-Matt Cox
The flu bug or the injury bug. It’s hard to say which creature is more crippling to college basketball training staffs right now, but both species are beginning to infiltrate locker rooms all across the country like a swarm of cicadas. I considered doing a ‘Wounded Warriors’ power rankings – essentially a top-10 list of the most beat up and battered teams in America – as a tribute to the ‘Northwestern’s and ‘UMBC’s of the world. Many of these ill-fated squadrons are one sprained ankle away from poaching players from the local community college just to field a full roster.
Instead, like the privileged elitists that we are, we chose to showcase the lucky beneficiaries who recently received timely reinforcements just in time for the dog days of conference play. Whether it be recent revivals from prior injuries or second semester eligibility clearances, the chart below captures 12 new additions to mid-major programs, all of whom are destined to alter their team’s trajectory going forward. With a large enough sample size to chew from, we’re able to get a feel for just how seamlessly each reinforcement is being integrated (or reintegrated, in the case of Wright State’s Loudon Love and Northern Kentucky’s Jalen Tate).
Loudon Love & Jalen Tate
Stripping the Horizon League – a conference which continues to fade into oblivion – of two of its top 3 players could’ve been catastrophic. Thankfully, Tate and Love both recovered quickly from their respective injuries. Wright State and Northern Kentucky were once considered to be the clear-cut Horizon favorites, but oh how the tide has turned. The Raiders are holding up their end of the bargain, but the Norse now find themselves stuck in an unfamiliar logjam in the middle of the Horizon standings.
After holding the ship steady without Tate, much of which was attributable to the heroic efforts of burgeoning superstar Dantez Walton, Tate’s highly anticipated return was quickly deflated. The Norse dropped two of their last three games with Tate in the lineup, and neither loss was particularly close. Previously regarded as the best two-way player in the league, Norse fans are now clamoring for Walton, a trusty sidekick turned irreplaceable star, to expedite his recovery. Meanwhile, Loudon ‘the Linebacker’ Love and his Raiders have raced out to a comfortable 4-0 conference record, looking like a distinguished breed as the surefire class of the conference.
Jaalam Hill
Staying in the Horizon (or ‘on the Horizon’, if you prefer), Dennis Gates, the former mini muscle to Bunny Colvin at Florida State, is launching grenades at every pundit’s preseason projections (ours included). Yes, the Cleveland State Vikings, the same team that made national college basketball headlines with an unprecedented rate of roster turnover this summer, somehow reside at 2-1 in the league standings. How Gates forged a competent roster with minimal time to spare I’ll never know, but he’s forever grateful that Jaalam Hill and Al Eichelberger stayed loyal. The Vikings’ athletic crop of newcomers is setting the tone defensively, while big Al up front is doing his damage in the paint. Jaalam Hill’s recent return is just the cherry on top, whose length and bounce on the wing bears a striking resemblance to Florida State’s preferred player prototype. Among the players that made our shortlist, Hill’s production to date looks lackluster, but he’s too projectable in Gates’ system not to break out eventually.
Jackson Rowe
This name may not ring a bell for most college basketball enthusiasts, but the Big West is well versed with the work of Jackson Rowe. After living in the shadows of two trigger happy guards for two straight years (Kyle Allman and Khalil Ahmad), 2020 was supposed to be ‘the Rowe Show’ in Fullerton. The specificity of Rowe’s injury to start the year was never clarified – Big West programs consistently conceal injury news as if they’re nuclear launch codes – but Rowe is now back to his hyperactive self. Rowe’s a true wing / forward tweener and is undergoing the obligatory “expand shooting range” phase of development. Rowe’s shooting touch is pure, but he’s most dangerous off the dribble. Armed with an explosive first step, few defenders can sustain proper positioning when he attacks, be it from the mid post or from the perimeter, which has earned him a frequent flyer pass to the charity stripe. It’s only a matter of time before the Rowe seen in the video below returns to full form.
Lamine Diane
No longer a secret around the college basketball universe, Diane should be excluded from all CBB Fantasy League draft pools. His stats are simply unfair, as is the size and skill package that routinely lays waste to helpless Big West defenders. Diane was productive, yet inefficient, in his first Division I game back against Boise, but was unguardable against Morgan State on New Year’s Eve. Diane’s a stat sheet stuffer, but it remains to be seen how much he’ll rock the boat of a team that was starting to hit its stride without him. Through two relevant games, Diane’s usage rate of 47.3% would make Russell Westbrook and James Harden cringe. Diane led the nation in usage rate last season with a 37.5% clip and no player in the KenPom era has ever finished with a usage rate above 40.
Dylan Painter
It’s not often a former 4-star Villanova recruit takes his talents just up the road to Newark – that’s Newark, Delaware to those of you geographically naïve imbeciles (myself included). Painter joined his Blue Hen brethren just in time to avenge last season’s embarrassing loss to in state rival Delaware State, dominating the tiny Hornet front line to the tune of 19 points in just 18 minutes off the bench. Naturally, I flipped out when I first saw that jaw dropping 1 point per minute scoring rate, immediately crowning the Blue Hens Colonial champions.
What a foolish reaction that was. After losing to LIU in Brooklyn, Delaware couldn’t dust off the cobwebs for conference play, stumbling out of the gates to a 1-2 CAA record. Painter is unquestionably a tremendous talent but tossing him into a perfect chemistry concoction may not have been the right implementation plan. Prior to Painter’s return, Delaware’s starting 5 – Ryan Allen, Nate Darling, Justyn Mutts, Kevin Anderson and Collin Goss – ranked among the most efficient lineup pairings in all of college basketball, a big reason why head coach Martin Inglesby effectively ignored his bench during November and December. Inglesby is in a sticky situation now with Painter in the mix. Does he rewrite the playbook to revolve the offense around his unicorn talent (at least, by CAA standards)? Or, does he use Painter as an overqualified super sub to avoid disrupting the Allen/Darling/Mutts/Anderson/Goss freight train.
Andrew Taylor
Pull open Marshall’s kenpom.com team page and you’ll find “Andrew Taylor” hidden in the “Role Players” section of the roster, not bolded and with no yellow highlights denoting some special impact. However, don’t let his common name escape your memory bank. Taylor is in the Beta testing phase of becoming Jon Elmore version 2.0. Despite being the 3rd all-time leading scorer in Kentucky high school history, Taylor somehow remained incognito to more marquee programs during the recruiting process, which allowed Dan D'Antoni to scoop him up at Marshall.
Like his predecessor Elmore, Taylor’s blessed with plus size for a lead guard, standing 6’3 with what appears to be a decent wingspan (no, I have not measured yet). Taylor scored 13 points in his Marshall debut, but the real coming out party was against Northern Iowa, when Taylor poured in 27 against a stellar Panther defense. He’s yet to eclipse double digits in the three games since, but simply his presence in the backcourt takes a tiring burden off the shoulders of fellow guards Jarrod West and Taevion Kinsey.
Melo Eggleston
A former Wake Forest transfer and fringe 4-star recruit, ‘Meggelston’ is on the shortlist for the Sun Belt’s Newcomer of the Year award. Hailing from the DMV, a factory of dynamic wing scorers (e.g., Kevin Durant), Melo is cut from that same cloth. He’s a smooth operator out in transition, where his deceptively long first step allows him to slip past defenders off the bounce and finish with ease around the tin.
In the Sun Belt, he’s qualified to play positions 3 through 5, skilled enough to handle and slash from the wing, while long and bouncy enough to clean up the glass and protect the rim inside.
Arinze Chidom
Riverside’s head coach David Patrick, Ben Simmons’ godfather, has acquired a rare crop of talent in southern California, much of which hails from the land down under. However, Chidom is one of the few ‘Made in America’ weapons at his disposal, who was unleashed late December against Northern Arizona. Patrick had no interest in easing his versatile two way forward into the rotation, opting to slot him right into the starting lineup the moment he became eligible. Chidom carried the Highlanders to wins over San Jose State and Fresno State in back to back games before the New Year, averaging 20 points and 9 rebounds during that span. Chidom pairs perfectly with the Highlanders’ twin tower bigs, Angus McWilliam and Callum McRae, as an inside-out scoring threat who can float out to the perimeter and create space in the middle. He’s especially devastating in pick-n-pop and could form a potent tandem with silky smooth guard Dikymbe Martin in pick-n-roll action as their bond strengthens with more live reps.
I’m enamored by this sequence below, a possession in which Chidom acts a support ball handler to help the guards break Fresno’s pressure, moments before rewarding himself with a tough drive from the wing.
Ian Krishnan, Devonte Patterson & Roland Griffin
We’ll gloss over the two SWAC commodities here. All you need to know is that Devonte Patterson is back after getting slapped with the Yoeli Childs suspension by the NCAA (he missed the first eight games of the season), while Roland Griffin is still lurking in Division 1 basketball after the infamous brawl with his former assistant coach at Iona.
The real conundrum is Central Connecticut’s Ian Krishnan, who recently returned to the hardwood as one of the few incumbents from last year’s train wreck. Krishnan’s a capable scorer and carries a reputation as a lockdown defender, which begs the question as to why CCSU has fallen off a cliff since he returned. After starting the year in the gutter, Central Connecticut went undefeated against the spread in December, consistently sneaking inside some inflated lines. With Krishnan back for NEC play, the other Blue Devils are 0-2 ATS after getting walloped by Robert Morris and St. Francis PA in their first two conference games. So, does injecting the Blue Devils’ best all around player make this team worse? Only in the upside down world of the 2019-20 college basketball season does this logic hold.