Excited to announce my commitment to Coach Chris Mullin and staff at St John’s University! ?⚪️ #RedStorm pic.twitter.com/ZV1VPqwx7X
— David Caraher (@CaraherDavid30) April 14, 2018
Former Houston Baptist forward David Caraher has verbally committed to join the St. John’s Red Storm.
The St. John’s Red Storm have been known to pick up some key players on the graduate transfer market over the last couple of years. They have now added one more player into the mix for 2019-20. Houston Baptist forward David Caraher has verbally committed to join the Red Storm, a move that was first reported by Evan Daniels of FOX Sports and 24/7 Sports.
Houston Baptist transfer David Caraher just verbally committed to St. John’s, he tells @247Sports. Averaged 16.2 PPG.
— Evan Daniels (@EvanDaniels) April 14, 2018
Caraher was making his official visit to St. John’s this weekend, so it appears that head coach Chris Mullin and the rest of the coaching staff did a good job convincing him to bring his talents to Queens.
Of course, he is ineligible to play next season due to the NCAA transfer rules.
Caraher played his college basketball last year in the Southland Conference and put up good numbers for a Huskies team that finished with a putrid 6-25 record. He averaged 16.2 points and 7.2 rebounds per game and scored 20 or more points in 10 games, including two 30-point performances (Dec. 9 against UTSA and Jan. 20 against McNeese State.
The 6-foot-6 Caraher shot 45.5 percent from the floor and 36.4 percent from beyond the arc a season ago. He has the ability to stretch the defense with his perimeter shooting and he can be a factor on the glass. His 208 rebounds this year would’ve been the second most on St. John’s in 2017-18 (Justin Simon had 234).
As we wrote last week, the forward from Chapel Hill, North Carolina is a good fit for St. John’s in the long term because he could fill the void left by Marvin Clark II after he finishes his college basketball career next season. Plus, they continue to add their depth in the frontcourt for the future, which is very important.
After the week got off to a rough start for St. John’s due to Tariq Owens leaving for Texas Tech, the week has ended on a better note. The Caraher news comes just one day after Don Bosco forward Marcellus Earlington signed his National Letter of Intent to play for the Red Storm in 2018-19.
While St. John’s will continue to try to add players for future seasons, they are still looking to add another player into the mix for next year to help fill the void left by Owens in their frontcourt.
For now, landing Caraher is big news for St. John’s for two reasons. First, they were able to beat out more nationally prominent programs such as Oklahoma State and Nevada for his services. More importantly, they can get him into their system for a year before he sees game action.
We saw how it helped Clark II and Simon turn into impact players this past season. Maybe Caraher can have that kind of impact in ’19-’20.
