Exodus of Big Men: Dickerson and Atewe Transferring

The painful process of a coaching transition continued to hit the UW Men’s Basketball team today as F Matthew Atewe and F Noah Dickerson both announced their intention to transfer. The loss of Dickerson will hurt the most as he really picked up the load once Markelle Fultz missed the last several games with a knee injury. Over his last 4 games, Dickerson averaged 21 points and 10 rebounds. While Dickerson struggled on the defensive end, he was the only player on the roster that could reliably score in the paint. He originally committed to Billy Donovan at Florida but decided to come to Washington after Donovan left to coach the Oklahoma City Thunder. It seems likely that Dickerson, who is from Georgia, will look to head back to the Southeast.

Atawe is originally from Canada, but also came to the UW from the Southeast as he transferred here from the University of Auburn. There was hope before the season that he would provide much needed depth to the big man rotation but he only averaged a little over 2 points and 2 rebounds per game. Romar lost confidence in Atewe midway through the year and he didn’t appear in any of the last 8 games. Before Romar’s firing it seemed certain he would transfer again but a new coaching staff opened the possibility that he might try for more playing time here.

The moves leave this Husky basketball in dire straights for next season. The likely loss of Michael Porter Jr. from the upcoming recruiting class means that the roster is barren of 4s and 5s. Sam Timmins will likely be called upon to anchor the low post but he will have to make giant strides this offseason for that to be a comforting thought. The only other big man on the roster is 6’8 Devenir Duruisseau who only once played double digits minutes in a game last season. 6’9 Mamoudou Diarra is still committed for the moment but was considered to be a tall raw combo forward rather than an instant low-post presence. It wouldn’t be shocking to see him bolt as well although he didn’t have nearly the demand before committing as the other 4 UW recruits. The change in culture may pay dividends down the road, but next season looks to be another long and painful one.

Pending further transfers and releases from LOIs, the current roster looks like this:

Seniors

G Dan Kingma- 0.8 ppg, 0.5 apg

Juniors

G David Crisp- 13.8 ppg, 3.1 apg

G Matisse Thybulle- 10.5 ppg, 3.1 rpg

G Dominic Greene- 5.5 ppg, 2.1 rpg

F Devenir Duruisseau- 0.4 ppg, 0.9 rpg

Sophomores

F Sam Timmins- 3.2 ppg, 3.8 rpg

G Carlos Johnson- 5.9 ppg, 3.0 rpg

G Bitumba Baruti- 0.6 ppg, 0.4 rpg

Prospective Freshmen

G Jaylen Nowell

G Daejon Davis

F Mamadou Diarra