[Brian Swartz]

Horace Hargrove(Lehigh)

Early Commits

Giles is coming to Lehigh, and Fried still looks solid though unofficial. The scouting trips absolutely struck out on finding a remotely useful small forward. There were a couple of raw JC big forwards, but there's not much point in a two-year project guy.

* C Chris Johnson(6-10, 246) -- A potentially versatile big man excelling in shot-blocking, Johnson fits the bill of best likely available talent. The scouting will continue.

Starters

This year's top backcourt should be quite good. Junior Jonathon Good(6.7 ppg, 3.2 apg, 2.5 rpg) provides little offense himself, but is an outstanding defender and can capably handle the show. Senior Tommy Campagna(13.5 ppg, 4.2 rpg, 40% 3pt fg) is solid on defense as well and can really light it up from long range -- he'll be the focal point of the offense.

Unfortunately you can't play with just two players. The frontcourt is undersized, and they aren't very good either. Third-year starter Olen Espinosa(10.4 ppg, 3.3 rpg, 0.9 spg, 35% fg) never met a bad shot he didn't like, senior Joseph Alvarez(8.1 mpg) is completely unproven but looks to be a disaster other than on defense, and fifth-year senior Rohan Dyer, originally from Australia, is anemically small for a center at 6-7. In 20 mpg last year he had four points and four rebounds per contest.

Reserves

With all the players jumping ship last year, six of them are walk-ons. The quality is what you might expect -- non-existent.

Redshirts

A couple of the walk-ons are willing, but there's really no reason for it. They both stink. Might as well wait and bring in some recruits that could be an improvement.

Outlook

We will find out this year just how far a good backcourt can take a team. My guess is not far given the near-total lack of complementary players. This year could be very bad, and it will probably get worse before it gets better with Campagna set to graduate. Unless he absolutely blows up, it's hard to see the .500 conference mark happening.