Can Matt McCall’s staff shakeup and freshmen reinvigorate the Minutemen?

Will a freshman attempt to fill the void left by Eric Williams at Duquesne?

A trio of transfers looks to take Delaware a step further

A talent upgrade continues at Quinnipiac

Brown Bears: The loss of Desmond Cambridge and a wavering defense?

Massachusetts: Virgin Islands. Result: 3-0: I can not remember a coach with an off-season like Matt McCall decided to embark on. McCall did not make just one staff change. He cleared the deck. After just year two in Amherst, McCall fired the staff he originally hired in Cliff Warren, Rasheen Davis and Peter Gash. McCall then promoted director of operations, Lucious Jordan, and went outside to hire Tyson Wheeler and Tony Bergeron. Former Dartmouth head coach Paul Cormier was also brought on as a special assistant. Perhaps no hire will be important as the one made with Bergeron. Bergeron is the former head coach at Woodstock Academy (CT) and guess where three of the seven new freshman attended prep school? Headlined by big man Woodstock-product, Tre Mitchell, there is light at the end of the tunnel now in year three for McCall. Mitchell is a consensus four star prospect who took official visits to UCONN and Notre Dame but settled on UMASS due to his relationship with Bergeron. Also in the fold from Woodstock are freshman guards, TJ Weeks and Preston Santos. Mitchell didn’t waste any time giving UMASS fans hope. The 6’9 big man went for 27 points and 15 rebounds in the opener, 27 and 8 in game two, and 16 with 5 rebounds in just 13 minutes in the final game. McCall gave point guard duties to two freshman in Kolton Mitchell and Sean East, while freshman John Buggs sat out the trip due to injury. Redshirt junior and former Memphis-transfer Keon Clergeot can handle ball-handling duties, it would not be a surprise if McCall opted to let one of his young guys take some lumps this season. Up front, Mitchell was paired with Sy Chatman while Vanderbilt-transfer Djery Baptiste sat out the trip. In whole, the Minutemen freshman accounted for six of eight rotation players (senior Carl Pierre and junior Samba Diallo were also DNP’s). Post-trip McCall signaled out Santos energy and athleticism as well as the shooting prowess of Weeks and fellow freshman CJ Jackson (Jackson had a 28 point outing). A larger picture takeaway was McCall commenting that pressure defense has been an emphasis of the summer and he’s looking for buy in from the entire roster to do so. Before arriving at UMASS, McCall had been a Billy Donovan understudy and pressure defense was apart of his DNA. At Chattanooga, McCall pressed 21% of the time in 2016 and 13.7% in 2017. Upon his arrival at UMASS, those numbers have dipped 8.8 in ‘18 and 8.1 in ‘19. With seven new freshman and an entire new coaching staff, McCall may be looking to get back to his roots and turn up the pressure. For McCall, the onus is now on him. He has re-shaped his staff and roster to his vision and in year three, there needs to be forward progress. Wins in an improved A-10 may be tough to come by, but this young roster must show signs of life.

Duquesne: Bahamas. Result: 2-0: Despite the loss of Eric Williams, who elected to transfer to Oregon, there’s plenty for Keith Dambrot to keep building on at Duquesne. Out of the seven highest players in minutes per game, six return. The headliner is sophomore Sincere Carry, who led the Dukes in each game of the trip with 27 and 18 points. Carry handled most play-making responsibilities last season in the back-court and averaged 12.1 points and 5.8 assists. Joining him again on the perimeter will be 5’8 point guard Tavian Dunn-Martin, sophomore Lamar Norman and junior Frankie Hughes. Norman saw a late uptick in minutes last season which included a start in the A-10 tournament. The 6’3 guard went for 18 and 12 points in the two games on the trip. Rounding out the back-court will be local product, Maceo Austin. Dambrot noted that Austin ‘did a little bit of everything’ and the 6’5 guard has created a bit of buzz. Dambrot did not shy away from expectations this off-season, stating that he’ll have to step in a bit to the departed Williams’ role. In the front-court there are bodies, just a matter of where the healthy ones come from. Michael Hughes was a DNP with a nagging injury and both Austin Rotroff and Amari Kelly are still recovering from torn ACL’s last season. One positive was graduate transfer, Baylee Steele. Last year at Utah Valley, Steele averaged 8.5 points and 7.2 rebounds. Steele had a performance of 19 points and 15 rebounds in one outing and chipped in another 18 points in the second game. Duquesne featured the same starting lineup in both games: Dunn-Martin/Carry/Austin/Marcus Weathers/Steele. Dambrot signaled that an improvement in shot making must occur for the Dukes to make another step forward - last season’s group only 32.2% from three while taking ranking 44th in 3PA/FGA. It’s worth noting that Duquesne will enter this season without a home-court as the Plumbo Center is under renovation. Duquesne will open with Princeton on November 5th at PPG Paints Arena in Pittsburgh and other scheduled games for now will be played at La Roche University.

Delaware: Bahamas. Result: 2-1: Martin Inglesby has inched the Blue Hens closer to relevancy in his first three years. The Hens have gone from 5 to 6 and to 8 CAA wins, but another step forward may be tougher to come by this coming year. This off-season saw the program lose departing seniors Eric Carter and Darian Bryant along with the surprise summer transfer of sophomore Ithiel Horton. If Delaware is to remain competitive, three transfers will play a large part in that being the case. Nate Darling, Dylan Painter and Justyn Mutts sat out last season as transfers from UAB (Darling), Villanova (Painter) and High Point (Mutts). Painter will be eligible as a second semester begins while Mutts and Darling are ready to go in the fall. A former starter at UAB, Darling was a standout on the trip and averaged 20.6 points over three games to go with 5.6 rebounds and 4.3 assists. Mutts proved to be productive as well, as the former Big South Freshmen Team selection posted averages of 17.7 points and 10 rebounds on the trip. The reliable Kevin Andersen participated in two games on the trip and will be locked into the starting lineup for his junior season. His back-court partner, Ryan Allen, was held out for precautionary reasons with a foot injury. The Blue Hens played to the 341st pace in the nation last year and with their most explosive guard in Horton transferring out in June, the pace figures to again turn to a crawl. The lineup feels easy to sort as Andersen will be joined by Allen and Darling at the guard spots and Mutts sure looks to be a lock to play the four. The center position will likely be held by Colin Goss (former GW transfer), who averaged 12 points on the trip, until Painter becomes eligible. It’s a big team with the guards going 6’2/6’5/6’5 to pair with a 6’7/6’11 front-line. Ingelsby’s defense could not guard anyone last season but that comes with a caveat. When the Blue Hens played man (73%), they allowed .927PPP which fell into the 12th percentile nationally via Synergy. When they played the other 27%? Only .88PPP, good for the 67th percentile of zone defense. With a bigger, more physical team and still remaining defensive doubts, zone is perhaps an option that Ingelsby doubles down on.

Quinnipiac: Canada. Result: 2-1 : A personal pick to make major waves in the MAAC this year. The Bobcats enter year three under Baker Dunleavy and possess the talent level necessary to win the league. After finishing in a four-way tie for second last season, it wouldn’t surprise to see Quinnipiac win the MAAC outright. Dunleavy is a sharp, young coach who has severely upgraded the talent level. The loss of 23.5PPG scorer in senior in Cam Young is significant but it can be offset. Starting point guard Rich Kelly returns as well as sophomore starting guard Tyrese Williams (DNP on the trip). After taking red-shirts their freshman seasons, two guards in Savion Lewis and Matt Balanc are set to make an impact. Balanc is a high-flyer who saw interest coming from Georgetown and URI his senior of high school in the DC area. Now with a year under his belt, Balanc posted averages of 16.7 points and 4.7 rebounds on the trip and his athleticism will be rare in a lower level league like the MAAC. While his shooting had previously been a major drawback to his potential, Balanc did shoot 8-18 from three in Canada. Lewis is a former Mr. Basketball in the state of New York and Dunleavy out recruited several strong MAAC programs to land him. The 6’1 Lewis averaged 15 points, 6.3 rebounds and 5 assists on the trip. Both guards should fit in nicely next to Kelly and Williams on the perimeter. Kelly is the mainstay in the program in year three and paced the Bobcats with 17 points per game. The Bobcats front-court will be stabilized by red-shirt junior, Kevin Marfo. Marfo is an elite rebounder and again displayed that on the trip averaging 11 rebounds. A strong start last season for Marfo was derailed by injury for the first two weeks of the MAAC season and could never quite regain his form. Another front-court player looking to return to health is graduate transfer Aaron Falzon. After starting over 20 games as a freshman in the Big 10 at Northwestern, Falzon has been bit by injuries but a fresh start at a lower level could prove beneficial. Falzon posted 10.3 points and 4 rebounds over three games. Complimenting the two bigs is sharp-shooter Jacob Rigoni at another forward spot and Rigoni was the fourth leading scorer while making nine threes in the three contests. The improved talent level at Quinnipiac can also been seen its three man freshman class, headlined by center Seth Pinkney and forward Jamil Riggins. The pair will likely need time to develop but offer great upside in the MAAC and both fell into 247 sports Top 500 in the 2019 class while generating mid to high major interest (Georgetown wanted Pinkney to prep for a year).

Brown: Span. Result: 3-1: Three starters return for Mike Martin this coming season but the off-season loss of star guard Desmond Cambridge to the transfer wire will be felt. Despite a bit of a sophomore slump, the star guard was still the focus of Brown’s uptempo attack and attempting to fill his shoes will not come easily. A collective effort will need to happen with a senior back-court consisting of Brandon Anderson and Zach Hunsaker. Hunsaker twice topped the 20 point mark on the trip while Anderson hit double digits three times (no box scores available). But perhaps the player that will be leaned on most this season is forward Tamenang Choh. Choh is coming off a season in which he averaged 12.5 points, 8.6 rebounds and 3.4 assists. Choh twice lead the Bears in points in Spain and hit double figures in all four. Wing George Mawanda-Kalema has his work cut out for him to find minutes as a junior, as freshman wings Perry Cowan and Josh Watts come in highly regarded as Ivy League prospects. Watts comes from DC area power Gonzaga while Cowan is a Chicago product that drew interest from Illinois and DePaul. Freshmen were not allowed to participate on the trip, which does not allow to get a real sense of where this Brown team stands currently. Cowan certainly figures to be firmly in the mix as fall practice kicks off. Up front, David Mitchell and Joshua Howard will compete to play next to Choh while spot-starter Matt Dewolf returns as the biggest player on the roster at 6’9 235lbs. Martin will look to continue to get the Bears to defend and a remarkable turnaround from 274th nationally in AdjD to 68th in the course of a year is hard to explain. A more aggressive defense was employed but a cautionary sign exists in Brown only allowing 30% from three, down from 37% in 2018. How much of that is improved perimeter defense? How much is that just the luck of the bounce of the ball? One thing seems evident, Cambridge was a really good defensive guard. The 6’4 wing ranked in the 94th percentile in overall individual defense via Synergy and his impact could be felt when he left the floor:

Cambridge did not participate in the CBI Tournament and the Bears proceeded to give up 1.08PPP to UAB and a staggering 1.25PPP to Loyola Marymount (the 191st offense nationally). So a few questions remain - who can replace Cambridge, and perhaps most importantly, his ability as a defender? How far along are the unseen freshmen? And can the returning starters, including a post presence in Choh, create a functional offense?