Basketball Freshmen

While everyone is rightly excited about the incoming freshmen we will have next year, I think we have some truly outstanding recruits from Coach Jones first class.

Shane Hammink, Malik Morgan and Corban Collins are all good players. Hammink and Morgan have the potential to be great. Morgan and Hammink are both playing the 3 position and Collins is backup point guard behind Hickey.

Collins has started two games, mainly due to Hickey's early suspension. Morgan has started three games and Hammink one. Corban has shown flashes of good play but has also looked like a freshmen more times than not. He will get better with more experience.

Malik Morgan started very strong and has shown a good outside shot as well as a surprising toughness around the goal on rebounds and shots. He started off extremely hot but has tapered off some the last couple of games.

The real surprise to some people (not me) has been Shane Hammink. The 6'6" European wingman has shown he can be a force. Great outside shot, smooth moves to the basket and a willingness to scrap for the ball under the goal has meant more playing time for him.

He started for the first time last game and is projected as a starter for tonight's game. In his last outing his stats were impressive 12 points (4-of-7 FG, 2-of-3 3PT, 2-of-2 FT), four rebounds, three assists. The best thing he may have done though was on the defensive end. He did a great job guarding their number one scorer.

Let's hope he can do that again tonight and that our other two true freshmen also play well and contribute. I, for one, have every confidence that they will.