BG MBB Lands JUCO Player

We have some men's basketball news....a little stale, but I'm getting around to it.  We keep working away, even though there's no certainty of a season.  My guess is that the best we can hope for is early 2021, but who knows?

Anyway, a while back when Mattos left we wondered what Huger was going to do.  He told The Blade that he might try to find a JUCO player and he might leave the scholarship go if he couldn't find the right guy.

Last week, that question was answered.  BG picked up 6'8" 220 pound F Jacob Washington of Cerritos College, which is in Norwalk, CA, which is between LA and Long Beach.  Also, Cerritos are the Falcons, so he won't have to change nicknames.  He went to George Washington Prep HS in LA--the first Falcon player ever to go to a high school that matched his surname, which is a fact I made up just now.

He played his first JUCO year at Los Angeles Harbor College, and was productive in the way you'd like to see.  He scored 10.3 on 49% shooting and 7.5 rebounds in only 12 minutes a game, based on this.

At Cerritos, he made 25 starts, played 22 minutes a game, scored 10 PPG on 46% shooting and 6.6 rebounds per game.

I know I always think we need a pure 5.  I just hate to see teams put a 5 on us and post up and have us not have an answer.  Having said that, I might be a little old-fashioned on that front.  More and more teams are playing with a more position-less and athletic lineup and BG was most effective last year in that kind of lineup.  I was worried about our lack of a rim protector on defense, but I did some research (which eventually I will put here) that indicates that a true shot-blocking rim protector isn't a predictor of good 2FG defense...which was BG's defensive weakness last year.

Also, we have Dylan Swingle who was playing his first D1 season and I still believe can develop into a solid D1 player.

Huger has done very well with his JUCO players.  Teams are taking different approaches.  UB seems content to live and die on the JUCO route.  Akron, Kent and UT are using a lot of transfers.  Huger seems more focused on high school players with JUCO guys filling in the gaps.  Trey Diggs, Michael Laster, Marlon Sierra, Jeffrey Uju, Wes Alcegaire...have all been productive players at BG. Washington is probably in the Sierra and Uju mold...but, again, if he can provide stable minutes, guard and rebound, that becomes a piece a championship team can use.

Welcome to the Falcons, Jacob.