest offensive total of the year (41 points).  But the good news is that most of the guys responsible for whatever offensive output the Tigers have been able to muster will be returning and Thomason has picked up three talented JUCO signees with experience and good athleticism. The bad news is that they didn't get that talented big man who they were looking for inside the paint, and instead signed three guards.

David Bunts scored 19.5 ppg and 4.0 rpg, 2.0 apg and grabbing 2.0 steals this past season at the College of Marin.  The drawback with Bunts is that he missed a lot of the season with an injury, but the year before as a JUCO freshman he was All-Bay Valley Conference Honorable Mention. He's a good shooter, who can create his own shot, with decent quickness and good lateral mobility.  Maurice McLemore attended Solano CC where he scored 14.5 ppg, 5.0 apg, and earned team MVP as well as All-Bay Valley Conference First Team both as a freshman and a sophomore. He gives the Tigers some offensive depth at the one, with good size and the ability to also shoot from the perimeter which they'll definitely need. Jono Metzger-Jones is primarily a two guard from West Valley College where he led the Vikings to a 25-6 record, and earned himself All-South Coast Valley Conference First Team by scoring 18 ppg.

As far as what they've gained, it's a nice class, but it would have been so much nicer with Ricci, who many believe is a sure-fire NBA player, a potential lottery pick in a few years (of course at the rate guys are leaving to go to the league, it could be next year).  The Tigers lose seniors Clay McKnight and forward Barry Marvel,  and they will also lose Bill Walton who finished his fourth year at Pacific this season, and will graduate this May with a degree in sociology. Walton redshirted the 1996-97 season, his first year at Pacific, but has elected to forego a fifth year of play in order to join the California Highway Patrol. The Tigers return some good solid guards and forwards who will hopefully be able to provide the spark that was missing this yearm, iincluding Nathan Davis at point, Peter Heizer at the two, and Tom Cockle. Mike Preston and Mike Hahn should get time down low, especially now that Ricci is not coming, Ross Mills and Dan Masters coming off the bench.

This is what the roster looked like at the end of the season (just move everyone up a class for next year's roster):

Cal Poly SLO

Total Signees: (3)

Fall signees(3)
Varnie Dennis F 6-7 275 Humble, Texas (Humble HS)
Steve Geary G 5-11 180 Tulsa, Oklahoma (Carl Albert JC)
Jamal Scott F 6-5 195 Phoenix, Arizona (Shadow Mountain HS)

Spring Signees: (0)

This is one of those "good news" and "bad news" stories again:

Good news--The Mustangs lose just one player, Mike Wozniak (6'-2" Sr. G) Carmel, IN/ Carmel HS,  one of the leading scorers in the conference. Wozniak had four years of record-breaking performances, and finished as the Big West Conference's 7th leading all-time scorer with 1,903 points, also a Cal Poly record, and he was second in all-time leaders in free-throw shooting percentage in the conference,  number one with three point attempts (812) and with makes (308).   Even though he's just one guy, he'll be hard to replace, but Jeff Schneider is going to need to bring out a lot more in the rest of the returning and new players than he got last season if he expects to keep his contract, which expires in another year.   

Bad news--The Mustangs lose just one player, senior Mike Wozniak. . . . Why is that bad, well, as noted above, he was a huge scoring threat.   But even with him, for the second straight season Cal Poly didn't reach the Big West Conference tournament.  Their porous defense was largely to blame and while they had an efficient offense, they gave up an average of 81.4 ppg, which is just awful. And this was with a team that, like this year, returned most of the same guys. . . so a lot of the returning players have had at least two seasons with coach Schneider and have yet to figure out how to put it all together.

So, perhaps as an antidote to their relative youth the past two seasons, like a lot of schools in the spring, Cal Poly went to the JUCO well and drew out a couple of proven players; they also signed a high school forward, Varnie Dennis, a big man would could potentially be a starter for the Mustangs next season, but then there's that youth factor. . . Looking for a replacement for Wozniak was going to be tough, so Schneider didn't.  Instead he looked for a solid playmaker to help out in the backcourt, and he came up with Steve Geary, who attended Carl Albert JC and Tulsa Union High School, and was a First Team All-Region II selection this past season after averaging 16.8 points per game, 3.0 rebounds per game while dishing out 219 assists and picking up 99 steals during the 1999-2000 season.  Geary is an excellent pickup for the Mustangs, not overly athletic, but a solid, skilled point who can steady the offense.   On the wing, Jamal Scott a 6-5, 195 small forward from Shadow Mountain High School in Phoenix is an excellent athlete and he's performed well in high school and at the tournaments we've seen him play at.  He was recruited by several Pac-10's but ultimately signed with Cal Poly. . . maybe it's the school of architecture, maybe it's the weather. . . who knows. Dennis, a 6-7, 275 forward from Humble High School, was the "Greater Houston Player of the Year" as a junior last season, and as noted, he's a huge-bodied guy who can possibly step into a starting position depending on his endurance and ability to run the floor.  We'll be the first to admit we've never seen Dennis play, but at 275 lbs, that's a lot of power forward. . .  Schneider is hoping to fit these three in with the returning starters (Chris Bjorklund, All-Conference first-team, 19.4 ppg, 7 rpg), Jeremiah Mayes (13.0 ppg, 7.8 rpg)David Henry (9.2 ppg, 5.1 rpg) and Jason King (10.3 ppg).

Here's what the rest of the roster looks like for the returning guys (note, the class designations are for this season, so move them up a year for next season):

Cal State Fullerton

Total Signees: (5)

Fall signees: (0)

Spring Signees: (4)
Ryan Dillon (6'-2" Sr. SG) Victor Valley HS, Victorville
Derrick Andrew (6'-2" Sr. PG/SG) Rancho Cucamonga
David Castleton (6'-1" So. SG/PG) JUCO Transfer (Mater Dei)--will walk on
Chris Smith (5'-9" Sr. PG) San Bernardino Pacific
Joe Travis (6'-8" Sr. PF) Long Beach Poly

As local recruiting classes go, this one is excellent, and Fullerton should be vastly improved from last season.  Donny Daniels, a former Titan player during Fullerton's glory year(s), and most recently a loyal lieutenant and assistant coach to Utah head coach Rick Majerus for the past 12 years,  took over the had coaching job at Fullerton a couple of weeks ago from Bob Hawking who resigned with four games remaining in the season.  As soon as Daniels was hired he didn't waste any time, signing a nice recruiting class in less than two weeks.  Whether it will be good enough to get the Titans out of the cellar next season is going to be an open question, at least until we find out who Daniels will hire as his assistants.

Fullerton is still on NCAA probation until the end of the 2002-3 season, which will prevent them from giving scholarships to any JUCO transfer players, but that hasn't stopped Daniels from getting a commitment from David Castleton, a Mater Dei grad who will transfer from Orange Coast College where he also played football.   Castleton, whose football career is apparently over (Fullerton doesn't have a football team) will concentrate on basketball and will also pay his own way at CSUF. Daniels also has no shortage of point guards, signing three players this spring who are capable of running the offense:  Chris Smith, Derrick Andrew, and David Castleton.   Clearly Smith and Castleton will primarily play the one, but we'd expect that Andrew will be more of a combo guard, capable of also spotting up and shooting from the wing.  Ryan Dillon, who is clearly a two guard, is a solid shooter who averaged 22.8 points, 6.3 rebounds, 3.8 points per game, was selected All-CIF, All-League and generally tore it up this past season. Smith is a speedy little ball-handler, who is great at pushing the ball on the break and he also effectively penetrates and drives; with good court vision and great passing skills, he's been one of our favorites, and his only real drawback at the D-I level will be his ability to contain some of the larger guards he'll be matched up against in conference play. Up front, Daniels also signed Joe Travis, who was truly one of the most underrated and under-recruited big men on the West Coast, and while Long Beach Poly succeed this past season in large part because Ron Palmer could throw wave after wave of little guards at opponents, they were also successful because of guys like Joe Travis and Markee White, and in our view, Joe was probably the more effective inside scorer and rebounder, and was instrumental in leading Poly to the Southern Section Division I Championship and the State Regional semifinals.  He's a mobile, smart, big man who runs well, and can step out to the short corner and bang it home, and if he can stay healthy and injury free should be a big plus for the Titans.   

Who is coming back next season?  That's also an interesting question. . . And the better question is who would want to return to a team that finished 3-13, one of the worst records of any team in the conference? The Titans have also had their share of just plain bad luck:  With one game remaining in the season, freshman guard Rodney Anderson was critically wounded, shot by an unknown gunman.   Police still think it was just a random act of violence. This team had just nine players in uniform, and three of them were walk-ons. . . So what the team will really look like come next November is anyone's guess at this point.

Two guys will be graduating, Kenroy Jarrett and Mark Murphy, and while Ike Harmon graduates as well, he is trying to get a 5th year to make up for his Prop. 48 season. Matt Campbell is supposed to be returning (10.7 ppg, 4.7 rpg) as will Josh Fisher (8.3 ppg and 5.0 rpg).   Matt Caldwell was out most of last season, but is expected to be back. Anderson is also expected to be back. We can't be sure of much, but we know that this is what the roster looked like at the end of the season (excluding the graduating seniors):

 
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