Vance Walberg, the man who pioneered John Calipari’s Dribble Drive Motion offense, has been begging the Tigers to recruit some pure shooters over the last couple years. It is, quite simply, a necessary dimension to run his offense the way it’s supposed to be run. Calipari’s philosophy, however, has generally been to recruit athleticism and toughness and let the shooting take care of itself. As a result, Memphis has been an average outside shooting team the last couple years while overwhelmingly good in other areas.

Darnell Dodson, a 6-7 wing from Miami-Dade Junior College who committed to the Tigers today, is the kind of player who should make Walberg happy. He’s long-armed and athletic, but from all accounts, he can really, really shoot. I talked today with someone who has seen him play and compared him to Wesley Person. This is a situation that kind of fell into Memphis’ lap. While recruiting Will Coleman, the big man from Miami-Dade who committed earlier this summer, the Tigers’ staff saw Dodson put on a shooting exhibition. At the time, he was seemingly headed back to Pittsburgh, where he initially committed before going to junior college. But because of a rule technicality, he learned recently he couldn’t re-enroll at Pitt. Thus, Memphis was sitting in perfect position to get in first on Dodson and get him to commit before other schools could get involved.

So, for now, the Tigers’ recruiting class is
- SG Nolan Dennis
- SF Darnell Dodson
- PF/C Will Coleman

The Tigers will possibly look to bring in three more players. In other words, this doesn’t preclude Memphis from signing any of the other guys they’re looking at. Now, at first glance, the numbers may not seem to add up. Next year, they’ll lose Antonio Anderson and Robert Dozier for sure. They’re also likely to lose Tyreke Evans. They’ve also got an open scholarship right now.

So that’s four open scholarships for sure. And, of course, there’s always the possibility that someone else could have a big year and turn pro early, that someone could transfer, that someone could encounter academic trouble, etc. In other words, Calipari has never been afraid of over-signing.