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Western Carolina replaces 89% of its scoring with 12 newcomers, banking on Brown, Manning and Dada to overcome major turnover and size concerns.
Written By
Written By
Western Carolina went 15-16 last season and 10-8 in the Southern Conference. The Catamounts got hot late. They beat Mercer at home on Feb. 25, beat the Bears again 77-73 in the Asheville quarterfinals, and carried a seven-game winning streak into the semifinals. ETSU ended it, 69-67. That is one possession from the title game. It is also a losing record, and Tim Craft responded by turning over almost the entire roster.
The league's coaches picked Western Carolina eighth with 41 points, ahead of only VMI, The Citadel, and UNCG. No Catamount made the preseason all-conference team. The best player from last season did, for someone else. Marcus Kell is at Furman now.
Twelve players from last year's roster are gone. Together they scored 2,170 of the team's 2,432 points, about 89 percent. The top six scorers all left.
Cord Stansberry led the team at 14.1 points a game. The 6-foot-4 guard started 29 games and added 4.0 rebounds. He transferred to Missouri. Kell was right behind him at 13.6 points and 4.8 rebounds, and he shot 44.6 percent while starting all 31 games. He transferred to Furman, the preseason favorite, and made the preseason all-conference team there.
Julien Soumaoro averaged 11.6 points and made 39.8 percent of his threes. He had played for Craft at Gardner-Webb before following him to Cullowhee, and he is out of eligibility. Tidjiane Dioumassi, a graduate guard from Paris, averaged 8.9 points in 24 starts and led the team with 78 assists. He has used up his eligibility.
Tahlan Pettway was the freshman who broke out late. He averaged 8.5 points and made 39.4 percent of his threes, and he scored in double figures in 11 of the last 14 games. He transferred to UNC Wilmington. Justin Johnson, a 6-foot-8 sophomore, averaged 6.7 points off the bench and signed with LIU. CJ Hyland averaged 6.2 points and shot 42.1 percent from three. He transferred to Denver.
The size is gone too. Abdulai Fanta Kabba, a 7-foot center, averaged 4.7 points and 5.8 rebounds and blocked 27 shots. He transferred to Seton Hall. Vernon Collins Jr., who played five games, transferred to UNCG. Fischer Brown, Chase McKey, and Max Williams are also off the roster.
Samuel Dada is the one returner who played a real role. The 6-foot-9 sophomore from Lagos, Nigeria, played all 31 games and started the last 12. He averaged 6.6 points and led the team at 7.6 rebounds, fifth in the league. His 97 offensive rebounds ranked second in the SoCon. He shot 69 percent from the field and blocked 26 shots. He had 19 points and 14 rebounds at Samford, and 14 rebounds against Mercer in the quarterfinals. He had five double-doubles. He is the floor of this roster.
Tayeshaun Smith, a 6-foot-7 sophomore forward, played 30 games off the bench and averaged 1.5 points. Drew Hollifield, a 6-foot-1 junior guard from Shelby, played six games. Titian DeRosa, a 5-foot-9 sophomore guard, did not play last season. That is the entire group of holdovers. Together they scored 262 points last season.
Craft added 12 players. Eight of them have already played college basketball.
Malachi Brown is the most proven scorer. The 6-foot-1 senior from Buford, Georgia, averaged 12.9 points at Georgia State last season. In two years there he made 96 threes and had 193 assists. He scored 26 against Coastal Carolina and made seven threes at South Alabama. He started his career at Seton Hall and was part of its 2024 NIT title team.
Isaiah Manning is the biggest talent. The 6-foot-8 senior was a top-100 recruit who began his career at TCU. Last season at Sam Houston, he averaged 10.7 points and 3.9 rebounds in 16 games and made 86.8 percent of his free throws. Travelle Bryson, a 6-foot-5 junior from Anderson, South Carolina, averaged 8.5 points at Howard and scored in double figures 17 times. Howard won the MEAC tournament and a First Four game.
Jaeden Roberts, a 6-foot-3 sophomore, made 41.2 percent of his threes off the bench at Hofstra. He scored 20 at North Carolina A&T. Jaxon Prunty, a 6-foot-6 junior from Charlotte, played 32 games at the College of Charleston and averaged 3.8 points. Jake Baker, a 6-foot guard, spent last season at East Carolina. His father, Jim Baker, was an assistant at VMI. Cross Arias played four games at Emory & Henry.
Donovan Raymond is the only new big with Division I experience. The 6-foot-10 senior from Charlotte played 51 games over two years at Old Dominion, mostly in short minutes. The four freshmen are Jose Martins, a guard who played for Brazil's under-18 team; Jacob Zhu, a guard who played for China's under-19 team; Antonio McKoy, who scored more than 3,000 points at Harrells Christian Academy; and Fola Sodipo, a 6-foot-8 forward from Katy, Texas.
This roster is built on guards. Brown, Bryson, Roberts, Prunty, and Manning range from 6-foot-1 to 6-foot-8, and most of them can shoot. Brown is the likely point guard. He led Georgia State with 111 assists in 2024-25. That matters, because Dioumassi and Soumaoro ran the offense last season and both are gone.
Manning is the swing piece. At 6-foot-8 with guard skills, he can play on the wing or at the four. If he gets back to the player he was at Sam Houston, Western Carolina has a matchup problem that most of the league cannot answer.
The question is size. Last season the Catamounts led the SoCon at 38.9 rebounds a game. Fanta Kabba, Collins, and Johnson are gone, and Dada is the only proven rebounder left. Raymond and Smith have to give real minutes. If they cannot, Craft will play small and ask his guards to rebound.
The nonconference schedule is the most ambitious in the league. The Catamounts play exhibitions at Appalachian State on Oct. 20 and at home against USC Upstate on Oct. 26. The regular season opens at North Carolina on Nov. 2. Then Western Carolina plays at UNC Asheville on Nov. 7, hosts Lipscomb on Nov. 14, plays at Butler on Nov. 17, and plays at Wake Forest on Nov. 21. It plays at Charlotte on Nov. 29 and at Virginia on Dec. 13. The home games against Virginia University of Lynchburg, Montreat, Piedmont, and Southern Virginia are against teams outside Division I.
League play opens at home against The Citadel on Dec. 5. Western Carolina plays at Furman on Dec. 19 and at Wofford on Dec. 22, then hosts Chattanooga on Dec. 30 and VMI on Jan. 2. The long road trip comes next: at Mercer on Jan. 6, at ETSU on Jan. 9, and at UNCG on Jan. 13. Mercer comes to Cullowhee on Jan. 18.
Tennessee Tech hosts the Catamounts on Jan. 21 and visits on Feb. 3. Western Carolina plays at Chattanooga on Jan. 23. The ETSU rematch is Feb. 18 in Cullowhee. Furman, with Kell, visits on Feb. 13. The regular season ends at home against UNCG on Feb. 20, then at VMI on Feb. 27.
Eighth is a fair spot for a team that lost its top six scorers. It is also low for a team that was one possession from the title game. The coaches are voting on the roster, not on last March.
Craft did not schedule like a coach hiding a new roster. He scheduled like a coach who wants to know by Thanksgiving whether his guards can play. If Brown and Manning are the scorers they were at their last stops, and if Dada can hold up inside, 10-8 is a floor and the ETSU rematch is a chance to flip last March. If the new group is still learning each other in January, the losses at North Carolina and Virginia will set the tone, and the league record will look like last year's.
