After Texas Tech’s loss to Butler on Wednesday, head coach Tubby Smith mentioned that he would like to fill two more scholarships. Each team is allotted 13 scholarships and as of right now, Texas Tech has 10 committed to next year, which includes the current returners plus point guard signee Keon Clergeot from Florida. It would also make sense that Matthew Temple would get a scholarship after seeing how important he is in terms of contributing to this team. That gets you to 11 scholarships with 2 more scholarships to give.
Chris Level mentioned a player in Idaho first, then Carlos Silva Jr. and Michael LaBarre mentioned a target a few weeks back in one of their recruiting shows, Braian Angola-Rodas, and before the NCAA Tournament. The terrific Twitter follower known as @TTUHoopsFan tweeted out a player and highlights of Kwintin Williams. Where there’s smoke, there’s usually fire.
Braian Angola-Rodas | 6’6″ | North Idaho
Angola-Rodas averages 21.4 points a game, shooting 52% from the field and 38% from the three-point line, while averaging 6.5 rebounds and 4.3 assists a game. That’s a pretty good stat line and something I always pay attention to when looking at JUCO players is how well they shoot, because if they don’t shoot well against lower competition then they probably won’t shoot well against Division I. Angola-Rodas also averaged 2.7 steals a game, which was good for 10th in the the JUCO ranks. Yes, I think that translates. The other stat that I love is that Angola-Rodas is 10th in the NJCAA in free throws shot, that means that he’s not completely reliant on the three-point shot or just a jump-shooter, he attacks the rim.
Angola-Rodas has offers from Utah State, Florida International, Utah, Houston, Hawaii and Texas Tech and according to Level, is visiting Texas Tech this weekend.
Kwintin Williams | 6’7″/215 | Pima C.C.
Williams averaged 18 points a game, shooting 55.2% from the field, 38% from the three-point line and over 8 rebounds a game. That’s a pretty good stat line for a freshman, but I think that Williams may actually be a sophomore in terms of years available. Follow me here. Williams is originally from Anchorage, Alaska and maybe Williams senior year, he was busted for driving under the influence (it would seem like this is Williams as you wouldn’t expect there to be a lot of Kwintin Williams in Anchorage) and driving really fast, 120 mph, with a strong odor of marijuana coming from his car. So fast forward to 2015, where Williams is mentioned in this article about three high school basketball players from Arizona, where Williams is mentioned with Lamous Brown where Brown and Williams played for “Planet Athlete” a non-profit that essentially plays JUCO teams. This article mentions that Williams is from Anchorage (check), but played for a high school team in Oklahoma before arriving at Planet Athlete. So I get the idea that Williams has bounced around a bit. Williams’ bio says that he has family that played in the NBA and Division I, but haven’t been able to figure that out.
The point of all of this may be that Williams, because he played a year at Planet Athlete, may be eligible to play right now. From what I can gather, UTEP has offered both Williams and Brown. And I point out all of this about Williams not to make him seem like a bad guy. We all did dumb things when we were 18, including driving fast and whatever. That was 3 years ago and from everything I can tell, he’s got his life back on track. The point of all of this background was to note that although he might be a freshman, he might actually be eligible to transfer this year.