Atlantic 10 Basketball: Breaking down each program’s 2018 recruiting class

UMass Minutemen

UMass is another team like Duquesne that will look like an entirely different team from the one we saw last season. Not quite equaling Duquesne’s eleven new faces – UMass will have a mere eight. Five of those are transfers (four sit-out, one grad), and three of them are incoming freshmen. All of them will be expected to contribute in one way or another.

In terms of the Minutemen returning from last season, there are only three that saw significant playing time: Luwane Pipkins (21 points per game and in the conversation for potential PoTY), Carl Pierre, Unique McLean, and big man Rashaan Holloway, the last of which sat out the second half of the season due to academic ineligibility. That leaves a lot of minutes to be accounted for in terms of two remaining starting spots (I don’t expect McLean to start) and basically the entire bench. The three freshmen: Samba Diallo, Tre Wood, and Sy Chatman, should see plenty of them.

Diallo is the one getting the most hype from pundits and scouting sites (#174 player nationally), and that’s not without reason. The 6’7″ forward has the speed and ball-handling of a guard, and he’s poised to be a matchup nightmare at either the 1 or the 4 (the two positions he’s most likely to play). Tre Wood, the 6’0″ guard from the DMV, is quite possibly the fastest of all the conference’s incoming freshman, and he will probably be Coach McCall’s first option as Pipkins’ backup at the point. Finally, there’s Sy Chatman, the 6’9″ forward who chose UMass over UCF and Northern Iowa. He’s not likely to start over Jonathan Laurent or Rashaan Holloway, but he’ll be ready to provide valuable relief for either of them (especially Holloway, who’s never played more than 20 minutes per game in his three years).