For the first time in his three-year tenure at Seton Hall, Kevin Willard won’t have a single player coached by former coach Bobby Gonzalez on his roster.
Jordan Theodore and Herb Pope are gone, leaving former Paterson Catholic standout Fuquan Edwin as the last player linked to the Gonzo Era.
Edwin was recruited by Gonzalez but never played for him.
“I’ve always felt like from my first year’s team like those are my guys,” Willard told SNY.tv by phone on Tuesday. “Although Bobby recruited them, I always considered them my guys.”
A year after the Pirates (21-13) missed an NCAA Tournament appearance because of a late collapse and lost in the second round of the NIT to UMass, Willard’s team could feature as many as four transfers if former Texas guard Sterling Gibbs gets a hardship waiver sometime this summer.
“Hopefully, sometime between July and August that’s our hope,” Willard said of the former Seton Hall Prep product, who has an ill family member. “No matter what happens there, I’m ecstatic to have Sterling on our basketball team for the future. I think he’s got a great future basketball-wise, but I’m looking forward to him in the locker room as a leader. I think the University’s excited and I know our fans are really excited.”
Willard added: “He’s a great student. He’s a terrific young man. He works his butt off. He’s been coming up here working out on his own, so no matter what happens I’m just excited to have him in our program.”
If Gibbs is not eligible this season, Willard will trust the point to newcomer Tom Maayan, an Israeli who is coming off ACL surgery, and second-year player Freddie Wilson.
“Tommy’s doing great,” Willard said of Maayan, who will be the fourth product of the Canarias Basketball Academy on the roster along with Patrick Auda, Aaron Geramipoor and Haralds Karlis. “He’s in summer school right now. I’d say he’s 85 percent. The only thing he’s pretty much not allowed to do is contact. But he’s pretty much working out every day. He’s in the weight room. He’s working out on his own. Tommy’s doing really well health-wise.
“He is definitely a pass-first, get-you-in-the-offense type point guard. Jordan was a little bit more of a scoring point guard. Tommy’s more of a get everybody involved and has to work on becoming a scoring guard a little bit.”
Willard also envisions using Wilson at the point if Gibbs has to wait until the 2013-14 season to debut.
“Freddie Wilson’s still here,” Willard said. “You got Tommy. You know, we won’t play the same way we played last year. Obviously, I set up last year’s team for Jordan to have the basketball and for the basketball to go through Herb. This year what I’m excited about is we have a lot more options.”
Those options include returning players Edwin, Karlis, Aaron Cosby and Brandon Mobley but also transfers Kyle Smyth (Iona), Brian Oliver (Georgia Tech) and Gene Teague (Southern Illinois).
Gonzalez was fired in 2010 in part because his transfers got into legal trouble off the court (see Keon Lawrence and Robert “Stix” Mitchell).
Yet Gonzo also recruited Theodore, Pope, Edwin and Jeremy Hazell, the team’s best players in the last few years.
Now Willard has a new crop of transfers and feels confident that they can help going forward.
“Brian and Fuquan and Aaron Cosby on the wings really give us some great scoring strength,” he said.
Up front, Willard is excited about a front line that will include Teague, Mobley, Geramipoor and mystery man Kevin Johnson.
“Eugene is an absolute beast inside, so I’m looking forward to having a real post presence that we can throw the ball inside,” Willard said referring to the 6-9 Teague, who averaged 8.6 points and 5.3 rebounds at Southern Illinois in 2010-11.
The 6-9 Johnson sat out last season after being declared an academic non-qualifier, a story first reported in October by SNY.tv.
“Once Kev gets back from California for summer school, he’ll be all set,” Willard said. “He did really well in school this year. Once he comes back and starts summer school, he’s on the team and he’s 100 percent eligible.”
Willard says Johnson could be more of a factor in the 2013-14 season than this year.
“I look at the progression that Fab Melo had from his freshman to sophomore year,” Willard said. “I think Kevin’s going to need a year to kind of get situated. Not that he’s not going to be able to play, but I definitely see bigger things for him in his sophomore year than I do in his freshman year.”
As for the 6-9 Mobley, who averaged 5.6 points after missing the first portion of the season with a shoulder injury, Willard expects him to take the next step.
“I think Brandon having a full summer and a full preseason without the injury, everybody forgot that he didn’t play the whole preseason because of his shoulder, so I think Brandon’s doing to have a huge step,” he said.
Overall, Willard points to his team’s 3.0 GPA and “perfect APR” and says the comparisons to the Gonzo Era are non-existent despite the number of transfers Seton Hall has taken on.
“I think with transfers, it’s almost becoming the way of the world,” he said. “There was 400 transfers in Division 1 basketball, so it’s more than one at every school.
“So I think the days when kids transfer just for the fact that to get out of trouble or this and that, I think kids transfer now because of the way the recruiting calendar sets up and everything like that.
“All our transfers, from Eugene, Brian and Sterling, have worked out well and they all have above a 3.0 GPA and they’re all great kids. Plus, they’re all New Jersey kids.”
