Big news today for the USF Basketball team as Williston State College PG Blake Nash committed to Coach Stan Heath over offers from Oklahoma and Texas A&M this weekend. Greg Auman from the St. Pete Times and Larry Weisbaum from USFNation.com both have reports up, and from all indications, this looks to be a great get for the basketball club. After redshirting his 1st year at WSC, the 6' Nash blew up in his freshman year, averaging an incredible 22.3 PTS, 5.6 REB, 4.5 AST, and 2.3 STL a game. His A/T ratio is a little low at 1.2, but he shot 55% from the field, including an eye-opening 42% from three.
Both Auman and Wesibaum were able to talk to Nash's head coach Hunter Berg, and Coach Berg had nothing but excellent things to say about Nash. From Auman's interview,
"He's pretty much got the complete package. We had a good year because Blake was really, really good. He won a lot of games for us, there's no way to sugarcoat that."
Larry asked about Nash's strengths, and Berg says that he is pretty much the complete package as a point guard,
"Player wise he’s quick, he’s strong and he’s a playmaker. He needed him to score and obviously his numbers say that he can. He’s an excellent scorer and shoots the ball really well and has a great pull-up game. He can slash and put it on the floor all the way to the rim."
Hey those are the exact things we were sorely missing last year!
With Anthony Crater recovering from shoulder surgery, and Anthony Collins and LaVonte Dority still needing a little seasoning, Nash might be able to come in and earn some major minutes from Day 1 in Tampa. If you'd like to see Nash in action, we have a highlight video of Nash from 2009 after the jump.
Just an incredible scorer, and one that we haven't had at PG at USF since Reggie Kohn. He has no fear attacking the lane, has a solid pull up jumper, and is a pure shooter from 3. He sees the court extremely well, and almost always finds the open man once the defense collapses on him.
Like with Anthony Collins' commitment, Nash's pledge leaves USF with 14 scholarship players next season and only 13 available scholarships to dole out. One possible solution might be Augustus Gilchrist leaving school and staying in the NBA Draft. Another is for a reserve guard like Mike Burwell or LaVonte Dority transferring out like Shedrick Haynes. If I were to put money on it, my guess would be that Burwell would be the one to go, but we will have to wait and see.
Like Jawanza Poland last season, Nash will have three years on campus once he arrives in the fall.