Tulane Men's Basketball 'Still Has Much Work to Do' To Impove
We are mere hours away from the Tulane Green Wave men's basketball season tipping off and Ron Hunter's sixth year as head coach commencing.
It has not been the best tenure for Hunter, leading the team to a 70-74 record overall with a 35-53 record in conference play, but the coach brought his son, RJ Hunter, in as an assistant coach earlier in the offseason to help try and develop the roster better with his NCAA Tournament and professional experience as a player.
The season ahead is hoped to be a turning point for the program, but in a recent article for Mid-Major Madness, Isaac Bourne says, "Not so fast my friend!"
Bourne previews the American Athletic Conference, predicting where each team will finish and previewing what each team has to look forward to this year, with the Green Wave predicted to finish 11th in the conference, ahead of only the Tulsa Golden Hurricane and the Rice Owls.
"A very inexperienced and disjointed roster gives Hunter much work to do to," writes Bourne, "have his team ready for the gauntlet of the American Conference."
It is a patchwork roster that Hunter has constructed for this year, built with transfers from power conferences that have not seen much play time in their college tenures.
Tyler Ringgold (Texas A&M Aggies), Kaleb Banks (Indiana Hoosiers), and Mari Jordan (Georgia Bulldogs) all came to Tulane in hopes of more playing time, but it is still mostly unknown what they can be.
Ringgold and Jordan are redshirt freshmen who did not take the court once with the Aggies or Bulldogs, and Banks is a junior who averaged 8.0 minutes over 45 games with the Hoosiers but no starts.
The backcourt features two promising transfers, however, in Rowan Brumbaugh and Michael Eley, both joining the program from other mid-major programs.
Brumbaugh is a redshirt sophomore from the Georgetown Hoyas who tallied 8.3 points, 2.6 assists, and 2.2 rebounds in 22.3 minutes across 31 games, 20 of which were starts.
Eley is a junior from the Siena Saints who tallied 11.0 points, 1.0 assists, and 3.9 rebounds in 23.5 minutes across 48 games, 16 of which were starts, over two years with the Saints.
There are pieces in place for the Green Wave to see some modicum of success this year in the AAC, Ron Hunter will just need to bear down and get everything that he can from his men each and every night.
