Some of our former 2017 recruits

[tornado]

I looked back at a few of the recruits that we were after or had offered in 2017...
here's just a little info about some....and how they did this past season..

James Batemon III - juco transfer junior at St. Mary's - 17.8 ppg & 39% from 3-pt
Javon Pickett - went to prep school & committed Mizzou, but was injured, left Sunrise Academy and is home, dropped out of school but expects to be at Mizzou in 2018
Vance Johnson signed with UW-Milwaukee - at Milwaukee, just 4.6 ppg, 2.6 rpg
Chris Darrington signed with Tennessee- not a factor, 2.6 ppg
Taylor Bruninga signed with ISU- got to play a lot for ISU, 4.9 ppg, 2.4 rpg, 35% from 3-pt
Mike Lewis, potential transfer returned to Duquesne- 14 ppg
Nike Sibande signed with Miami (OH)- had a great freshman year, 15 ppg, but was a borderline qualifier and may not have been eligible at BU
Makol Mawein signed with Kansas State- juco junior at K-State, played a part in their Elite Eight run, 7.8 ppg, 3.4 rpg
Jermaine Couisnard - went prep route then verballed to South Carolina
Marvin Bateman signs with Greenville College- 12 ppg, 40% on 3-pt
Romon Douglas-Watkins signed to play juco in Iowa but not on roster - unknown what happened
Melo Burrell went juco at John A. Logan, 9.8 ppg, 6.6 rebounds in his freshman year there
Ra Kpedi signed with Vermont- barely played a handful of games his freshman year
Manuel Patterson signed with Green Bay- played a bunch but just 6 ppg, 4.9 rpg
Isaiah Coleman-Lands signed with Miami (OH)- not much of a factor 5.5 ppg, 1.9 rpg
Teyvion Kirk - had a great freshman year at Ohio, 14.3 ppg
Damir Hadzic - went to Little Rock, 4.1 ppg
Montrell Dixson, cousin of UIC's Dikembe Dixson, at Neosho County juco 10.8 ppg

there were a few more but nothing of significance...

so I think we did pretty well with the two freshmen we did land...but we sure coulda used Batemon, Sibande, Cousinard, Mawein or Kirk - but hard to know if any of those are realistic. We probably weren't going to beat out S. Carolina or K-State, and the academics likely cost us Sibande.

[Da Coach]

Thanks for the followup. It's always great to see what some our past recruits and players are doing.
I hope others here appreciate info like this, and the amount of time and work necessary to look up all those guys one by one to find their stats. This information and a lot of the other stuff posted here is stuff you will never find anywhere else (unless they steal it from here)!

[MDCowboy]

Agreed... nice to get these followups.

One correction though, Batemon went to Loyola Marymount, not to St. Mary's I believe.

[tornado]

yeah - sorry, had the school wrong but the stats are correct


every year our staff is targeting top guys who mostly do pretty well at the DI level...
but so many like Batemon, Couisnard, Bigby-Williams, McSwain - simply go for offers they judge to be a bit "bigger" or "higher"...
and in some sense you can't blame them as they have people who "guide" them and the recruiters at those schools are pretty good salesmen.
but look what happened to many of them - guys like Bigby-Williams & McSwain wasted 1 or 2 years and either barely played or transferred again due to issues.
Others aim too high and sit the bench when they could have been far more productive and beneficial to their teams had they gone mid-major.
But we're not the only school facing that issue - Marty Simmons, Barry Hinson, & others often can't get decent players interested in their programs

[tornado]

...
Melo Burrell went juco at John A. Logan, 9.8 ppg, 6.6 rebounds in his freshman year there.....

Melo Burrell, at one time a Bradley recruit, just verbaled to Central Michigan for 2018....
he's only been at John A. Logan (juco) for one season, so either he's a qualifier or he's going to work on academics in 2018-19 and redshirt then become eligible 2019 (like Hawkins & McIntosh did at ISU)

[tornado]

...
Montrell Dixson, cousin of UIC's Dikembe Dixson, at Neosho County juco 10.8 ppg....

Montrell Dixson would have been a sophomore at juco and likely would have been recruited by DI schools. His cousin Dikembe Dixson had a nice career at UIC..



but it appears he has chosen to leave school, forego his amateur status and play professionally, as he is on the Chicago team in the Levar Ball pro league - the JBL.

He played last nite as Chicago beat Houston 125-117
Dixson scored 16, former Bradley recruit Kezo Brown scored 46 points (6-14 from 3-pt)

[tornado]

....
Romon Douglas-Watkins signed to play juco in Iowa but not on roster - unknown what happened
.....

former Bradley recruit & Manual HS Star, Romon Douglas-Watkins signs with Otero Junior College after taking a couple years off for health reasons and other issues...
Otero is where Manual teammate AJ Youngman & Chudier Bile played
https://twitter.com/CoachDewey0/stat...66632768589824

not sure if he is a qualifier, as his high school senior year was wiped out by a serious knee injury - but he may be either a 2020 or 2021 recruit



also 2019 BU Recruit Kejuan Clementz is also headed to juco - Hinds Community College in Mississippi

[Da Coach]

former Bradley recruit & Manual HS Star, Romon Douglas-Watkins signs with Otero Junior College after taking a couple years off for health reasons and other issues...
Otero is where Manual teammate AJ Youngman & Chudier Bile played...

One-time Bradley recruiting target Romon Douglas-Watkins finished his junior college career this season at John A. Logan in Cartersville, IL. He just committed to Long Beach State-

https://twitter.com/VerbalCommits/status/1386434968071643136

He had a pretty good season.
Stats- https://www.loganvols.com/sports/mbk...laswatkinsbu22

John A. Logan finished the season 18-5. They were one of the 24 teams that made it to the NJCAA Tournament in Hutchinson, Kansas, but they were eliminated last Wednesday (4/21) in the 2nd round by Ranger College.