Tulane Basketball: Transfers KJ Lawson and Christion Thompson adds needed talent

It’s been a good week for Tulane Basketball, landing graduate transfers KJ Lawson and Christion Thompson. Will they help them move up the AAC ladder?

While the Memphis Tigers have been getting most of the attention by grabbing top-100 players, another AAC team has been quietly making noise. That would be Tulane Basketball, who managed to land two grad transfers in KJ Lawson (Kansas) and Christion Thompson (Rhode Island).

It’s a big collective coup for head coach Ron Hunter, who is in his first season with the Green Wave after spending his last eight seasons with Georgia State, including making the NCAA Tournament the last two years. He takes over a program won just four total games a year ago, not winning a single AAC game as well.

But outgoing head coach Mike Dunleavy didn’t leave the cupboard bare, some underclassmen opting to return. They will lose freshmen Connor Crabtree and Moses Wood as transfers but could very well get back leading scorer Caleb Daniels. He averaged 16.9 ppg and 5.3 rpg this past season and has entered both the NBA Draft and transfer portal but with no visits reportedly planned, the 6’4 rising junior could come back. Other key pieces such as Kevin Zhang and Shakwon Barrett are slated to return to Tulane as well.

Lawson is familiar with the AAC, winning Freshman of the Year while at Memphis to start his career. He averaged 12.3 ppg and 8.1 rpg as a sophomore before transferring with his brother Dedric to Kansas. While the older brother excelled, the younger Lawson KJ struggled to gain traction. As a grad transfer on a team who needs scoring, he should be able to put up numbers like he did with the Tigers.

Thompson started the first 15 games for Rhode Island this past season before getting benched due to ineffective play. He doesn’t provide much offensively but is solid in other aspects of basketball and he helps Tulane get older as a team. At the very least he’ll be an effective rotation piece for Coach Hunter to use. Joining them is TeShaun Hightower, another transfer guard who started 17 games for Georgia, averaging 6.6 ppg in 17 mpg.

The biggest newcomer for Tulane Basketball would actually be the return of guard Ray Ona Embo, who missed all of last season with a knee injury. He averaged 10.1 ppg and 3.3 apg on good shooting percentages. With Thompson coming in though, Embo can play off the ball more and add another dimension to the Green Wave offense.

There is still some concern about the frontcourt with just Samir Sehic as their only viable big man. Tulane may not have enough size to truly contend in the AAC just yet. But it’s a great start for the Coach Hunter era in bringing in badly needed talent to this program. Improvement is the goal in year one with who’s been added, that should be accomplished rather easy. Memphis has the conference’s attention but look out for a Wave coming to crash the hierarchy.