Transfers & Grad Transfers

[tornado]

Glad to have Shea with my Aces. Yes he may be slight, but he will hopefully provide some leadership to a now very young Aces team. Cautiously optimistic on the players that Coach M has signed, but know that it may be tough the next year or two. Tough when you sign so many this later in the period, but on paper it looks like he did about as well as could be expected. He has also upgraded the schedule quite a bit.

As far as offers, nobody really knows. Too many schools fans use the excuse that "we cooled on them" or "we really didn't offer" to save face or to make themselves feel better. Having a very close family friend who plays D1 right now in a strong mid-major, I have personally witnessed coaches saying "if you sign now we will give you an offer". When he asked to think about it the response was "if you do decide to come we will extend the offer again". This was just last year and included a few Valley schools that took that approach. I don't put a lot of credence until the player actually signs and the offers are made known in the media releases.

Evansville has a nice piece on Shea Feehan...LINK

Shea discusses choosing Eureka after his high school career in Peoria & growing up a fan of MVC basketball.
Then he talks about how he chose to redshirt his first year at Eureka because even at that time, he "he was ready to keep the door open to continuing his career at the post graduate level (in Division I) if the opportunity presented itself.".
"I redshirted first year at Eureka, so it was always in the back of my head that if I had a good career, I may be able to make that leap to Division I"

But...the story strikes me as rather odd and false.....
First, they completely fail to mention that Shea initially accepted a scholarship and went to DII Lewis University. He redshirted there his freshman year (LINK) but left before the season was over.
Then he transferred to Eureka for 2015-16 and he played that year - he did NOT redshirt his first season at Eureka, altho he was not eligible until 2nd semester.
So this is his 3rd college team, wonder why they leave that whole part out and claim he sat out his first year at Eureka when it was Lewis where he redshirted.

[Da Coach]

not too big of a surprise - but the timing is odd....
Illini's Greg Eboigbodin is leaving and will transfer...
he was greatly overmatched at the Big Ten level and obviously was aiming too high

To fill the open scholarship created by 6'8" freshman forward Greg Eboigbodin transferring, Illinois Head Coach Brad Underwood gets a very late 2018 commitment from 6'8" high school forward Anthony Higgs.

http://verbalcommits.com/players/anthony-higgs

I am an Illinois fan, but I must admit that some Illini fans have a penchant for over-rating their recruits. There were some who said Eboigbodin would be an immediate impact player, yet he played very little and is now gone. Now we see it again as some Illini fans are already projecting Anthony Higgs as their starting center.

https://writingillini.com/2018/06/26/illinois-basketball-projected-illini-starting-lineup-anthony-higgs/6/

One of their other incoming freshman recruits, Samba Kane, a 6'10" forward (some say 7'0"), has left school after initially arriving in Champaign and intending to enroll for summer clases. Apparently, there are issues with his high school/prep school transcripts, and he was not allowed to enroll. There is concern that he may not be eligible to enroll in the fall.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:HxiNzpr79Y4J:www.chicagotribune.com/sports/college/ct-spt-samba-kane-illinois-basketball-20180615-story.html+&cd=14&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us

In just the last couple years these are the players who have left Illinois early-
Jalen Coleman-Lands
D.J. Williams
Leron Black
Austin Colbert
Michael Finke
Te'Jon Lucas
Mark Smith
Greg Eboigbodin
Matic Vesel
Samba Kane

[tornado]

Texas Southern sophomore PG Trae Jefferson - from Milwaukee WI (I can not find where he was recruited by Brian Wardle but I am sure they knew about him)
who averaged 23.4 ppg and 4.5 asst - (24.7 ppg in conference play) is leaving and looking to transfer..
(that's 8th best scoring average in DI)

it is likely he will head to Detroit where his head coach Mike Davis just moved to but who knows- he will likely get some calls from the big schools...

[tornado]

Here's a few new guys on the market....

Middle Tennessee has something major going on ....
they just finished a 25-win season

but new head coach Nick McDevitt just booted a couple players ("rules violations"),
and two others are leaving & transferring - so they are losing including their TOP THREE returning players - (the actually lose their top six since 3 more graduated)

https://www.dnj.com/story/sports/college/mtsu/2018/06/15/mtsu-mens-basketball-johnson-dixon-thomas-transferring/706533002/

https://www.murfreesboropost.com/sports/johnson-thomas-dismissed-from-mtsu-dixon-requests-transfer/article_49e2b758-70dc-11e8-a35c-8785f5bec706.html

[tornado]

....
Thomas, McGlaston, Barker and Stipanovich are all vacating their scholarships.

speaking of Jojo McGlaston - he did stay in school at Bradley until he got his degree this spring...

Jojo's sister who runs hurdles on the Track team at USC -

-First - they WON THE NCAA NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP!

https://spark.adobe.com/page/sTqHyKR8q0b6T/

-One of their individual track victories was this 4x400 sprint that made everyone's Top 10 list of exciting plays
Listen to this embarrassing call by the announcers - who with even just 100m remaining pompously called the race over - "no way they (Penn State) are going to lose unless they drop the baton!"...
If you enjoy great sprint finishes, this one will give you goosebumps!

https://twitter.com/SportsCenter/status/1005664729413677056?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fftw.usatoday.com%2F2018%2F06%2Fusc-4x400-comeback-video-track-ncaa-championship-kendall-ellis-reaction-kobe-bryant-purdue

-Jojo's sister Mecca McGlaston finished 9th in the 60m Hurdles but ran her own personal record best 8.28 seconds during a prior meet..

-Jojo's mom seems to have cooled and has stopped tweetinl rants towards Bradley

- her previous threats that she had hired one of the top sports lawyers and was going to take Bradley down, seem to have been empty threats.

[tornado]

Greg Eboigbodin offers his reason for transferring

http://www.news-gazette.com/news/local/2018-06-07/eboigbodin-best-me-transfer.html

[egib52]

I am obviously an Illini fan as well. Of course now that he is transferring many Illini fans are bagging on him. I don't think he would have ever been First Team Big Ten, but I believe by senior year he would have been contributing. I for one never saw him overmatched other than in terms of being a skinny freshman. Now that being said, I think most role players in P5 would be successful in midmajor programs because their skills would play up.

[tornado]

well, I could buy the freshman argument if we saw evidence that he got better as the year progressed, but it was just the opposite...


I am an Illinois grad (grad school) so I would love to see them do well. BUT my biggest disappointment and the reason I have just given up on them is the persistent desire to try to win in the Big Ten with midmajor talent - especially in the paint...
I mean no disrespect but Mike Tisdale, Billy Cole, Nnanna Egwu, Mike Thorne, and anyone else you wanna name - then add Eboigbodin - would have had nice careers in the MVC - but in the Big Ten, they were a huge part of why Illinois hasn't had a really good year with a good post player since Brian Cook.

He was very overmatched in every outing I ever saw and his numbers kinda prove it - and even worse - he produced less & less as the season wore on
Other observers also used the term "overmatched" and I just read a 90-response thread about his transferring and at least 80 of the 90 responses kinda said the same.

[egib52]

not too big of a surprise - but the timing is odd....

Illini's Greg Eboigbodin is leaving and will transfer...
he was greatly overmatched at the Big Ten level and obviously was aiming too high

Why do you believe he was greatly overmatched? I watched a majority of their games, and I thought he looked like a freshman big in the Big Ten. He gave them energy, usually off the bench, and could finish around the rim.

[tornado]

not too big of a surprise - but the timing is odd....

Illini's Greg Eboigbodin is leaving and will transfer...
he was greatly overmatched at the Big Ten level and obviously was aiming too high

[tornado]

New grad transfer on the market- 6-9, 245 lb

one year left to play, immediately eligible
Christian Mekowulu from Tennessee State (RPI 191) (originally from Lagos, Nigeria)
The OVC Defensive Player of the Year
Full time starter there, 29.1 minutes per game, 52% FG shooting , 75% FT shooting
12.7 ppg, 7.9 rebounds, 46 blocks, 27 steals
every one of those seven stats would have either lead Bradley or placed him in the TOP 2 or 3 players on the team

I say let's get the guy!!

[Da Coach]

An interesting story....
One of Northwestern's incoming class of 2018, a pretty good 6'4" point guard named Jordan Lathon, just had his scholarship and admission revoked by Northwestern administration.

https://www.insidenu.com/2018/5/25/17396396/jordan-lathon-northwestern-recruit-admission-revoked-chris-collins-basketball

This really hurts Northwestern coming off a terrible 2017-18 season. They don't have any other point guards on their roster for next season and Lathon was projected to be their likely starting and primary point guard for 2018-19.

Profile-

http://verbalcommits.com/players/jordan-lathon

No details were released about the reason his admission was denied, but it might be related to Northwestern's higher academic standards. It will be interesting to see where he might land. I expect there will be no shortage of schools looking to land a quality point guard this late. He is from Grandview, Missouri, which is adjacent to Lee's Summit, MO, home of Elijah Childs. There are no reports that Bradley recruited him, however, one of his other scholarship offers was from Illinois.

[Serbiansniper34]

no, in fact "49" seems to know a lot about what's going on...

back in early March, he was the first to say Shea was leaving Eureka and transferring - a month before just about anyone else reported it..

http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?p=825137841#post825137841

and he was also the first to note that Shea had decided on Evansville - even a couple hours before Shea made the announcement

http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?p=825139702#post825139702

clearly he does have a good source for the info before anyone else knows...

I mean, I like to think I have pretty good sources too. I posted that there was a 99% chance Shea was going to either Evansville or Drake. Their group was expecting an offer from Drake that never came publicly. You can extrapolate that out since he wasn't offered by Drake that he would be going to Evansville.

I admit thats a stretch and i never explicitly said that, so whatever, I don't care about credit for the report or anything. But anyone who is friends with Shea on snapchat knew he was going to Evansville.

I just want to know who these 10 schools were that offered Shea.

[tornado]

Posted what first? All you said was that you heard he had 10 offers. I am saying that isn't true. If he had 10 offers, why are you the only one saying it? What were the other schools?

no, in fact "49" seems to know a lot about what's going on...

back in early March, he was the first to say Shea was leaving Eureka and transferring - a month before just about anyone else reported it..

http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?p=825137841#post825137841

and he was also the first to note that Shea had decided on Evansville - even a couple hours before Shea made the announcement

http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?p=825139702#post825139702

clearly he does have a good source for the info before anyone else knows...


but seeing how hot the market is for scorers- this kid just announced he's transferring...
a 19.8 ppg scorer from Towson...

https://twitter.com/jeffborzello/status/998572503231496192

a second Towson kid averaging almost 10ppg/7rpg is also transferring - LINK

[Serbiansniper34]

How then do you think I posted this first

Posted what first? All you said was that you heard he had 10 offers. I am saying that isn't true. If he had 10 offers, why are you the only one saying it? What were the other schools?