[Sly Fox]

Zander Carter
6' 5" 185 lbs Combo Guard
Ashland (KY) Blazer HS


ASOR Story on Visit & Offer

Verbal Commits

PrepHoops

Hudl

Twitter

Holds Offers from (As of 6/17/23):

Eastern Kentucky
Liberty
Tennessee Tech

[Sly Fox]

He verbally committed today.

[phoenix]

He played with Porter up here a couple years ago. He'll be a good one.

[Sly Fox]

He played middle school at Greenup befroe transferring. His older brother Zane might have been in one of your classes.

[Geraldos Mustache]

Nice!
A 6'-5" guard helps our height quite a lot!

[Ill flame]

This is why I say I'm not worried about the size issue when people bring it up. Our recruits since we announced our move to CUSA have been notably longer. This could be our rotation in a few years based on future commits and current freshmen that are redshirting. You won't find many teams in the country that have more length than that.

Bret Decker- 6' 2" PG
Zander Carter- 6' 6" G
Curtis Blair- 6' 6" G
Torr Sorenson- 6' 7" F
Kai Yu- 7' 0" F

Jaylen Davis- 6' 5" G
Will Gibson- 6' 6" F
Andrew Grimes- 6' 8" F

[ECC29]

Hopefully, those players with height has athleticism and quickness because LU has starting players that lack jumping ability and quickness. Rodes has been ineffective the last few games. He has not been that consistent throughout his career. He had some good moments but he cannot carry the team.

[paradox]

Right now, you have three core guys in the earliest stage of a three year run. This looks to evolve into a finely tuned playmaking machine. The future builds around that.

[ECC29]

If you are thinking about the 3 core guys that I’m thinking, they are still undersized. They play below the rim. LU needs players that play above the rim at this level. This is the biggest reason for their losses this year so far.

[paradox]

What’s the point in trying to invalidate these guys when they’re 10-3, and have only lost to really good teams?

[ECC29]

They are good players. But it just business. You can be undefeated against other schools, but playing and winning against P5 or ranked teams is the goal other than winning the conference. It is already shown this year that LU’s sizes are their disadvantage against top programs. If LU is to raise its program, they need players that can compete against those schools.

[Purple Haize]

What’s the point in trying to invalidate these guys when they’re 10-3, and have only lost to really good teams?

FAU beat Arizona. There’s really only one head scratching loss out of 3 from this team. They had opportunities to win against GCU but failed to capitalize. The game against Alabama coming up will be a good measuring stick. I’d love to have a taller back court but they are doing fine as they are. I wish they had someone more versatile or at least dependable than KR, but they are doing pretty well as is. HCRMK recruits System guys and that’s extremely evident this year Looking into the future it *appears* that players that are taller and versatile are on their way. This year was absolutely supposed to be a rebuilding year, and based on that I’d say they are exceeding expectations

[Baybird]

Not only do we recruit system guys, but there is a certain fit for LU's mission as well as MBB culture. This is somewhat similar to West Point and Annapolis. The mission and culture supersedes the individual athlete. Despite, even my memes of LU guards, I'm pretty sure, HCRMK is not focusing on excluding guys that can play above the rim. It's a process that has given us competitive teams in each step "up."

[ECC29]

What’s the point in trying to invalidate these guys when they’re 10-3, and have only lost to really good teams?

FAU beat Arizona. There’s really only one head scratching loss out of 3 from this team. They had opportunities to win against GCU but failed to capitalize. The game against Alabama coming up will be a good measuring stick. I’d love to have a taller back court but they are doing fine as they are. I wish they had someone more versatile or at least dependable than KR, but they are doing pretty well as is. HCRMK recruits System guys and that’s extremely evident this year Looking into the future it *appears* that players that are taller and versatile are on their way. This year was absolutely supposed to be a rebuilding year, and based on that I’d say they are exceeding expectations

I do not agree this year is a building year. They have 4 out of 5 starters back. Two players are in their 5th year called the “Super Senior”. The bench players are returners. They are supposed to be experience players but unfortunately, they are undersized against better competition.

[Ill flame]

We've been in low major conferences until this point with talent to match. The lack of length and athleticism is an issue against quad 1 caliber teams but the increase in talent to match our newfound mid major status is on the way. No matter how much resources we have it's tough to recruit enough talent be a top 50 program when most of your games are quad 4.

I'm not sure if this being a rebuilding year is the right phrase but I think we all expected to have a worse record than normal after losing the best player in program history and playing a significantly tougher schedule than previous years. So far that doesnt seem to be the case. We are on pace for 20+ wins again and are 49th in NET which is the second best in program history behind last year's 44th ranking. The previous high was 58 in the 2018-2019 season.

So far I'm pretty content with how this season is going considering the big step up in competition. On the surface it looks like we might be entering a new era where hanging out in the top 50 becomes the new norm rather than the 50-100 range.

[paradox]

The undersized starting 5 is actually quite good. Conversely, the other guys in the rotation are limited, and have been overmatched against certain defenses.

[Purple Haize]

What’s the point in trying to invalidate these guys when they’re 10-3, and have only lost to really good teams?

FAU beat Arizona. There’s really only one head scratching loss out of 3 from this team. They had opportunities to win against GCU but failed to capitalize. The game against Alabama coming up will be a good measuring stick. I’d love to have a taller back court but they are doing fine as they are. I wish they had someone more versatile or at least dependable than KR, but they are doing pretty well as is. HCRMK recruits System guys and that’s extremely evident this year Looking into the future it *appears* that players that are taller and versatile are on their way. This year was absolutely supposed to be a rebuilding year, and based on that I’d say they are exceeding expectations

I do not agree this year is a building year. They have 4 out of 5 starters back. Two players are in their 5th year called the “Super Senior”. The bench players are returners. They are supposed to be experience players but unfortunately, they are undersized against better competition.

Losing Darius was a big hit. His last 2 years were special. This team is completely different than the last 2 years with different players playing different roles. It’s not a full rebuild but it’s substantial

[flameshaw]

Darius was the second-best all time. But being number 2 is still very special.
We have a great coach, system,etc. But we do need more height and athleticism to be competitive. My guess is that it will come. Not as fast as we want, but we will get there. Our football success will hopefully assist us some along the way too.

[paradox]

FAU beat Arizona. There’s really only one head scratching loss out of 3 from this team. They had opportunities to win against GCU but failed to capitalize. The game against Alabama coming up will be a good measuring stick. I’d love to have a taller back court but they are doing fine as they are. I wish they had someone more versatile or at least dependable than KR, but they are doing pretty well as is. HCRMK recruits System guys and that’s extremely evident this year Looking into the future it *appears* that players that are taller and versatile are on their way. This year was absolutely supposed to be a rebuilding year, and based on that I’d say they are exceeding expectations

I do not agree this year is a building year. They have 4 out of 5 starters back. Two players are in their 5th year called the “Super Senior”. The bench players are returners. They are supposed to be experience players but unfortunately, they are undersized against better competition.

Losing Darius was a big hit. His last 2 years were special. This team is completely different than the last 2 years with different players playing different roles. It’s not a full rebuild but it’s substantial

Darius was the 1st, 2nd, and sometimes even 3rd option for most of that 2 year time span. It's substantial.

[Humble_Opinion]

I think some people are forgetting… the only LU sport that went to a true D-1A level was football. Do we have great resources/facilities? Absolutely. But players that being recruited by lower resourced teams that are in a better conference than other more exposure are going to choose to go there. This is our first year at this level. HCRM brought in some decent portal talent but I think his priority always is the culture fit above all else. So going from ASUN —> CUSA in terms of player size/skill/athleticism to match other quad 1/2 teams is going to take 2 yrs.

This team is still good. They just need to go back to shooting the ball with confidence again. We kind of live/die by the 3.

[Sly Fox]

[olldflame]

I would love to see Zander reclassify to 24. He's ready from a basketball standpoint and he's a straight A student. Only question is whether he has enough of the required core courses to finish up this Spring/Summer. Of course it's also very possible he has big plans for his Senior year in HS and is not even considering it.

[Sly Fox]

Coach McKay has demonstrated in recent years that he is open to that conversation.

[olldflame]

Coach McKay has demonstrated in recent years that he is open to that conversation.

True.
Of the 2 recent instances, one has worked out wonderfully and the other was a disaster. It's not lost on me that the successful reclassification (Colin Porter) arrived at Liberty well prepared for D1 basketball by the outstanding coaching he got at Ashland Blazer HS, and of course Zander is coming from the same school, same coaches.

[Sly Fox]

And don't forget that he was at Greenup County before he transferred. Can I get a witness, Phoenix?