Sunday, 26 September 2010

More Significant Transfers; CIS flavour in Dutch league

Two corrections:  Regina's Jimmy Scoggins from Arizona, who we identified as a new incoming transfer to Regina, actually played in the second semester last season for the Cougars.  Also, we have corrected and updated a previous post that had mistakenly indicated that Keith Omoerah was headed to Winnipeg when in fact he has commited to the Manitoba Bisons.

Fraser Valley Cascades continued their pre-season preparation with a 102-75 victory over the UBC-Okanagan Heat at a high school venue.  Recall that Canada West has granted UBC-O probationary acceptance into that conference beginning in 2011-12 and the Heat have hired Darren Semeniuk as their first full-time head coach in preparation for Canada West play next season.

A pair of CIS All-Canadians from last season kicked off their professional careers last night in Holland in the Dutch Pro League.  In the league opener for both teams, Calgary Dino grad Ross Bekkering's ZZ Leiden defeated Magixx Nimegan 74-71 in OT.  Bekkering lead Leiden with 18 points while Carleton All-Canadian Kevin McCleery had 14 for Nijmegan.

As we catch up on weeks-old emails and get better organized for the start of the season, it is apparent that several more big name transfers were missed in my original commentary on incoming CIS transfers, most noteably Windsor's incoming class that includes 7'0" Mike Luby, originally from Kenora, ON who has made several stops south of the border (thanks to Greg Layson) before returning to Canada to play for Chris Oliver's perennial nationals contender.  But amid little comparative fanfare, the Lancers could receive a huge boost to their backcourt with the arrival of 5'9" Tyrone Bramble originally from Toronto who early on in high school moved to the U.S. to attend what turned out to be two prep schools (in Georgia and in Texas).  Almost immediately Bramble opened the eyes of numerous U.S. D1 recruiters with his play on the AAU circuit for Grassroots Canada; as far back as 2003, he was identified as one of North America's top high school guards by Rivals.com.  Bramble last appeared on the Heritage Christian Academy (Cleveland, Texas-based prep school) roster in 2006-07 when he was ranked by Clark Francis of the Hoop Scoop as the #188 best high school player in the Class of 2007.  Bramble, who turned 23 years old in July, was last seen at Moberly (Mo.) Area Community College, where he appeared in one game in 2008-09 and will begin his Lancers career with four CIS seasons of eligibility remaining.

Expect 5'11" Zack Humphrey, a 16.5 ppg producer at Spokane Junior College last season, to inject some perimeter scoring into Lethbridge's lineup where there are minutes available in the back court.  6'3" Will Caesar, originally from Toronto who last played at Rend Lake Junior College, should see immediately run in the Brandon Bobcats backcourt for new coach Gil Cheung.  6'7" Tristan Renaud-Tremblay, back from The Citadel, a military institution in the U.S. Division 1 system, will compete for time up front off the bench at McGill.  CIS recruiting in of the Baltimore, MD area, previously in the exclusive domain of Cape Breton Capers, has stretched to other programs even beyond the AUS with Winnipeg Wesmen becoming the latest program to attract a player:  6'6" Benny Iko, who spent his first two post-secondary seasons at Howard Community College where he averaged just over 6 ppg last season and 4.6 ppg in 2007-08 (sat out 2008-09).  Iko is the fifth transfer from Howard CC to enter the CIS in the past two seasons along with Lakehead's Joseph Jones and CBU's Jimmy Dorsey (last season) and 6'5" Torrey Fasset and 6'8" Korey Cobb (3.7 ppg last season at Howard) - both Saint Mary'sLakehead added some more talent via transfer route in early September, 6'7" Kemp McCrae yet another player from Baltimore who comes to the CIS directly ouf of Frederick Douglass High School in Baltimore; he will have 5 seasons of eligibility.  The T-Wolves also add 6'1" combo guard Akeem Isaac originally from Scarborough Mother Theresa before making stops at US prep schools in Florida and Dallas.

We are planning to start publishing team previews in the coming weeks as next weekend, the CIS pre-season kicks off highlighted by Regina's two game trip into Thunder Bay to face Lakehead.  Laval Rouge et Or also make a trip into Eastern Ontario to face Algonquin College Friday night and then travel to Kingston to face Queen's Golden Gaels on Saturday night.

Full schedule for next weekend:

Friday, Oct. 1st
Regina at Lakehead

Guelph vs. Waterloo scrimmage at a high school
Laval at Algonquin (Ottawa/CCAA)

Saturday, Oct 2nd
Regina at Lakehead
Laval at Queen's 8 PM
St. Lawrence-Kingston (CCAA) at Carleton
UNBC (CCAA) at Fraser Valley

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