America East Basketball: Binghamton Adds Four to this Year's Team

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With Labor Day now just a couple of weeks away, colleges are starting to get ready for the fall semester, which also means that college basketball is right around the corner. We have taken a look at how some of the teams in America East have been putting their rosters together for the upcoming year. This week we look in on the Binghamton Bearcats who added four new players for the season ahead. Three by way of transfer and one recruit.

The transfers brought in by head coach Levell Sanders are Tariq Balogun and Matt Soloman. Balogun is a 6-10 forward who spent the last three seasons at Eastern Kentucky where he played in 74 games. Last season, Balogun averaged four points and two rebounds. He led the team with 30 blocked shots. He shot 58% from the field and finished in double-digits four times. The best game from a season ago came on Jan.18 when he went for 16 points against Lipscomb. He ended his career at Eastern Kentucky as a 62% shooter. Sanders is looking for Balogun to be a rim protector on defense and a low-post option on offense while providing depth to a frontcourt that sure could use the help.

Matt Soloman played junior college ball at Allan Hancock in the California Community College Athletic Association. Before that, he did spend some time at Cal-State Northridge. At Hancock, Matt averaged 16 points a game shooting 45% from the field. He showed an ability to knock down threes as he hit 71 of them last year. Soloman was a first-team All-Conference selection. The Bearcats did lose some outside shooting from a year ago so Coach Sanders is hoping that Soloman can fill some of that void.

The one recruit coming on board in the fall is 6-1 guard Masud Stewart from Neumann Goretti Catholic in Philadelphia. He helped them to win their ninth state championship by averaging 11.5 points, and 2.2 assists for a team that went 22-4. Stewart was a second-team All-Catholic pick as well as a good student in the classroom. He was a member of the National Honor Society and racked up multiple academic recipients. The coach thinks that Masud is ready to play Division 1 ball right now based on the high school program he came from. He has the tools to play both guard positions.

The third transfer is Armon Harried who played two seasons at Canisius College where he scored 663 points in those two seasons. Last year for the Griffs, he averaged 11.2 points and 4.5 rebounds while starting all 32 games for Canisius. He averaged 30 minutes a game and went for 20+ points in three separate games. He pulled down a career-high 14 boards vs Quinnipiac. He will come to Binghamton with two years left of eligibility.

The Bearcats were 12-17 overall and 8-10 in America East play losing in the semi-finals of the conference tournament to Vermont. The hope is that these additions to the program will help Binghamton advance further this upcoming year.