It’s rare when a team loses its starting backcourt and enters next season with more preseason hype than the previous year, but Sacred Heart is one of those teams.
Entering his tenth season at the helm, head coach Anthony Latina has led one of the steadiest programs in the NEC, finishing 38-30 in conference play over the last four seasons. Despite this continuity, the last two seasons were Latina’s two worst defensive seasons in his nine year tenure, bottoming out last season with a defense efficiency rating ranked as the seventh lowest in the nation, according to KenPom.
One culprit for this deficiency? The backcourt. According to Evan Miyakawa, five of the team’s worst individual Defensive Bayesian Performance Ratings (DBPR) were owned by all five of the team’s backcourt pieces:
With Alex Watson (7.0 ppg) graduated, Tyler Thomas (16.4 ppg) transferring to Hofstra and Aaron Clarke (16.0 ppg) transferring to Stony Brook, their scoring will be missed, but reinforcements from the transfer portal will help balance the Pioneers’ overall package around budding star junior forward Nico Galette.
Quinnipiac grad transfer Brendan McGuire is the one addition that will be most counted on to boost the team’s defensive stoutness and offensive versatility. The 6’7 210 point forward finished last season with the second highest DBPR for Quinnipiac, +3.1, making McGuire one of the three Bobcats with a positive DBPR.
At 6’7, McGuire might be the tallest projected starter for the Pioneers, but his his career 25% assist rate ranks higher than any Pioneer from last year’s roster, giving the team a long point forward option that allows floor spacing guards Joey Reilly and Mike Sixsmith (last season combined for 53 for 140 from three, 37.8 3p%) and Niagara grad transfer Raheem Solomon (107 three pointers made in 82 career games, 35.8%) to provide spacing.
Speaking of Solomon, the Hartford native and Sacred Heart High grad is expected to immediately start in the team’s new backcourt as an off-ball, three-level scoring guard.
Sitting out last season, Solomon was an efficient, two-way secondary scoring piece for Niagara, finishing the 20-21 season with a 8.8% turnover rate, good for the second lowest in the MAAC, a 3.0% steal rate, the eighth highest in the MAAC, and the team’s best BPR.
While his career counting numbers might not jump off the back of his basketball card, Solomon is a good bet to lead the Pioneers in minutes played.
Rounding out the Pioneer’s trio of MAAC transfers is Siena slasher Aidan Carpenter. Hailing from Hamden, CT, the 6’5 185 Carpenter has had an inefficient start to his career, ranking last on the Saints in BPR last season (-22.9) and finishing with just a 43.0 2p%, 16.0 3p% and 50% more turnovers than assists. With sixteen D1 offers out of Lee Academy (ME), Latina and his staff is banking on Carpenter’s athletic potential, giving the program an above-the-rim wing with a willingness to attack the rim (4.6 FTAs per 40 minutes).
If Carpenter can earn a starting role, the Pioneers could enter the season with enough length and positional versatility to make for some positional mismatches for the guard-heavy NEC.
Projected Starting Lineup:
Raheem Solomon, 6’3 180 GR
Aidan Carpenter, 6’5 190 JR
Brendan McGuire, 6’7 210 GR
Nico Galette, 6’6 210 JR
Bryce Johnson, 6’6 210 JR
After playing a rotational role in his freshman season, Nico Galette finished his sophomore season with a bang, prepping him for a clear All-NEC Preseason First-Team nomination. Across the last twenty games of the season, the 6’6 210 soon-to-be-junior averaged 14.3 points, 7.2 rebounds, 1.9 assists, 1.1 steals and 1.5 threes made per game at a whopping 44.8 3p%, finishing the season with a 26 point, 10 rebound effort against LIU.
Similar to Galette, junior forward Bryce Johnson played his best basketball at the end of last season, averaging 10.6 points, 10.9 rebounds, 2.3 assists and a 66.7 fg% over the last seven games.
On paper, Galette and Johnson appear undersized at the four and five spots, respectively, but both forwards are deceptively long and have a knack to play bigger than their measurements. According to KenPom, both forwards finished last season within the top-350 nationally in offensive and defensive rebounding rates.
The duo has the potential to finish this season as the conference’s best frontcourt along with St. Francis (PA)’s Joshua Cohen and Myles Thompson and Merrimack’s Jordan Minor and Ziggy Reid, teams that most prognosticators predict will finish atop the NEC standings along with Sacred Heart.
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