Anthony Mazzeo hardly had to relocate to transfer from Baldwin Wallace to Case Western Reserve. Case Western Reserve athletics photo by Tim Phillis

By Ryan Scott
D3hoops.com

The UAA is a tough basketball conference for both men and women. Case Western Reserve and NYU are the defending champs, respectively, but both teams come into 2023-24 with a bit of a chip on their shoulder.

The Spartans lost in the second round to men’s Final Four team UW-Whitewater and the Violets fell to the eventual national champions at Transylvania in the Elite Eight. Most teams would be quite happy with those accomplishments, but both CWRU and NYU were set up to do more and have worked hard to improve their squads this season.

Both programs brought in an incredible number of high level transfers to add to the talent already on the bench. The extra year of COVID eligibility has supercharged the process, but relaxed NCAA transfer rules and the money trickling down from the big D-I programs will certainly change the landscape — at this point in time, at least, no two programs will be more front and center in the transfer conversation than Case Western Reserve and NYU.

They do have differing philosophies on how this might work going forward. CWRU coach Todd McGuiness was touting his school’s grad programs to players with remaining eligibility before any of us had heard of COVID.

Mitch Prendergast, a 2022-23 All American, played two years for McGuiness because of COVID, but he likely would’ve come for his final year of eligibility regardless. CWRU had the grad program he wanted, and a competitive team he could join.

“Across our campus, a lot of our teams have D-I grad transfers. We have great programs — you can get a one-year Masters of Finance. It’s a luxury. Lots of players want the benefit of having Case Western Reserve on their degree.”

NYU’s Meg Barber has a slightly different perspective. “After COVID, I’m not sure there will be enough players out there to focus on transfers as a way to build your program.

“That being said, if they are interested, I’m not going to tell them we don’t take transfers.”

That’s certainly an understatement for this season. NYU returns All-American forward Natalie Bruns and All-Region guard Belle Pellechia, but still had to replace two starters, including senior captain, Jenny Walker.

No problem. Barber welcomes All-American Megan Bauman from Babson to fill the guard spot and Smith’s Morgan Morrison, the National Player of the Year, to spell Walker in the post. NYU also landed Laya Hartman, who played in 57 games at Division I Northwestern, including 14 starts.

“I have to give all the credit to our graduate engineering department,” says Barber, who may be underselling her role in the process. “I saw her name in the portal and what she was majoring in. NYU has a whole campus dedicated to engineering, right in the heart of Brooklyn, where a lot of leading companies are based. It’s a great, great program.”

Anyone who’s spent time around college basketball knows recruiting is very much about contacts. It’s unusual for a school to land a player, especially a transfer, just calling out of the blue. CWRU and NYU are no exception. Most of the impact transfers this season were already connected to the program.

“Richie Manigault from Washington and Lee, we were in on him out of high school,” explains McGuiness. “We were his second choice, so when he was looking for a grad program and a team to join, it was a natural fit — we didn’t even need to recruit him. Colin Kahl out of Sewanee, we recruited his brother, who committed to a Division II school, but we built a relationship with the family and when Colin was looking for a grad year, they reached out.”

Morgan Morrison, who led her Smith team on a deep postseason run, is plying her trade for NYU these days. NYU athletics photo

Preston Maccoux, a Second Team All-NESCAC player from Wesleyan reached out through a mutual friend — McGuiness’s college roommate, who works with Maccoux’s father. The only player they really sought out was a local one — Anthony Mazzeo from Baldwin Wallace, just down the road.

“We thought we needed a point guard,” adds McGuiness. “We played them two years ago and he lit us up. He’s an underrated transfer, people don’t know him nationally, but when I’ve had a strong point guard in my career, both here and at Hartwick, we’ve been in the (NCAA) tournament.”

The danger, obviously, of bringing in a lot of transfers, is that it can easily disrupt team chemistry. Players who may be counting on minutes will have to fight harder for them. There can be resentment over who’s put in the time or work.

Neither coach gave much credence to those issues. Winning teams have good communication and a commitment to winning and it’s not as though coaches are bringing transfers in sight unseen, a lot goes into making sure each player is a good fit for the program.

After all, these are highly successful, highly competitive teams. NYU seemed like a juggernaut last season until they were bullied off the ball and off the boards by the real juggernaut in Transylvania.

“With the injury to Jordan Janowski, Belle was taking over ball handling responsibility last season, which isn’t really her position,” notes Barber. “We thought a lot of teams were going to zone us, but we didn’t see a lot of it until that last game. They really caught us in one of our weaknesses.”

Janowski is back, too, by the way, along with most of NYU’s bench, making for one of the deepest, most talented teams in the country — and just in time to inaugurate the brand new Paulson Center, NYU basketball’s new home after more than five years without a gym.

Perhaps it’s a bit too cliche to say the team without a home is welcoming so many players in need of one, but one of the driving factors of Division III basketball is about finding the right fit - the school that can meet the athletic, academic, and social needs of each student.

There are a lot of roundabout ways Division III players find themselves in the jersey they wear onto the court - and none of them is the wrong way. In 2023-24, we’ll see two experiments in incorporating transfers onto deep, talented lineups. It’s still early, so we don’t know how these experiments will go, but we will sure enjoy watching them.