College Basketball: GHC players getting national attention

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A few weeks removed from its incredible Final Four run at the National Junior College Athletic Association Basketball Tournament, Georgia Highlands’ players are seeing the fruits of their success in the form of offers from NCAA schools.

Six different Chargers have received offers, including two from multiple Division I schools, according to GHC assistant coach Matt Williams, who tweeted out the offers Thursday night.

“Just to see all these Division I coaches looking at your guys, it’s nice,” Georgia Highlands head coach Phil Gaffney said in a phone interview Friday. “Just a couple of years ago, there was no one recruiting our players. And now to see these big-time guys come through our doors, it’s great for our guys and great for Georgia Highlands.”

Much like he did on the court, guard Ty Toney led GHC with a team-high 19 offers, 18 of which come from Division I programs.

“We told Ty that when he came in if we all play unselfish and we all play hard and we all make the national tournament, we’re all going to get interest,” Gaffney said.

A few schools from the Power Five conferences also offered Toney spots on their teams, including two from the Southeastern Conference, Tennessee and Mississippi State, two from the Big 12, Kansas State and Texas Tech, and one from the Pac-12, Utah.

Toney had multiple offers prior the Chargers’ run in the NJCAA National Championship, but after his 31-point performance in Highlands’ 88-86 overtime win against Butler Community College in the first round, which included back-to-back 3s to give GHC a late lead, Gaffney said both Tennessee and Mississippi State immediately set its sights on the sophomore guard.

“That was huge,” Gaffney said. “If we had not won the first game in overtime, the guys wouldn’t have been recruited as highly.”

Toney, who transferred to Highlands from Appalachian State last year, finished second in Region 17 in scoring, averaging 17.8 points per game. He also made the All-Tournament team for the NJCAA Division I Men’s Championship.

Toney also received offers from Florida International, Eastern Michigan, Iona, Niagara, Grambling State, Texas Southern, Quinnipiac, Kennesaw State, Eastern Tennessee State, University of Texas El Paso, Tulsa, Jacksonville St, NC Central and NC A&T.

Terrence Thompson, a 6-foot-7-inch sophomore who transferred from UNC-Greensboro, received offers from 10 schools.

The first man off the bench for the Chargers averaged almost a double-double on the season, scoring 9.6 points per game and grabbing 8.9 rebounds per game.

Thompson has received offers from Iona, Southeast Louisiana, Gardner Webb, Marshall, the College of Charleston, Eastern Illinois, Cleveland State, Illinois State and Texas Southern.

Montrel Goldston, whose game-winning 3-pointer in the waning seconds of GHC’s 67-66 win over Southern Idaho vaulted the Chargers into the Elite Eight, has received an offer from Sam Houston Sate but other schools have also shown interest, including many in his home state of North Carolina. Goldston averaged 11 points per game for the Chargers and also made the All-Tournament team. Seven schools have extended offers to sophomore forward Denzel Council, a native of Macon, including Southeast Louisiana, Jackson State, Alabama A&M, Texas Southern, Niagara, ETSU and Wagner. Council averaged 10.4 points per game for the Chargers this season.

Sophomore forward Donovan Harris has received offers from Southeast Louisiana, Prairie View, Jackson State and South Carolina State.

Doniel Dean received an offer from Texas Southern, but other schools are also interested in the freshman guard from Newnan.

Freshmen Taquan Givens and Paris Ballinger haven’t received offers yet, but the duo is getting looks from several schools.

The Chargers finished the 2014-2015 season 30-8 with a loss in the third-fourth place game to Hill College after making it all the way to the Final Four as a 19th seed.

The diversity in offers was a direct product of the Chargers postseason play, Gaffney said.

Highlands played seven Top-25 teams in its final seven games of the year during a span of two weeks against some of the most highly recruited junior college prospects in the nation.

“When you do well against some of the major D-1 guys, when you do well in the regional and then national championship, it raises your stock,” Gaffney said. “The more games you win out there (in the postseason), the more you can show you can play.”

Source: Rome News

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