Bringing in the guards
The time of the next generation of Hawaii basketball guards might be now.
Two players with four years of eligibility, 6-foot-5 shooting guard Rylan Bergersen of Boise, Idaho, and 6-1 point guard Edon Maxhuni of Finland were to visit the Manoa campus at this moment and in the coming days, respectively.
UH has some competition for the services of both.
Bergersen, who played this year at Link Year Prep, was to get in Friday. He’s taken visits to LSU in the fall and BYU last week, and VerbalCommits.com has him with offers from Colgate and DePaul as well.
He said here that he considers himself a late bloomer, thus the decision to attend prep school. Per the Idaho Statesman, he averaged 15.5 points with 5.5 assists, 2.3 steals and 2.1 assists in his senior year at Borah High.
His father, Roberto, played at Boise State and was the Big West player of the year in 1999 (first team in 1998 and 99). Roberto is still third on all-time BWC player of the week honors with seven. He then played overseas and went on to excel with the Idaho Stampede in the CBA and NBA D-League.
Here’s some of Rylan from last spring.
Maxhuni is to arrive Sunday, apparently after a visit to Long Beach State.
Class of 2017 6'1 Finnish guard Edon Maxhuni ('98) is going to visit Long Beach State this weekend, will visit Hawaii on Monday-Tuesday
— Eurohopes (@Eurohopes) April 14, 2017
Maxhuni scored 17.8 ppg in the 2016 FIBA U-18 European Championships in December, ranking third, to go with 3.0 rebounds and 2.7 assists. While at the Helsinki Basketball Academy, he led the Finnish Pro A league in scoring. The Helsinki Academy is where Arizona star big man Lauri Markkanen played.
Verbalcommits has him with an offer from Texas Tech.
Here’s video of Maxhuni (note: some explicit music lyrics to go with the video).
A possible recruiting battle with LBSU will be interesting. They’ve been one of the better draws in the league under Dan Monson, but they’ve gone through their share of turmoil of late.
UH has never had a player from Finland.
Basketball…never had a player from Finland but UH did get an awesome volleyball player named Lauri Hakala. Hope Edon can come here and have an impact on our basketball team like Lauri had on our volleyball team.
Bergersen looks like a promising recruit. He has a Lojeski type of game from the looks of the video. The PG from Finland looks like he would need to redshirt a year to learn the system and work on his game a bit. Hawaii really needs to sign at least one quality recruit that can make an immediate impact this coming season. The other recruits they bring in can be players that they develop in the system.
I agree Blu- Bergensen seems more ready to help right away. That said, it is easier to come in to college as a SG rather than a PG. We definitely need a quality recruit- PG is hard to recruit sometimes. And there is a difference in PGs coming from overseas as opposed here in the US- the game is different as well as the needs. While Owies and Drammeh have talent and potential, Owies seemed to struggle here, and Drammeh took some time but caught on, but in the end it was a an American walkon who saved the season.
*walkon point guard that saved the season
Predicting: The starting dynamic duo will be Leland Green and Drew Buggs ……both guards are multi-talented and will serve as hybrid guards playing both positions concurrently depending on where and what side of the court the ball is moved.
Hanno Mottola is the only Finnish national to play in the NBA.
He played two seasons for the Atlanta Hawks.
We need BIGS with a post game… Bonus if we can get a scoring PG, SF so we play inside/out, Gonzaga proved that this season.