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New 2025 Bradley Commit AJ Smith

Played on a well coached, winning team. His offensive rebounds of 2.7 per game would have led BU & placed 2nd in the MVC
His FT SHOOTING, 81% would have been 7th in the Valley

averaged 14ppg, 9rpg the year before, with 35 steals
 
Looks like a strong kid. Looking at his stats, not a very prolific 3 point shooter, but gives us nice size on the wing. ESPN shows that he was born in Edwardsville. First two years at Southern Indiana.
 
I just saw he was not rated as a prospect out of High School! Now he was rated 88 points, a 3 Star transfer portal rating! That's pretty decent as it appears, he's been getting better each year or was undervalued as a high school player with as it appears, his only offer from Southern Indiana.
 
A.J. Smith is a 6'6" wing, from Edwardsville, Illinois. He attended Metro East Lutheran HS. He averaged 22.1 points and 9.2 rebounds his senior year, and was named AP 2nd team All-State both his junior and senior seasons.
He initially committed to University of Southern Indiana, and played there for the first 2 seasons they were a Division I program. As a freshman (2022-23), he played very little off the bench and averaged only 1.7 ppg. As a sophomore in 2023-24, he started all 31 games for USI and averaged 13.7 ppg and 8.8 rpg,
A year ago, he transferred to James Madison University. He started all 32 games and averaged 7.3 ppg and a team-leading 6.3 rpg for a JMU team that went 20-12, and was the regular season champion of the Sun belt.
Bio- https://jmusports.com/sports/mens-basketball/roster/aj-smith/22010
Stats- https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/player/stats/_/id/5107626/aj-smith

He entered the transfer portal back in March when it opened - https://www.dnronline.com/sports/du...cle_28984e5a-24f1-5695-84ee-2e0e09ff3818.html

2024-25 highlight video- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCNrxHzYzp0
Interview- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnRaeKwsZH8

Interesting note- A.J. is the younger brother of Mark Smith, who was also a star basketball player from Edwardsville, who was Illinois Mr. Basketball in 2017. He played for Illinois, Missouri, and Kansas State in college, and has played professionally overseas for the last 3 years.
Mark Smith - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Smith_(basketball)​
 
yoda said:
Played on a well coached, winning team. His offensive rebounds of 2.7 per game would have led BU & placed 2nd in the MVC
His FT SHOOTING, 81% would have been 7th in the Valley
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Nice to have a guy coming from a good program. He best get used to winning some more! Like the way he plays with toughness, and for sure is athletic for his build. Looks like a nice bench player who will get minutes, and we NEED someone who can crash the boards - something that was missing last season in several games.
 
Kid looks like he knows how to finish at the rim! We can always use that! Release on his jump shot looks really slow, though, so may need to work on that.
 
This is one of the profiles we needed filled. I don’t pretend to know how good these guys are til I see them, but I like the profile. If he can play the Henry role and mostly play 4, with some 3 sprinkled in I like it. Good free throw shooter and rebounder (hopefully defender) with versatility and can occasionally knock down a three.

I would still like to see a starting caliber 5, and a 3 and D Hickman style starting caliber 2 guard added. We lost a lot of three point shooting this year, and I don’t like going in with Johnson, Burch (while he shot well is still not a volume shooter yet), and a freshman potentially being our starting guards. That would not be a great perimeter shooting team coming off one of our better ones. Plus we need a primary perimeter defender too.
 
BUfan14 said:
This is one of the profiles we needed filled. I don’t pretend to know how good these guys are til I see them, but I like the profile. If he can play the Henry role and mostly play 4, with some 3 sprinkled in I like it. Good free throw shooter and rebounder (hopefully defender) with versatility and can occasionally knock down a three.

I would still like to see a starting caliber 5, and a 3 and D Hickman style starting caliber 2 guard added. We lost a lot of three point shooting this year, and I don’t like going in with Johnson, Burch (while he shot well is still not a volume shooter yet), and a freshman potentially being our starting guards. That would not be a great perimeter shooting team coming off one of our better ones. Plus we need a primary perimeter defender too.
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I like AJ Smith...but I'm not sure how much we can play him at the 4..I mean he's only 6'6"...We need to get some size, and some more low post scoring, especially if we are not going to be the 3 point threat we were.
 
Dubl R 1 said:
I like AJ Smith...but I'm not sure how much we can play him at the 4..I mean he's only 6'6"...We need to get some size, and some more low post scoring, especially if we are not going to be the 3 point threat we were.
Click to expand...

I like this commitment, too. Sure, we need to fill more scholarships and get other types of players to fill the teams' shortcomings. But A.J. Smith gives Bradley a type of player they needed and really missed this past season. He is a strong rebounder, both on offense and defense. He averaged almost 3 offensive rebounds per game, more than any Bradley player has averaged in many years.
Hannah (5.8 rpg) and Davis (5.2 rpg) were Bradley's top 2 rebounders this past year, but they were not as strong inside, nor on the offensive boards like Jashon Henry, Rienk Mast, and Malevy Leons were the three previous seasons.
Bradley was outrebounded in the Offensive Rebounds category this past season, 378 to 305 overall and 202 to 168 in MVC games. For comparison, 2 years ago with Mast, Leons, and Henry, Bradley outrebounded opponents in Offensive Rebounds 341 to 282, and 195 to 166 in MVC games.
Coach Wardle has acknowledged that giving up too many offensive rebounds, and losing out on the defensive rebounds cost the team multiple games this year. Let's hope this is a step in the right direction reversing that problem.
The only down side is that Smith has played 3 full seasons and does not qualify for any of the NCAA waivers. So, he has only 1 season of eligibility left.
 
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