Friar Basketball

The Redshirt Freshmen of Xavier

Edmund Sumner

Friarbasketball.com reached out to writers covering the Big East to learn more about the talent entering the league next season. Joel Dobney writes for the terrific Xavier site bannersontheparkway.com and he explains how the Musketeers have a pair of promising redshirt freshman ready to go this season.

Follow Joel on Twitter: @BannersParkway

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The class of 2015 is a slightly strange one for Xavier. Their only signee is forward Kaiser Gates. He’s a versatile three who could play the stretch four in a pinch, especially if he adds some bulk. He’s very skilled with a lot of potential, but he doesn’t bring any one skill with him on to campus that will knock your eyes out from day one. He’s a promising ball player, and he will have some time to develop behind Xavier’s glut of wings.

Gates won’t be alone in eligibility though, as Xavier has a couple of very exciting players who took a redshirt last season. Makinde London is a 6’10 forward who took the redshirt for purely developmental reasons. He grew nine inches in high school and arrived on campus with the approximate build of a #2 pencil. He has put on 15-20 in the weight room since then and should be good to go for the start of the year. He has shooting range out to the arc and the length and athletic ability to alter shots and do work on the glass. He’ll be a matchup problem on offense, but his slender build will likely leave him susceptible to bigger players on the other end.

London would have people all a dither if it weren’t for Xavier’s other redshirt, Edmond Sumner. Sumner is also insanely slim and also has added weight through diet and strength training. He is a 6’5 (or so) point guard with a smooth jumper, good handle, and the fact that he’s 6’5 point guard going for him. He played a bit for Xavier last year but was ultimately shut down due to recurring knee tendonitis. That’s obviously a big red flag, but if he’s healthy he has the talent, size, and athleticism to be one of the best guards X has seen in a while.

Moving on to the next year’s class, the only signed player right now is Norfolk State transfer RaShid Gaston. Gaston is a big forward who really gets after it on the glass. He was brought in to add some frontcourt depth in light of the impending graduation of senior James Farr, but he’s also insurance against an early Jalen Reynolds departure.

Recruiting news and rumors are about as reliable as chatter circling around the NBA Draft, but the name I’m hearing a lot for X in 2016 is PG Xavier Simpson. He’s a top 100 PG who has — as the cool kids are almost surely not saying — the skills to pay the bills. He is a pass-first player by nature, but he can hit open jumpers beyond the arc and is a very capable slasher. The knock on him is that he’s 5’11. Xavier’s recently-departed PG Dee Davis was charitably listed at 6′, so it’s not impossible that a player of that size could enjoy a nice career, but we recently took a look at the track record of little guards in the league and it’s not great.

A couple of other interesting names are Kentucky native Quentin Goodin – a four-star guard who recently listed Xavier among his final five schools — and Markelle Fultz out of Maryland. Fultz is a top-notch perimeter scorer who has huge names (Arizona, OSU, Duke, Georgetown, Virginia) all over him. Bringing him to Cintas would be a massive coup for the Xavier staff. Dylan Painter, a polished big out of Pennsylvania, and athletic project centers Sedee Keita and James Banks are a few of the 2016 big men who have been linked with X recently.

The 2017 picture isn’t very clear right now, so I’ll just throw one name at you: Kaleb Wesson. Wesson is a very big center from Columbus, OH who impressed last year. His older brother Andre is a 2016 SF with a Xavier offer, and both of them were in Xavier’s team camp over the weekend and did very well. The family has OSU ties, but don’t be surprised to see Xavier make a push for him depending on how the 2016 picture shakes out. Point guards Quade Green, Darius Perry, and Danny Lewis are all also on the 2017 radar for the Muskies.

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Twitter: @Kevin_Farrahar

Email: kevin.farrahar@friarbasketball.com

One Comment

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