Around the A-10

"Why does no one love me?"

With news that Juwan Staten is heading to join Bob Huggins and Aaric Murray in West Virginia http://wvillustrated.com/wvubasketball/story/id/1093, the book is more or less closed on the Brian Gregory era at Dayton. While complaints against Gregory were plentiful, at least from the Dayton side of things, perhaps the biggest knock on his tenure was his inability to develop talented players. Exhibit A is of Course Chris Wright, who went from averaging 10.4/5.7/0.3 on .602/.200/.804 in 20.6 MPG as a freshman to 12.8/8.5/1.7 on .464/.227/.618 in 28 MPG as a senior.

Wright was not the only player who played four years for Gregory though. London Warren did it, going from 2.4/1.7/2.5 as a freshman to 4.5/3.5/4.1 as a senior. Kurt Huelsman went from 3.8/3.5/0.3 to 4.6/4.4/0.5. Marcus Johnson blossomed from 6.6/3.7/1.2 to 9.3/3.3/1.9. Charles Little didn't do much developing. The list goes on (and on and on and on). Then, in the aforementioned cherry on top, Staten (rated a 94 by espn.com) and fellow freshman Brandon Spearman (rated a 91) took one year of Gregory's tutelage before bolting. In his last five years, Gregory brought in 11 three- or four-star recruits. His inability to develop them eventually cost him his job.

In other news, LaSalle added mid-May transfer Ramon Galloway from South Carolina http://www.dailygamecock.com/sports/item/1228-ramon-galloway-heading-to-lasalle. On the surface, Galloway's 10.7/2.6/1.7 as a sophomore seems to hint at great things to come. A (very) little extra digging turns up a worse-that-Juwan-Staten .358/.331/.701 shooting line and 1.03 PPS. Galloway was fairly well-regarded as both a shooter and a ball distributor coming out of high school, so perhaps South Carolina was simply a bad fit for him. He will sit this coming season before playing out his remaining two years of eligibility. If he can add a little bulk and increase his efficiency, there's the potential that he may serve LaSalle well in the future.

Loose Balls:

-In other UD news, Dayton picked up Georgetown transfer Vee Sanford http://www.blackburnreview.com/main/2011/5/18/vee-to-ud.html in mid-May. They also signed Alex Gavrilovic, an big man who can apparently also hit the perimeter a little bit. The Archie Miller era is off to a running start in Dayton.

-More good news for LaSalle: Aaric Murray has been invited to the US World University Games training camp http://www.wvmetronews.com/wvu.cfm?func=displayfullstory&storyid=45963 to play alongside Tu Holloway. I'm sure that doesn't rub salt in the wounds of Explorers fans.

-Charlotte is looking for a different conference... in football http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/06/09/2362232/2-leagues-turn-down-49ers-bid.html. The 49ers' new program has been rejected by the Division 1-AA Southern and Big South conferences and are currently in conference limbo. Their program - slated to take the field in 2013 - looks to be going independent at this point.

-St. Bonaventure picked up a commitment from 6'9" Senegalese forward Youssou Ndoye http://blogs.buffalonews.com/campus/2011/05/ndoye-signs-with-st-bonaventure.html. I don't have a whole lot of information on Ndoye beyond the fact that he's athletic and active on defense and extremely raw on the offensive end. He projects as an energy guy now, and his ceiling is directly dependent on how well he progresses offensively.