Saint Louis Basketball: Can the Billikens find a way to land Malcolm Dandridge?
Saint Louis Basketball has been in the mix for Memphis transfer Malcolm Dandridge. Can they prevent a pair of high majors from getting the commitment?
With the exception of the teams that went through head coaching changes, no one in the Atlantic 10 had lost more individual talent than Saint Louis Basketball. Just about everyone of importance had moved on, including the top passer in college basketball, Yuri Collins. That includes losing all of the key frontcourt pieces, including starting center, Francis Okoro.
Also gone is Mouhamadou Cisse, who transferred out. So the Billikens had to essentially start over inside. They did have a pair of center commits in the 2023 class, Stef van Bussel and Bruce Zhang. They also added Bradley Ezewiro, a transfer from Georgetown. However, he’s a two-time transfer (started out at LSU) that hasn’t graduated so unless he gets a waiver from the NCAA, he’ll have to sit out next season.
That explains why Saint Louis has been after another veteran big man in Malcolm Dandridge, a 6’9 and 230-pound center that spent four years as a backup at Memphis. He has a career average of 4.2 and 3.0 rpg but is a good defender and should be able to play well at the A-10 level and provide resistance against the likes of DaRon Holmes of Dayton inside.
Dandridge has been in the portal almost longer than anyone this offseason and has been linked to a number of teams, with the Billikens being in the mix for a while, even getting a visit from him. But reportedly, some big competition has come into the picture in Michigan and West Virginia.
The Mountaineers lost five players to the portal after the recent coaching change, including bigs James Okonkwo and Mohamed Wague. That opens up a backup position to Jesse Edwards, around 10 mpg if Dandridge wanted. And after losing Hunter Dickinson early on, Michigan has only had Tarris Reed Jr. as the true five-man on the roster.
Unless Reed breaks out, there could be some competition at the center position for Dandridge to take advantage of. He could at least guarantee himself 15-20 mpg in the rotation for a power conference team that has the potential of being in the at-large convo.
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Barring a couple of individual surprises, Saint Louis isn’t projected to be a top-half A-10 team. And maybe the big man from Memphis doesn’t want to spend his last year in a situation not likely to win, despite having minutes and a large role to offer. That being said, this particular recruitment has had many twists and turns so maybe the Billikens could have one last push in them to try and land this commitment.