Central Michigan basketball picks up fourth recruit for 2011-12 season
Ernie Zeigler’s 2011-12 class is complete — well, unofficially.
The Central Michigan men’s basketball coach picked up his fourth and expected final scholarship recruit for next season in the form of junior college transfer Olivier Mbaigoto, who gave a verbal commitment to the program Monday according to scouting websites Rivals and Scout.
A 6-foot-7. 225-pound forward, Mbaigoto spent the last two seasons at St. Petersburg Community College in Florida, where he averaged 15.5 points and 6.3 rebounds per game during the 2010-11 season. Originally from Chad, he played high school basketball at Bethel High School in Virginia. He was originally recruited by Clemson out of the Atlantic Coast Conference, but academic troubles forced him to go the junior college route.
With the departure of the team’s second scoring threat in Jalin Thomas and Andre Coimbra with one year of eligibility remaining, Mbaigoto is expected to compete in the frontcourt. Colin Voss and Jevon Harden will have one year under their belt, with freshmen Nate VanArendonk and Austin Barnes coming off redshirt seasons.
In an interview with CM Life two weeks ago, CMU head coach Ernie Zeigler said there were plans to add a big man or two to the roster.
“When you look at that young group of guys, somebody’s got to emerge,” Zeigler said of his current frontcourt situation. “We look at it from a recruiting standpoint and we don’t want to bring in somebody just to bring in a body. We don’t want to bring in somebody that’s not better than what we already have.”
Mbaigoto is the second player from the state of Florida to verbally commit to CMU after Austin Keel, a 6-foot-2, 180-pound shooting guard from Winter Park, Fla., gave his word to Zeigler two weeks ago that he will also join the Chippewas next season.
Zeigler said his recent four-year contract extension included a third guaranteed revenue game, allowing the CMU coaching staff to have a larger budget for recruiting. As a result, the coaching staff spent much of the recruiting period during the last season in Florida, California and Texas.
In February, Austin McBroom, a 5-foot-11 guard from North Hollywood, Calif., gave a verbal commitment for next season.
“We know that Michigan is the main focus of our recruiting, but with that said the change or tweak is that if we can’t get who we want, we’re not going to settle just to say we got a Michigan kid,” Zeigler said of his recruiting situation in the interview. “ … We have to do things more creatively to be able to compete from a recruiting standpoint with the teams in the top of our conference that have more lucrative resources than we have at our disposal.”
West Ottawa High School point guard Jorddan Myrick was the first to join the program, signing a Letter of Intent in November.
CMU loses three seniors from the roster at the end of the 2010-11 season. The fourth, guard Amir Rashid, left the team with 12 games remaining in the regular season.
