MAAC Transfer Scouting, Part 5: Rider
There are 34 incoming transfers between the eleven MAAC teams as of right now, with more on the horizon. There are a lot of new faces in the MAAC, and that’s hard for fans. However, with the help of some analytics, film breakdowns, and clippings, we’re here to help you get to know every single entering transfer for the league, team-by-team.
Rider is one of eight MAAC teams with a full 13 scholarship players as of right now, bringing in three transfers, Wake Forest’s Tariq Ingraham, Rhode Island’s Allen Betrand, and JUCO Transfer Adetokunbo Bakare. Let’s get to know these players and why the Broncs targeted them.
Tariq Ingraham
Tariq Ingraham has size, it’s the first thing that you’ll notice when you watch him play. Wake Forest listed him at 6'9, 255 pounds, and he’s every bit of that. Ingraham was a three star recruit coming out of Mongsignor Bonner High School right outside of Philadelphia in 2019.
In High School, he made All-State averaging 15 points and 10 rebounds per game, and led his team to the 4A State Championship Game.
Committed to Wake Forest to play for Danny Manning, Ingraham tore his Achilles in a preseason practice, and missed his entire freshman season. The new coach, Steve Forbes, didn’t see Ingraham as a major part of the team’s plans going forward, and as a result, he has only appeared in three games over the last two seasons.
Because of the lack of playing time that Ingraham had, doing an analytical evaluation would show a lack of statistical integrity on my part, it’s not like baseball, where you can just look at his fastball velocity, spin, movement, and release points. It’s also hard to do a great film evaluation, but from watching his standout game against Delaware State in 2020, it’s clear to see what he brings.
It was the only game where Ingraham played significant minutes in college, and he showed out, scoring 19 points on 7–7 shooting, with 5 rebounds as well.
On this play, Ingraham finds paint positioning and uses his body to get to his right-hand hook shot off of just one dribble. At 255 pounds, his power will certainly translate to the MAAC where he will be among the strongest players on the court.
Here, it’s more of the same, but this time, Ingraham takes the pass from right outside the paint, and backs his defender down before going for the right hand hook once again, this time sinking it with a foul as well. In this game, Ingraham was excellent at the foul line, sinking 5 of 5 attempts, but we have no way of knowing whether that sample is representative of his true talent.
Ingraham continues to show off his raw power in this game, fighting through contact for this offensive rebound and soft touch on the finish.
Pretty much all of his points in this game came either at the foul line or very very close to the rim, and that’s not an issue at all. He did come out to set some screens in the mid range area, but he didn’t ever space the floor, which is totally fine, Rider won’t be asking him to shoot the three.
Ingraham is the High School teammate of Rider’s current big man, Ajiri Ogemuno-Johnson, so presumably, they know how to space the floor together, but I still doubt we see both of them on the court at the same time a significant amount given that neither is a floor spacer.
Overall, Ingraham should be a solid contributor for Rider in the MAAC.
Allen Betrand
Allen Betrand has had an excellent college career to this point. The 6'5, 200 pound guard started his career at Towson, and scored 500 points there over two years, including making All-CAA in 2019–20. In that season, Betrand averaged 13.6 PPG, and that number was 15.8 in CAA play. After that, Betrand transferred to play for David Cox at Rhode Island, and averaged just 4.7 PPG in his only season there.
In the 2021 Atlantic 10 Tournament against Dayton, Betrand tore his ACL, MCL, and LCL, and he missed the entire 2021–22 season. I have no sources as to how well Betrand has recovered, and I have no idea if he’s going to be the same player, but we can only evaluate what we know, so let’s take a look at what he brings.
Betrand was a good three point shooter at Towson, shooting nearly 40% from behind the arc on over 100 attempts in his sophomore season. He was in the 86th percentile in Catch and Shoot Shot Quality PPP, and doing well both open and guarded off the catch.
Allen Betrand also finished in the 61st percentile in finishing at the rim in 2019–20 per Shot Quality. He also finished in the 87th percentile of shot creation frequency, he was doing a lot of self-creation. Adding onto that, he’s an excellent free throw shooter, shooting 84% from the line in his career.
At URI, Betrand was relegated to a role where he wasn’t expected to create his own shot, and he really struggled as a shooter. Not just that, but the team was not very cohesive, which definitely played a part in the underperforming of Betrand and others. He shot under 30% from 3, but he did finish in the 60th percentile of blocks, which shows that he provides some defensive value, but there’s more that doesn’t show up on the stat sheet.
If I’m a Rider fan, I’m hoping that Betrand’s athleticism is still there after the injury, because this is an absurd block. He goes straight up and cleanly swats the ball as it leaves Jalen Crutcher’s hands. The injury, which happened later in this game, may make plays like this a thing of the past, but we can’t rule this out.
Betrand is a good defensive guard, he’s very good at using his frame and length (which is great for guards), to mirror offensive players and contest shots.
Offensively, the spacing and ball movement was really bad, so it’s hard to exactly gauge the offense, but Betrand is able to sky up and hit mid-range shots like this.
Rhode Island did a ton of isolation, and a lot of it was predicated on Fatts Russell, who was at Maryland last year, and it didn’t exactly work out as David Cox and company hoped. Because of the poor ball movement, spacing, and overall cohesion, Rhody was outside the top 200 in eFG% and Turnover% offensively.
Despite the situation, Betrand still showed some of his talent, and had a few really strong games against good teams, his best coming in a road win over Bones Hyland and VCU.
In his best season at Towson, Betrand showed an impressively rounded scoring game. Using his big guard frame, he’s able to push around smaller guards, like here attacking the rim from just inside the arc.
Given that Rider has the undersized guard duo of Dwight Murray and Allen Powell, it’s unlikely that Betrand sees as many minutes at the 2 as he did at Towson, but he showed he was capable of playing the 3 as well.
Here is an example of Betrand running the fast break, and he can finish it off really well.
What Betrand gives to Rider, if he’s fully healthy and the same player, is a guy who is very capable of an All-MAAC type of season. He has good traits offensively and defensively, and while he’s not the best of passers or rebounders, he can be an excellent piece for the Broncs with his scoring and defense.
Hopefully, we’ll have information on how he’s recovered from his injury when I write the MAAC Season Preview in October.
Adetokunbo Bakare
Adetokunbo Bakare is a JUCO Transfer from Indian Hills Community College in Iowa. Bakare is from Newark, NJ, and spent time at NJIT in 2020–21. Bakare is a 6'3, 185 pound guard who didn’t play a significant amount at either of his college stops.
Bakare played 70 minutes for NJIT and scored 21 points with 11 rebounds over the course of 11 games in 20–21. He really struggled as a shooter at that time, shooting just 4–18 from 3 and shooting under 30% from the field.
His stop at Indian Hills was pretty disappointing on the stat sheet compared to some other JUCO transfers in the MAAC. Bakare started just 2 games, played just 12 minutes per game, scored 4.5 PPG, and shot just 34.4% from the field.
Bakare’s role for Rider will probably not be very significant this year, considering that he didn’t play a ton at JUCO, but he did play enough to impress Kevin Baggett to the point where he’s now on his roster.
While he hasn’t shot particularly well in either of his college seasons, I do think that Bakare does have the capability to knock down shots. His stroke is solid and he’s got a really nice frame to him even at just 6'3.
He didn’t play a ton on the ball, but this is really solid vision, seeking out the guy running the fast break and dropping a nice pass in there after getting an athletic steal near the rim.
This is just a really fun offensive concept from Indian Hills with the screening actions. Bakare sets a screen for the man in the corner on the baseline, but he flares up, gets the ball near the elbow, and splits the defenders for a nice finish in the paint.
Overall, I do not expect Bakare to play a significant role for Rider, but having more depth is good for every team.
The Broncs have expectations, they’re likely to be picked 2nd in the MAAC Preseason Poll, and that’s thanks in no small part to their offseason pickups.
