Towns is looking like the one that got away who shouldn’t have.
BG continues to do well recruiting the lower level transfers. Javonte Campbell (JUCO), Josiah Shackelford (Flagler), and Troy Glover II (Missouri-St Louis/Trinity IL) are all among its top 6 rotational players.
Campbell leads BG (17ppg) in scoring after being a Top 100 JUCO prospect 2 seasons ago.
Shackelford is averaging 13ppg after being freshman of the year in the Peach Belt Conference at Flagler.
Glover (6’10) is averaging 6ppg, 4rpg, and 1.3bpg after being Great Lakes Valley DPOY at Missouri-St. Louis.
I imagine this group didn’t break the NIL piggy bank and cost less than Simmons alone. Just impressive recruiting and talent identification.
Simon has done a really nice job bringing in lower-level talent ready to compete at the D-I level at BG. As for BG's transfers lost, think about this. Marcus Johnson was BG's leading scorer last year and is now at Kansas State as mentioned. But keep in mind, the two big transfers they lost the year before are now both starting at Texas A&M in Marcus Hill and Rashaun Agee. Those two were huge losses for BG and would have been a pair of 1st Team All-MAC guys last year had they stayed (Hill already was a 1st Team All-MAC selection, Agee was a 2nd Team All-MAC pick while there, and they each had two years eligibility left).
Both Marcuses were lower level transfers as well. Hill was JUCO and Johnson was JUCO/D2 (Wheeling).
It’s always going to be a wash how these guys translate to P5.
Since 23/24 (Simon’s first season), he’s brought in Hill (20.5ppg), Johnson (16.2ppg), Campbell (15.4ppg between this season and last), Shackelford (13ppg), and Glover II (6.1ppg) from lower levels.
In that same span, our transfers have been Reef, Cornish, Searls, Pavs, Simmons, Breath, and Connors. If we were to factor in Wiz and Baker from 22/23, that gives us 8 D1 transfers excluding Searls.
Outside of Simmons, Pavs, Reef, and Breath, I’d swap the rest of that group with BG’s. Hill and Campbell are both slightly bigger than Pavs/Reef, so I wouldn’t rule that tradeoff out entirely.
I couldn’t find a tie into JUCO/D2 on BG’s staff. We can probably do ourselves a favor by not always defaulting to guys with connections to the program/state of Ohio and instead further recruit all levels out of the portal. Wiz was a Hargrave guy, Reef knew Jaylin, and Searls dad knows Boals from their time together. Hell, Simmons and Connors are from Columbus. Simmons is the only must have out of this bunch imo.
Boals (37-35) and Simon (40-34) have almost identical overall records since the latter took over BG. Boals has the advantage in MAC play (23-13) in comparison to Simon (18-18) but it’s possible this is BG’s breakout year under Simon.