The Men’s Basketball season opened this week, and the team anticipates making another run at the WCC championship.
On Oct. 17, the Dons had their annual West Coast Conference (WCC) media day at Resorts World in Las Vegas, Nevada. During media day, the Dons reflected on the progress made last season and communicated their goals for this season.
While the team’s former forward Jonathan Mogbo now plays for the Toronto Raptors, they maintained most of their core players in addition to new recruits this season.
“To be able to retain the players that we are trying to retain, it’s a good starting point. We have been able to address some of our holes in high school recruiting and our transfer portal,” Head Coach Chris Gerlufsen said in a WCC media interview.
The additions of this season included forward James O’Donnell, guard Tyrone Riley, forward Jason Rivera-Torres and center Carlton Linguard Jr.
The most notable addition of the team is former four-star recruit Rivera-Torres, who played for the Vanderbilt University Commodores in the 2023 season. He averaged 15.4 minutes, 6.4 points and 3.1 rebounds per game. In the WCC media interview, Gerlufsen said that Rivera-Torres had everyone’s attention. “Scoring the basketball became natural for him,” said Gerlufsen. Rivera-Torres plans to stay with the Dons for the next three years.
Gerlufsen added, “That’s a really big win for us. Guys that like that do well in our system when they can develop, [Rivera-Torres] will be an exciting guy to follow.”
He discussed the comparisons between Linguard Jr. and Mogbo, as Linguard Jr. is expected to be the next big man to lead the Dons this season.
He said, “There is no singular replacement to Jonathan Mogbo, and [Linguard Jr.] is going to be a really unique player to watch with his ability to stretch the floor to shoot at a high rate for a seven foot big guy. He’s a different type of player but should provide some rim protection, rebound at a high level and from an offensive statepoint he has the ability to give teams some matchup problems with his ability to shoot the ball.”
Assistant Athletics Director Angelo-Joseph Tinio said, “We’re working with coaches to figure out content that they want, and what represents their team. If there’s a recruit from the East Coast or Canada that wants to come play at USF, we can provide a video of all of our facilities so that […] person knows what everything looks like.”
Tinio joined the USF Athletics staff this year as an assistant athletics director for creative media. He said, “We will produce clips of big dunks, blocks and big moments that happen in the game. We’ll produce, shoot, edit and they’ll go up in real time, in addition to having bigger benchmark things like most of the content is geared towards whatever theme the game is.” The Dons have themed games, such as the Chase Center Doubleheader, which will take place on Nov. 21. Tickets are on sale at the Chase Center website.
Last season, the Dons went 23-11 overall, with a 11-5 conference record. Now, they will have an opportunity to build on that success and pivot into a new era of Dons Men’s Basketball.
Students can attend home games for free using their One Card.
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