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We all know that Andy pretty much cleaned house last spring, and several players from last year's UAB team transferred elsewhere. I was curious to see if any of them are still playing, but all have already lost out in their respective tournaments. Here's a recap of all the transfers from our roster last year:

Zach Bryant - left early in the season last year under Ehsan. Transferred to Georgia Southern (and in a weird twist we got Quan Jackson as a transfer from GSU in return). Team was 13-13 and lost in the first round of Sun Belt tournament to Arkansas State. Scootie led the team in scoring (13.6) and minutes played for the season.

Tamell Pearson, played at Western Illinois, which finished 7-15 and was 7th in the Summit League; they lost to South Dakota in the first round of their tournament. He started all 22 games and averaged 10.4 points and 6.9 rebounds per game. (In my opinion, he was definitely a player we could have used this season.)

Luis Hurtado, played at Bryant University, a 15-6 team, that lost in the first round of the NEC tournament. He played in all 21 games, off the bench, and averaged 5 points a game. He had 5 points, 5 rebounds and 6 assists in a one-point loss to Syracuse early in the season.

Jordan Brinson, played at Utah Valley State, which went 11-11, and lost to New Mexico State in the first round of the WAC tournament. Jordan played in 12 games, starting 6, and averaged 5 points per game.

Jude Akabueze, played at Jones Junior College in Mississippi. His team only played 9 games (5-4), and Jude played in six of those, starting four and averaging 14 minutes and 3.7 points per game for the season.

Makhtar Gueye, committed to Towson State but did not play this season. He may have been sitting out his transfer year.

Rashawn Fredericks, was supposed to have transferred to James Madison, but never played. Not sure what the story was for him.

Joshua Sippial was a walk-on at UAB but decided not to come back. I couldn't find if he played anywhere this year.

One other transfer of note: Nate Darling, who last played at UAB in 2018 (but had he stayed would have been a senior last year), is doing okay for himself these days. Most already know he transferred to Delaware where, after sitting out a year, he was one of the top scorers in the country for the Blue Hens last season. He averaged 21 points in 38 minutes a game, and then declared for the NBA draft. He went undrafted, but signed a two-way contract with the Charlotte Hornets in November, which also allows him to play for their Development League affiliate in Greensboro. He played 6 minutes in 2 games for the Hornets in December, and has played 13 games with Greensboro, averaging 9 points. He was just called back up to the Hornets last week and is currently on their active roster.

We needed a player like Nate this season.

I am shocked that darling did so well. Not that he wasn’t good, I just had no idea he was *that* good..

(03-13-2021 07:11 PM)The Answer UAB Wrote:  I am shocked that darling did so well. Not that he wasn’t good, I just had no idea he was *that* good..

Helps to be put in a position to succeed..

Who would have thought Nate Darling will be in the league. Delaware Blue Hens (and UAB) got one.

I wanted to see Lovan and Darling show.

I’m not as informed in tracking basketball rosters as I am football, but with COVID restrictions I would hazard a wild guess that HCAK didn’t clean house as much as he wanted...just as he didn’t get the OOC schedule he wanted.

An update on Josh Sippial, from "a reliable source."

"He was supposed to play at Florida Gulf Coast, but due to COVID, they had to reduce their scholarships or something like that and pulled their offer. He hopes to play with them next year."

Darling probably would have been drafted late second round, but at that area of the draft, it’s not uncommon for guys to go undrafted when a deal is already in the works with a team. He signed his two-way pretty quickly after the draft ended.

He’ll make around $500K if he makes it through the entire season, which is likely.

Elite three point shooting and passable defense gets paid in the NBA.

Was he an elite shooter while with us though? I don’t remember him being an elite shooter. He seemed like a JAG on UAB’s squad... probably bc of poor coaching and mismanagement

After looking back at the stats, https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/pla...ing-1.html he was a JAG with good shooting percentages for UAB. He really blew up after he left us.

He was playing 28 minutes a game, he was definitely more than just a guy. We didn’t let him play 40 minutes and jack up 15 shots a game though. As I recall, Nate was an okay defender at best, but considering the fact that defense was optional under Rob, we probably should have let him loose shooting.

He was a step above a JAG. No where near competing for an NBA roster from what we saw at UAB. He blew up big time. Good for him.