As Liberty basketball sits here at 4-12 (1-12 against DI competition) and 0-2 in the Big South, many may wonder if the talent just isn’t there right now. Well, this post is not to disparage the current Liberty basketball players since they are doing their best to represent Liberty University and its athletic program. But there have been plenty that have “gotten away” recently.
You are probably all aware of Seth Curry who, after one season at Liberty, transferred to Duke. The Senior Blue Devil Captain has helped Duke to a #1 ranking and 15-0 start. In Curry’s only year at Liberty (’08-’09), he averaged 20.2 points per game. At Duke, he has seen his points per game increase every year from 9 as a sophomore to being the team’s 2nd leading scorer this year at 16 points per game.
Another one that got away is Evan Gordon who is at Arizona State of the PAC-12. The Sun Devils are 13-2, and Gordon is averaging 10 points, 3 rebounds, and 2.4 assists per game while playing 30 minutes a game. Evan has started in all 15 games this season for the Sun Devils. Gordon, the son of Liberty standout Eric Sr. and brother of the NBA’s Eric Jr., played 2 seasons for the Flames from 2009-2011. In his freshman campaign, Evan averaged 12 points and 4.2 rebounds per game. Gordon was named to the 2010 Big South All-Freshman team, and was named VASID All-State Rookie of the Year. He saw his scoring increase to 14.4 points per game in his sophomore season.
A name that many Flames fans may have forgotten is Chris Perez. Perez is now starring at Atlantic Sun member Stetson. Perez played at Liberty during his freshman season (2009-10) before transferring to Stetson. While at Liberty, Perez only saw an average of 15 minutes of game action per game while scoring 5 points per game. As a Sophomore at Stetson, Perez averaged 13.5 points, 4.5 rebounds and 2.1 assists per game. This season Perez has turned it up a notch; he is Stetson’s 2nd leading scorer at 14.8 points per game. Perez has averaged over 30 minutes per game during each of his 2 seasons at Stetson.
Patrick Konan also left Liberty after his freshman season to transfer to America East member New Hampshire. As a Junior, Konan is averaging 10.8 points and 4 rebounds per game while seeing 30 minutes of game action each night. In his first year at UNH, Patrick averaged 9.7 ponits and 5.8 rebounds per game. These numbers are up from his freshman season at Liberty (2009-10) when he averaged 6.9 points and 4.4 rebounds per game.
It’s nearly impossible to build a program when so much high level talent continues to transfer.
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| In this photo you can see Perez (0), Konan (23), and Gordon (far right). |
*Stats, records, and rankings are as of January 9th, 2013.
Then I guess the question posed is, how and why these talented kids are leaving. I know it wont be answered here but its def worth asking, somebody somewhere is doing something wrong.
Richie McKay, the gift that keeps on giving!
McKay is actually only responsible for Curry coming to Liberty. Gordon, Konan, and Perez were all Layer recruits.
McKay had a great recruiting class with Curry being the best and almost all flamed out or transferred. McKay started the tradition with Lawyer continuing. These recruits may have been Lawyer but McKay had his fair share during his two years.
´Perez was actually a McKay-Brad Soucie recruit who signed, along with Joel Vander Pol in November of 08.
sort of new, who was he. These guys unfortunately are looking like the Wizards, and im sure its not even there fault. From what I have seen tho, there just dont seem to be a real inside presence.
The other question I would ask is this? Are some of these kids just using liberty as a stepping stone? But then again they are getting let out of there scholarships
McKay was our head coach prior to Layer. He was here for only 2 years. He’s now the Associate Head Coach at the University of Virginia.
Ummm at least McKay could recruit and the talent pool was deeper than Layer’s. The questions to be asked: 1. what are the recruits being told verses reality when attending Liberty. 2. Are we limiting our circle of head coaches to fired retreads aka McKay, or assistant coaches aka Layer that manage to always crash the car when given the keys to the Porsche.