levon1975 wrote:
Recruits are all signed; not “committed”; so unless they are released they aren’t going anywhere. Do we know that all the returning players have a basketball scholarship? That may be the answer to your numbers game.
Right you are, Levon, I was looking at VerbalCommits which lists Bizeau and Kelly as verbals, but in fact, all 5 are now signed. As for whether the other returning players have basketball scholarships, based on previous information provided by Duquesne, and I'm referring to the May 1 press release on the transfers last year, we had nine active players and four transfers on scholarship for the 2017-18 season to fill our 13-scholarship allotment. Frankie Hughes was later added to the latter list in early June, presumably on scholarship as it's hard to fathom that a kid who once signed with Louisville and played serious minutes as a freshman at Missouri would transfer to Duquesne to walk on without at least the promise of a scholarship when he was eligible. All four members of last year's recruiting class were previously announced as having signed LOIs, a designation exclusively reserved for players on athletic scholarships.
However, there was chatter on this board that Nicholas Kratholm, who was valedictorian of his high school class and is studying biomedical engineering--he wants to build prosthetic limbs--is actually on a full academic, not athletic scholarship. This chatter was later confirmed, I believe by Dave Harper, at one of the preseason meet-and-greet events that Duquesne held, according to what folks have posted on this board anyway. So perhaps someone at Duquesne made a mistake in the 2017 recruiting class press release and perhaps Kratholm wasn't the only recruit who didn't actually sign an LOI. Walk-ons often sign ceremonial non-binding LOIs after all. But I'm just going by what Duquesne has actually announced. Krivacevic received about as much playing time as a walk-on and like Kratholm wasn't really recruited much by other D1 schools, but he's never been identified as a walk-on anywhere that I'm aware of, just the opposite. But what matters is what they report to the NCAA not what they tell the media and the fans.
So not counting Kratholm,we're still two-over for next year. Not counting Krivacevic, we're still one-over for next year. It really strains credulity to think that anyone else on the current roster is actually a walk-on, but if folks have theories about that, I'd love to hear them. I don't expect all the returning players to come back either, but really hope Lewis, Williams and Verhoeven are on the 2018-19 roster.
Online!