Joy Ighovodja 6'4 G 2023 Nigeria a Shocker!

[Aargh]

This may not be a good recruiting year. The better players early in the portal were already being recruited and taking visits when PM was trying to get a staff put together. Through no fault of his own, PM got a late start at getting quality players out of the portal. If there are some quality players entering the portal late, other school may already have filled their rosters.

Once it's seen what's happening with the portal, decisions can be made about HS players. Recruiting is quite different than it was before the portal. Coaches don't know if they can offer HS players until they see there's none left in the portal that they want.

There's also the possibility of some offenses we're not used to seeing. 4-guard offenses are becoming more common. Beverly, at 6'6", could fill the PF slot in a 4-guard offense. At this point I'm expecting the backup PG to be a combo. Joy is "supposed" to have a PG skillset. Bell developed some ability to break down a defense late in the season.

[pinstripers]

Joy might end up being a player. It's worth a shot. He's a foreigner, so teams can't come outbid us legally in a couple years, and he might help us develop a pipeline, who knows?

[Atxshoxfan]

Still sub-par ratings for this kid from our SN faithful. I hope he comes out and makes everyone eat their words. If the coach is willing to invest in him, I just can't see him being 1/2 as bad as some of you project.

Kick ass JI !

[Stickboy46]

Still sub-par ratings for this kid from our SN faithful. I hope he comes out and makes everyone eat their words. If the coach is willing to invest in him, I just can't see him being 1/2 as bad as some of you project.

Kick ass JI !

I mean, there really is nothing to go on whether he's gonna be good or bad lol. Most everyone i see on here is taking the "wait and see but he's probably worth a scholarship" approach. Which seems fair considering there's is almost nothing known about how well he plays basketball. Just that he measures up well physically.

[Atxshoxfan]

I mean, there really is nothing to go on whether he's gonna be good or bad lol. Most everyone i see on here is taking the "wait and see but he's probably worth a scholarship" approach. Which seems fair considering there's is almost nothing known about how well he plays basketball. Just that he measures up well physically.

Some are of that opinion, but some think he is a bench guy without knowing anything about him, other than the fact that they never heard of him. That's my beef.

[Stickboy46]

Some are of that opinion, but some think he is a bench guy without knowing anything about him, other than the fact that they never heard of him. That's my beef.

Well .. its a pretty safe bet that a relatively unknown, with no other offers FRESHMAN, that has only been playing basketball a handful of years will be a bench player next year. FVV was a bench player to start .. Landry was a bench player before getting hurt. Freshman starting are rare even when they are well known and good. So it's not a knock on him at all to say he will be good to have on the bench. If he ends up starting, either he surprised the vast majority of us or our season is completely off the rails next year.

Its not required to think every recruit we get is the next Lebron and is starter quality. We have 13 scholarship for a reason.

[Jhook89]

Is a 6’9 forward and this dude is a 6’4 guard

Is an unheralded, lightly recruited player out of Africa.

[LetsGoShockers2021]

Joy might end up being a player. It's worth a shot. He's a foreigner, so teams can't come outbid us legally in a couple years, and he might help us develop a pipeline, who knows?

A pipeline, that’s a good thought. Mwamba is from NBA Academy Africa ; maybe this signing helps convince him to follow Mills to WSU as well.

[LetsGoShockers2021]

Well .. its a pretty safe bet that a relatively unknown, with no other offers FRESHMAN, that has only been playing basketball a handful of years will be a bench player next year. FVV was a bench player to start .. Landry was a bench player before getting hurt. Freshman starting are rare even when they are well known and good. So it's not a knock on him at all to say he will be good to have on the bench. If he ends up starting, either he surprised the vast majority of us or our season is completely off the rails next year.

Its not required to think every recruit we get is the next Lebron and is starter quality. We have 13 scholarship for a reason.

agree with all the above. My main beef is not with the player as much as it is with the approach given our current teams situation. If I am Mills ; I am only signing transfers ; Jucos and play ready NOW H/S kids until I have a solid 7-8 core. At that point I sign high upside guys who may be projects but until then , I save every possible scholly so I don’t lose out on a solid play ready now guy.

[Stickboy46]

agree with all the above. My main beef is not with the player as much as it is with the approach given our current teams situation. If I am Mills ; I am only signing transfers ; Jucos and play ready NOW H/S kids until I have a solid 7-8 core. At that point I sign high upside guys who may be projects but until then , I save every possible scholly so I don’t lose out on a solid play ready now guy.

Yea, we have gotten some solid bench guys but outside of Germany .. no one that has put up Starter level numbers. So we have Rogers who is supposedly starter quality but hasn't played in a year, Germany, who put up starter level number on a really bad team and then a bunch of guys who have been bench guys for multiple years. At least 2 of the last 4 really need to be proven ready to go players.

[Atxshoxfan]

Stick you make valid points, but I say everyone on this team comes in as equals. There are no proven "starters" or "bench" guys. That is all to be determined through summer workouts and practices. Even if someone came in with outstanding stats from another team, I could not deem they are a lock as a starter unless they had previous experience in mills system.

But I do understand the differences of excitement for different players.

[Aargh]

The negativity is getting a little tiresome. It's fine to point out that you disagree with the way recruiting is going. But going on and on and on is something completely different. It's like you're trying to convince SN that Saal made a bad hire. That doesn't seem like something constructive to the discussion.

IT DOESN'T MATTER if Saal made a bad hire, and some of the opinions out here REALLY don't matter. The hard cold facts are that Mills is our coach and we have to assume he's not intentionally doing bad recruiting. Mills is WSU's coach, and until he shows on the court that he's in over his head I'm going to support him.

Ron Baker and Austin Reaves were lightly recruited guys. Lightly recruited doesn't mean diddly squat when it's players who weren't seen by everybody on the AAU circuit. VanVleet was lightly recruited until he committed to WSU. Early was lightly recruited.

Joy is almost certain to be a bench player because he's behind a lot of players with significant D1 experience. Bench players can be contributors, role players, minute eaters or mop-up only guys. There is room on rosters for young, mop-up guys. 13 "ready for the floor" guys is locker room poison. There have to be 4 or 5 deep bench guys who accept that role.

Cortes was a STUD HS guy playing behind a 5th year Sr. in the toughest conference in the nation. Beverly was coming off an injury last year when he came off the bench. Saying those guys aren't "starter level" because they came off the bench appears to be ignorance based on bias.

If anybody thinks we're going to be signing P5 starters out of the portal, I'd encourage you to become fans of another school. There are very few schools that can do that and WSU isn't one of them. WSU can sign lower level starters and higher level bench players., and that's been the recruiting pattern until Joy was signed. Joy may be an end-of-the bench player. We certainly don't know that yet. If he is, he's likely to be here a few more years and that has to be the goal in signing Freshmen.

[LetsGoShockers2021]

Just watched a full game of Ighovadja :

Full games from the NBA Academy Africa tourny last summer are here if your interested :

Joy was on team NBA Academy Africa - blue

https://games.nbaacademy.nba.com/federation/18/team/26539/schedule

[LetsGoShockers2021]

Some are of that opinion, but some think he is a bench guy without knowing anything about him, other than the fact that they never heard of him. That's my beef.

Assuming I’m part of the group your speaking
of above… You say there’s nothing to go off of for our opinions ; I’ve watched his best full games from the tourny Mills went to/based his offer off of and unfortunately he looks like an end of a bench guy for us. might be good down the line. Lightning quick, good D, jacks up a ton of threes, looks very athletic and looked very raw against weak competition. Is what it is, I wish the kid the best and I’m ready for the next recruit.

[Aargh]

Just watched a full game of Ighovadja :

Full games from the NBA Academy Africa tourny last summer are here if your interested :

Joy was on team NBA Academy Africa - blue

https://games.nbaacademy.nba.com/federation/18/team/26539/schedule

Those appear to be from the pro league where Joy worked out with the pros, but didn't get much playing time in those games. He's mentioned how much he learned working out with older, more experienced players.

Stats from those games are not encouraging. Joy may be a one and done in the bad way, but there is room on the roster for that type of player with his physical attributes.