2026-27 Season

[stevemaz]

John Calipari is not walking thru that door

Not until he retires, does a year in tv, and then realizes he needs to cap career by finishing the job in his 70s.. UMass Final 4 bound in 2032

[LS71]

^ I'll have some of what you're smoking. The potency of legal marijuana is clearly increasing!

[bobolink]

Looking like an older, more experienced lineup with a load of international flavor. Possible starters:
PG: Carbuccia (Dominican Republic)
SG: Zemljik (Croatia)
SF: Ndjigue (Boston?)
PF: Wang (China)
C: Ahmed (Egypt)

Least obvious is PG, where maybe Clayton should be. Austria, Switzerland and Iceland represented on the bench in this scenario. Plenty of TBD

[inthescoop]

Looking like an older, more experienced lineup with a load of international flavor. Possible starters:
PG: Carbuccia (Dominican Republic)
SG: Zemljik (Croatia)
SF: Ndjigue (Boston?)
PF: Wang (China)
C: Ahmed (Egypt)

Least obvious is PG, where maybe Clayton should be. Austria, Switzerland and Iceland represented on the bench in this scenario. Plenty of TBD

Least obvious is PG? I think Carbuccia starting at PG and Ndijgue starting at SF are our biggest locks. The rest who knows.. Just because Zemljik is basically our teams only SG on the roster right now doesn't mean he's going to start.

[bobolink]

key word I wrote is "possible". Ahmed seems likely to me, and yes I pencil in Zemljik as he seems the only SG. Clearly nothing is decided yet.

[NilesGold]

Looking like an older, more experienced lineup with a load of international flavor. Possible starters:
PG: Carbuccia (Dominican Republic)
SG: Zemljik (Croatia)
SF: Ndjigue (Boston?)
PF: Wang (China)
C: Ahmed (Egypt)

Least obvious is PG, where maybe Clayton should be. Austria, Switzerland and Iceland represented on the bench in this scenario. Plenty of TBD

Looking again at Clayton, I think he'll probably be our starting SG unless they add someone else or Zemljik or Martin are extremely impressive... otherwise I think the other 4 on your list are starters.

[InnervisionsUMASS]

Danny and Jayden are locks. The rest remains an unknown.

[natwam2547]

So we have 8 incoming players, Rollie who is now on Scholarship, and we are operating under the assumption Jayden and Danny are returning. That leaves 2 open spots. I’d imagine those 2 will be assumed by some combination of Wimbley, Luka and Clerc. Would need to see a big leap from those 2 and Danny if we have any hopes next year. Sure the BYU, NW and SF transfers are nice, but it’s not nearly the pop of Leo and Banks Jr heading into this past season.

[69MG]

Hi from Ireland. We can have 15 scholarships, so we actually have 1 open slot. Glàd to see Rollie get a ship and the signing of the Chinese kid.

[MikeUMA]

UM just dropped a new Just Being Frank today
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Dllf5ujjik
... and probably not coincidentally, announced to the media circle that Frank will take questions tomorrow about the roster. In that announcement, the wording was that the three transfer portal guys we got "rounds out the roster."

Returnees
Ndjigue
Damjanac
Clerc
Carbuccia
Wimbley
Castineyra
Engel - presumed. He was seen in the video about Rollie's scholarship. Did redshirts for two years. Assumed he'll be in a walk-on role again.

Portal incomers
Clayton
Wang
Ahmed

Newbies
Hailey
Helgason
Christian Martin
Sylla
Zemljić

https://umasshoops.com/wiki/doku.php?id=season_2026-27

Back to the new JBF episode: they do a deep dive on the three portal guys.

[InnervisionsUMASS]

Hi from Ireland.

Hi! Hope you're having a great trip!

[69MG]

Lot's of Guinness

[sbloombe]

I’ll (partially) zig while others are zagging: I’m optimistic about the roster. It’s only a partial zig because I’m still pessimistic about the coach.

I think there is reason to believe that Zemljić will be impactful as a scorer right away, based on how others from his league have performed in college. He’s also not a true freshman—he’s 20 I believe. Helgason also is a non-traditional freshman given his international experience, and it seems very possible that he’ll have an instant impact as a freshman too.

I like all 3 transfers. None are the kind of individual scorers that Bettiol and Banks were, but frankly our offense has always looked shaky when the plan has been to rely or 1 or 2 guys to score in isolation situations. Maybe a team where several guys can average 10+ and no one averages 16+ will be a better structure. Many great college teams are built that way.

Another reason for optimism is size. It seems like we’ll be able to run out some huge lineups: Abdullah, Wang, Helgason, Zemjlic, and Danny (or Clayton). Or maybe Zemjlic can play some point and we can add Wimbley to that lineup. We’ll be able to overpower a lot of mid-majors with that kind of size and strength.

[Juice Stand]

UM just dropped a new Just Being Frank today
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Dllf5ujjik

I've only listened to the first half of the episode, but the thing that stuck with me is when he pointed out Bettiol's impact relative to the hype when he committed. I'm definitely not a scout, and I don't even really do deep dives on these new guys other than looking at stats and what type of competition they played against.

Prime examples of me not knowing what I'm talking about are Leo Bettiol and Donovan Brown. I was excited about Brown because he put up big numbers against some D1 teams a few times, and I thought Bettiol was probably our 7th man, a backup to DHS. I was WAY OFF. It was clear from the first couple of games that Bettiol was going to be very good, and Brown wouldn't be getting off the bench. Like Frank says in the interview, it's a combination of talent and fit, and maybe Brown just didn't fit, but he also didn't really look like he had the talent for this level in the few times I watched him get into games.

While I may be down on the overall roster and have my doubts about certain aspects, I'm going to trust that the staff knows how to evaluate talent and fit and got some good pickups. I'm right there with Sbloombe though in that I'm still pessimistic about Frank the in-game coach. And good points about these international guys being a bit older and more experienced, ready to play right away.

[Floyd]

I’ll (partially) zig while others are zagging:

Can't go wrong with Zig Zag