CLASS OF 2010: ARMY

When Jim Crews was hired in 2002, he was hailed as bringing "instant credibility" (a direct quote) to the Army program. Instead, Crews has suffered through the same fate that most Army coaches in the last twenty years have: year after year of ineffective and undersized talent struggling at the Division I level. Crews, by all accounts, is a great strategic and teaching coach. His problem for his four seasons at West Point has been that his players, very simply, have not been very good.

Crews has coached only two real impact players during his time at Army, Matt Bell (who is basically Damon Bailey lite) and Jarell Brown, who is poised for a breakout season this year in my opinion. The good news is that Army has five new guys coming in this year, and they lost 1% of their team's offense in departing senior Erik Engstrom. If Army can put three average guys around Bell and Brown, they may be able to win a few this year. Otherwise, they're going to continue to struggle for the forseeable future. This is Bell's last year, and without him I'm not sure who is going to score for the Black Knights.

Army appears to be a good defensive team when you look at the scores of their games (typically in the 45-50 range for both teams), but the reality is that last year they were the worst defensive team in the league, allowing 1.12 points per opponent possession. Compare that to Bucknell's defense allowing .80 points per possession and you see the gap that exists. So there is work to do on both the offensive and defensive ends.

Army fans can hope that Eric Zastoupil from Plano, Texas may shore up some of that defense. Listed at 6'7", 190 lbs, Zastoupil was the league defensive player of the year on his state championship team. A legitimate defensive prescence in the post would be huge for Army, even if it is only a 6'7" guy. 6'7" is big on Army. He is ranked the 69th (heh heh) best player in Texas by someone, whatever that means. More importantly for us DC residents like me, he was also entered into the Congressional Record. Good to see government at work on the important issues. The Dallas Morning News ran a good story about him here talking about his propensity to get beat up, something he will have to get used to at Army.

The rest of Army's class of 2010 is made up of guards, something I'm not sure they need. They are listed at 6'1", 6'2", 6'3", and 6'4". On a team of guys under 6'5", these guys will have to be able to shoot the lights out to make any significant impact on the Army program.

Lance Pevehouse was still looking for scholarship offers as of this time last year, so you have to think he is borderline. He is a scorer though, so perhaps he can take pressure off of Brown and Bell. But at 6'1", 150 lbs, he may join his new teammate in getting pummelled out there.

Tyrell Thompson is the one player NOT from Texas in this class. He's ranked as two stars by Scout.com, not bad for the PL. However, he was considered a low-DI talent at best, maybe a D-II talent by his coach, so you have to wonder about his ability at the D-I level. When Central Connecticut State is the only other suitor, well, there are questions.

Rickey Royal (no, not the Royal Rickey, a classy cocktail) and Cleveland Richard round out the class. If I could find anything out about them, I would tell you, but I can't. That's not a good sign.

The short of it is that Army could have 2-3 of these guys pan out, which would be a big deal for them. If Zastoupil can be a legitimate post prescence, it would help tremendously. At the least, he should be Army's forward for the seasons ahead. However, they need help now, not down the road. How much longer Mr. Crews will be allowed to continue with 3-23 type seasons is something I don't know. But for the sake of the Indiana Class of 1976, I am hopeful that he can get it done this year, so we don't have to find out.  @ 3:16 PM