Part 1: A look at the Friars' roster needs and how the staff is meeting those needs
In March, we got hints of Kim English’s plans for roster-building this offseason. After the Senior Night defeat to UConn he said, “We got caught with our pants down [this season] ... without the depth we needed — where we're going to build this roster to withstand an injury or two. We're going to have 13 dudes next season."
After getting snubbed from the NCAA Tournament a week later, he said the best way to not get snubbed is to not be on the bubble.
After the NIT loss to BC the following Tuesday, he discussed the traits he was looking for in the players he adds to the roster: “tough, humble, great work ethic, dogs, selfless, want to guard, can shoot it, winners, people that want to be Friars.”
With that in mind, I’ve spent the last month thinking about what sort of team English is likely to put together that would make the Friars good enough to be a top-30 team, which is a level that should prevent them from leaving their fate in the hands of the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee (although not sure St. John’s fans would agree).
While I’ve been thinking, the staff has been working to make its vision a reality. Most recently, we learned of the lasagna-inspired commitment from Georgia grad transfer and former New Jersey prep star Jabri Aburd-Rahim. Rahim, a forward, joins Miami senior guard Bensley Joseph and St. Joseph’s rising sophomore Christ Essandoko, a one-time Ed Cooley commitment to Providence who ended up decommitting after initial eligibility issues.
It’s at this point I must encourage you to read Kevin Farrahar’s coverage of the transfer portal over at Friar Basketball, which has been extensive and incisive (my goal in this two-part series is to merely extend and elaborate on Kevin’s terrific analysis). In particular, he highlighted how many of the Friars’ early targets rated highly in proficiency as spot-up shooters, and indeed all three of these players, including the 7-footer Essandoko, rate well as spot-up shooters, a trait mostly lacking in last year’s Friars, which was a weakness that gummed up the offense, leading to a 125th adjusted efficiency rating on offense, PC’s worst mark since John Linehan’s final season (2001-02).
Entering the offseason, I identified five needs I wanted to see the Friars address (in order of importance):
A guard/wing who can create his own shot good enough to lead the team in scoring
A center who can play 20-25 minutes and hold his own on both ends
A point guard who could both support Jayden Pierre and play beside him
A 3-and-D wing who could either start or come off the bench
A forward who could play in place of Bryce Hopkins as he returned to full health and back him up later in the season
With the departures to the Portal of Garwey Dual, Rafael Castro and Donovan Santoro (and the expected reclassification of Oswin Erhunmwunse from the 2025 to the 2024 recruiting class), the Friars had four scholarships to fill these five roles. Let’s count backwards:
For #5 and 4, Abdur-Rahim (perhaps the Ticket Gaines replacement English was referencing in the BC press conference linked above) is likely going to be asked to partly fill both needs. Abdur-Rahim has some traits similar to former Friar Jalen Lindsey in that he is a big wing who takes a lot more 3-pointers than 2-pointers and isn’t much of a creator. He who started his career at Virginia and then spent three seasons at Georgia and is a true 3, but he has the size at 6-foot-8 to play some power forward in a stretch lineup. Though PC may give up something at the 4 when it comes to rebounding when Abdur-Rahim plays there, the floor spacing could make up for it.
Though he seems like a plug-and-play 3-and-D player, Abdur-Rahim is actually, statistically at least, an uncommon archetype. Over the last two seasons he has made 108 total 3-pointers and attempted 108 2-pointers. If you take all the high-major player seasons since 2007-08 and narrow it down to players around Abdur-Rahim’s height (between 6-5 and 6-11) who have made at least 30 3-pointers and 50 free throws but fewer than 30 2-pointers, you don’t get only 11 such seasons, but Abdur-Rahim possesses three of them.
(Thank you to BartTorvik.com for helping me generate views like the one above.)
Unlike many on the above list, Abdur-Rahim is not merely a fifth option — his 20.7 usage shows he can be a third option, and he made 118 free throws last season at an 89% clip, which means he’s more than just a spot-up shooter. On last year’s Friars, no one besides Carter (128) and Oduro (122) made more free throws than Abdur-Rahim’s 118 (Hopkins had 57 makes in just 14 games). On the other hand, Abdur-Rahim had only 10 assists all season and struggled to finish around the rim, shooting just 46.8% on such attempts — similar to what Corey Floyd did last season and better only than Dual among 2023-24 Friars. Abdur-Rahim did habe better finishing numbers in previous seasons, though in limited attempts.
In addition to Abdur-Rahim, the Friars have three intriguing prospects that, in combination, can either provide overlap for him at small forward and for Hopkins at power forward. We saw what Rich Barron could do as a spot-up shooter last season. Despite being an unheralded freshman out of Chicago who had initially committed to English at George Mason (and despite playing through a shoulder injury that recently required surgery), Barron made the Big East All-Freshman team due to his playable skill — outside shooting — and mental toughness. On a team parched for spacing, Barron’s shooting was necessary hydration — he knocked down 43% of his 3-pointers, hitting at least one in his last 11 games before sitting out the NIT game. Barron is a bit of a 2/3 tweener — if he can improve as a rebounder, he could play the 3; if he can improve as a ball-handler and passer, he could see more time at the 2. Barron’s ability to expand his game will be essential to his playing time as part of a deeper rotation this winter.
You wouldn’t know it based on body type, but English has a similar archetype to Barron’s in Justyn Fernandez, another player entering his sophomore season but as a red-shirt who sat out all of last season after knee surgery. Fernandez was a top-100 haul at George Mason who has an enticing combination of a sweet outside stroke and high-level athleticism. Like Barron, Fernandez showed a limited set of secondary skills as a freshman in 2022-23, though his demonstrated defensive rebounding indicates that he can contribute in multiple ways and hints at the ability for him to be able to play the 3. One thing to keep in mind with Fernandez and Barron is that their passing numbers (based on assists) do not pop, but it’s not uncommon for freshmen to be a bit conservative when it comes to making difficult passes and then develop in their vision and willingness to make those passes as they gain experience. Not all do that, but some players have latent vision obscured by being too tentative.
There’s one other player whom we should expect to fill a major need and that’s (likely) incoming freshman Oswin Erhunmwunse, who is technically a class of 2025 recruit but is widely expected to reclassify to 2024 and play next season. Erhunmwunse — a native of Nigeria prepping at Putnam Science Academy in Connecticut and a recruit already famous in only Friars circles for igniting the “Thank You” trend in PC Twitter — profiles more as a center as a freshman, but due to the floor-spacing ability of the 7-foot Essandoko (we’ll get there), Erhunmwunse could provide minutes at the 4 without cramping spacing too much. This would also mean the potential for lineups with extreme rim protection — a 7-footer combined with a human pogo stick. The 6-9 Erhunmwunse is an athlete that Friars fans haven’t seen in black and white at his size in a very long time.
Now that we’ve covered #5 and #4 on the needs list, let’s move on to #3 in my list of needs to build a top-30 roster. The focus is point guard depth, which Coach English addressed directly by adding Joseph.
Joseph is a Boston-area kid who decided to take his talents to South Beach (well, Coral Gables) and who backed up both guard positions for Miami teams that went to the Elite 8 and Final Four in consecutive seasons. With the departure of Isaiah Wong last spring, Joseph took on a larger role and played well enough — increasing his scoring average from 5.3 to 9.6 and his assists from 2.0 to 3.4 without seeing his efficiency decrease. He’s also an active defender — in fact, he was one of only two high-major players 6-foot-5 or shorter who had steal and block rates better than 2.5%. The other was Devin Carter.
Like Abdur-Rahim, who’s played three seasons in the SEC and one in the ACC, Joseph brings several years of high-major (and, in his case, NCAA Tournament) experience to support Pierre, who — let’s face it — got very little support at point guard this season. Pierre, in his first season getting major playing time, was backed up by a freshman — Garwey Dual — who, for all his promise, was arguably the worst freshman to get rotation minutes in the Big East last season. Corey Floyd played a serviceable role in Pierre’s (and Dual’s) stead in a big win in the Bahamas vs. Georgia and then had a career game while Pierre was battling illness at Butler but was otherwise largely ineffective on offense, seeing his shot desert him and struggling to finish at the rim. That put an unfairly large burden on Pierre, who battled through injury and the aforementioned extended illness to become the team’s third option by season’s end.
Pierre’s 17 ppg average in the Friars’ final three games (Creighton and Marquette in the Big East Tournament and BC in the NIT) shows that he’s a real scoring threat, but he struggled off and on with turnovers (including seven in the season finale vs. BC) and clearly needs someone to help bear the ball-handling burden. With Dual in the Portal, adding Joseph made sense. Though Joseph is not a pure point, he’s a capable ball-handler and an effective spot-up shooter who can also handle difficult defensive assignments. If there’s one thing to worry about with Joseph, it’s that, like Pierre, he can struggle with turnovers. Joseph had 11 games with at least 3 turnovers (the same as Pierre), including seven of his own in Miami’s regular-season finale loss at Florida State. The entire Hurricanes team struggled this winter, going from ranked eighth in the AP Poll in November to 6-14 in the ACC by March. It’s unfair to blame too much of it on the downgrade from Wong to Joseph, but it was a factor. Still, in the role he’s being asked to play for the Friars — secondary ball-handler, backup point guard, spot-up shooter, he should be qualified.
#2: Josh Oduro fulfilled every expectation placed on him as he spent his grad transfer season in Friartown after a pair of all-Atlantic-10 seasons at George Mason. In particular, he elevated his game after Hopkins’ injury, becoming the clear second option and one of the top centers in a league loaded with them. Now Oduro is gone, and replacing him won’t be easy. A pair of newcomers — the aforementioned Erhunmwunse and, 7-foot-2 Anton Bonke, the intriguing but inexperience JuCo transfer from Vanuatu — will provide depth, but the Friars needed a center who could play 20-25 minutes at a high level. Enter Essandoko, who, though he has three inches and 45 pounds on Oduro, has shown some of his skills. Essandoko, like Oduro, is not a high-flyer but rather a ground-bound sturdy player who should fare well in English’s drop-coverage defensive scheme. Though he was effective in the post as a St. Joe’s freshman, the Frenchman stands out as a spot-up shooter, passer and defensive rebounder. The number of freshmen who approached Essandoko’s stats (size, assists, defensive rebounding, some 3-pointers) over the last 15 years includes mostly NBA guys:
To be fair, all of these guys were better as freshmen than Essandoko (and played in better conferences), but it shows how rare his skillset is at his size and how much higher Christ could rise.
Though it’s unclear whether Essandoko can truly create gravity as a shooter, his potential as a floor-stretcher gives English options he didn’t have last year — to put five shooters on the floor, opening up the paint for drives and cuts. And Essandoko’s size makes him a potentially devastating cover in high ball screens — if defenders switch, he could pin smaller players in the post; if defenders get caught up on a screen, suddenly a 7-footer is popping for an open 3-pointer. After missing a year due to the aforementioned eligibility issues, 2023-24 was a rust-busting season for Essandoko, which means there is plenty of untapped potential English hopes to unleash in Friartown.
Check back tomorrow when we’ll focus on the biggest need for the offseason — a primary wing scorer and take a big-picture look at where the roster stands.
Great stuff