By: Eric Fawcett -- June 8, 2023 Florida fans were hit with an unexpected commitment from the transfer portal on Friday as guard Julian Rishwain announced his commitment to the Gators. There wasn’t much news regarding the Gators having interest in Rishwain but with the top end of the roster mostly filled it’s the point of the season where coaches are looking to round out their squads with role players–and Florida is banking on familiarity with this take. Julian Rishwain Commits To Florida | GatorCountry.com
I think he fits nicely, doesnt need too many minutes, a good shooter who can be some offense off the bench.
And I think just as important is a plug and play practice player that knows the system and that coach knows
sounds like a decent pickup, more veteran leadership too. I'd like to see us go after an unknown international player for the last spot. So much talent overseas.
Wonder why his shooting fell off so much last year. Julian Rishwain College Stats | College Basketball at Sports-Reference.com
Dunno, but I'll hazard a guess. Last year was his first as a starter. Some guys don't adjust as well to that role, when most coaches are drawing up their defense to stop scoring by starters. Maybe they figured his game was all 3-point shots and were determined to take that away. His own coach may have told him, don't worry, keep shooting, we need you to put up volume. Plus, he missed the last 14 games, which would have been when he would have been learning to adjust his own game to what they're throwing at him.
Definitely very hard to say without watching. Change of coaches, first time as a starter, lost his starting spot along the way, injury ended season early. But if you shoot 33, 37, and 43 in your first three years, it's pretty obvious the 24 is an outlier, especially since it came on nearly the same number of shots and roughly the same minutes (not to mention the same competition) as the 37 and 43.
And sometimes guys just go into extended slumps. Sometimes there are hidden reasons for the slumps. I remember Craig Brown being a good shooter from distance early in his Gator freshman season, over 40%, then suddenly as a sophomore was shooting in the upper 20% range. After the season, he got his vision checked, was fitted with new prescription lenses, and shot over 43% for the rest of his career. And the Gators made a Final Four run due to an eye exam. Kudos to Craig, by the way, for being a coach at FAMU now. I hope he has a great career in the business.
Another thing to remember about this kid is that he isn’t just some low major boom/bust reach. He actually went to Boston College out of high school (same class as Felder) and played pretty regularly. He was also recruited heavily by Wichita State when they were pretty hot. He transferred back to Cali primarily because of homesickness. And he may not have been a starter under Golden, but he was always a top-5 scorer. If he gets healthy enough to give us 12-15 mpg at anything remotely close to his productivity at SF (say 6ppg on 40% from the arc), our rotation at the 1-3 will be outstanding.
