Zips find their PG?

[Quickzips]

Former Xavier PG Brian Walsh appears to be transfering to the Zips. He will have to sit out the 2010-11 season, but will be eligible again in 2011-12 when he will have two years left to play.

Walsh is a 6'4" 205lb who played just under 5 minutes per game last season for the Musketeers.

More here:

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10217/1077619-450.stm

[Quickzips]

Appears I may have jumped the gun a little bit in calling him a PG. The original article I read called him a PG, most sites I'm seeing now have him as a SG/SF. Walsh was highly touted coming out of high school as a three star recruit with offers from Xavier, Duquesne, Maryland, Memphis, Penn State, Pittsburgh, St. Joe's and West Virginia. ESPN called him the best player in his class in Western Pennsylvania. From the Xavier boards it appears that injuries and the presence of Jordan Crawford held him back in his two years at Xavier. Hopefully their loss is our gain.

[dboze]

Former Xavier PG Brian Walsh appears to be transfering to the Zips. He will have to sit out the 2010-11 season, but will be eligible again in 2011-12 when he will have two years left to play.

Walsh is a 6'4" 205lb who played just under 5 minutes per game last season for the Musketeers.

More here:

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10217/1077619-450.stm

Walsh is a GREAT addition and a friend of Zeke's. He and Walsh played against each other in AAU ball (both with the PA Storm organization) and in WPIAL Section play. In 2007-2008, Walsh was the PA Gatorade Player of the Year. Check out his Xavier Profile Page for more details...

Brian Walsh Background....

[ZachTheZip]

So we can expect both Walsh and Chauncey Gilliam to play starting in 2011?

What does this do to our scholarship situation?

[Quickzips]

So we can expect both Walsh and Chauncey Gilliam to play starting in 2011?

What does this do to our scholarship situation?

By my calculations we have 12 players on scholarship for 2011-12 as of right now. NCAA allows for 13, so that would mean we have one more scholarship to give.

Abreu

Cvetinovic

Diggs

Egner

Euton

Gilliam

Green

Harney

Justice

Marshall

McClanahan

Walsh

Zips will desperately need a PG with that last scholarship. Unless KD is going to continue this experiment of undersized SG's trying to man the point by giving Blake Justice the backup PG minutes, the only PG we would have on scholarship would be Abreu.

[MaxZIP]

So we can expect both Walsh and Chauncey Gilliam to play starting in 2011?

What does this do to our scholarship situation?

By my calculations we have 12 players on scholarship for 2011-12 as of right now. NCAA allows for 13, so that would mean we have one more scholarship to give.

Abreu

Cvetinovic

Diggs

Egner

Euton

Gilliam

Green

Harney

Justice

Marshall

McClanahan

Walsh

Zips will desperately need a PG with that last scholarship. Unless KD is going to continue this experiment of undersized SG's trying to man the point by giving Blake Justice the backup PG minutes, the only PG we would have on scholarship would be Abreu.

Could KD be playing the wait-and-see game with late transfers and/or decommits? We will have a glaring need for a PG. Quality point guards might just jump out of nowhere if we have a good season this season and offer instant playing time. Hell we could end up with some high major talent that is looking for an opportunity immediately. It could happen.

[Dave in Green]

Could KD be playing the wait-and-see game with late transfers and/or decommits? We will have a glaring need for a PG. Quality point guards might just jump out of nowhere if we have a good season this season and offer instant playing time. Hell we could end up with some high major talent that is looking for an opportunity immediately. It could happen.

The Zips would need to have a sensational season to suddenly become attractive to high-level PGs who previously would not have considered UA. It's possible. But it would require something like Zeke making a monumental leap in performance to a truly dominant force, or for a lot of things to fall into place for several other players, or all of the above. Again, it's possible. But we can't rely on this. I suspect that KD has a number of PGs he thinks he has a realistic chance of landing, and that he'll hold that last scholarship for the best available PG.

The good news about Walsh is that he represents yet another break from KD's past recruiting form. This is another indication that KD has blown up the old system and is really trying to make a giant leap forward. The Zips are going to be more loaded with experienced players from other programs than they've ever been in my memory of Zips basketball. This is the kind of gamble that many of us had been hoping for. Now we all just have to keep our fingers crossed that it works out for the best.

[ZachTheZip]

Dambrot has been using converted SGs to run the offense since Dru Joyce graduated. In his mind, you don't need a "pure" PG on the team to be successful. But remember when both Humpty and Ronnie Steward were touted as the PG of the future? They were great PGs in high school, but it didn't translate to college where Humpty was better as an SG and Steward never had a chance to develop.