4-24
Transactions
Dilione PG Tennessee to Penn State
Scott F North Texas to St. John’s
Abson PF Appalachian State to Georgia
93 Kyle PF South Dakota State to UCLA
Greer CG St. Joseph’s to Temple
59 Townsend SF Oakland to Arizona
38 Pope SG Oregon State to Texas
126 Leffew SG Mount St. Mary’s to Syracuse
Middleton SF Ohio State to Seton Hall
Ewin C JUCO to Florida State
Pedulla PG Virginia Tech to Mississippi
Young Temple to Virginia Tech
4-23
Transactions
Elvin SG Dayton to Oklahoma
49 Payne C Minnesota to Texas A&M
132 James SF Louisville to NC State
58 Fidler SF Nebraska-Omaha to Michigan State
Manon SF Cornell to Vanderbilt
Hutchins PF Seton Hall to James Madison
Iwuchukwu C USC to St. John’s
Jefferson St. Mary’s to Iowa State
Moore SF Missouri State to St. Bonaventure
87 Billew Iowa State to Wake Forest
To Portal:
Melendez SF UGA
Brown PG Seton Hall
Onyenso C Kentucky
Murray SG Mississippi
Nunez PG Mississippi
Wague C Alabama
Meah C Washington
Brown G Missouri
Gardner PF USC
Walton SF Memphis
UGA
UGA Lineup
Demary, Jr SO 9.9 3.8 2.5
Cain SO 7.1 2.4 0.7
Montgomery SO 13.2 3.5 2.0
James SO 4.3 2.6 0.5
Newell FR
Abson PF JR 7.9 7.1
Anselem-Ibe GR 2.6 2.1 0.3
Out
Abdur-Rahim - Providence
DeLoach - Loyola (Chicago)
Hill
Jordan
Melendez
Moncrieffe
4-23 Updates:
Commit 🔔 🐶 🏀 !!!
Mount Saint Mary’s transfer and MAAC Rookie of The Year De'Shayne Montgomery has committed to Georgia.
The 6’4” guard appeared in 32 games, averaging 13.2 points, 3.5 rebounds, 2.0 assists, and 1.7 steals. Montgomery shot 58% from 2, and 41% from 3 (28/68).
Dasher UGA Sports: Bulldogs add De'Shayne Montgomery
https://uga.rivals.com/news/bulldogs-add-de-shayne-montgomery
Dasher UGA Sports: Behind the Scenes: Why De'Shayne Montgomery transferred to Georgia
“I just really like the school. I saw whole different types of people. It’s very diverse, and that really stood out to me,” Montgomery said. “It’s like a family type of environment. Even though there are so many people and staff, it feels like one big family. I feel like they have my back.”
Inside, UGASports caught up with new Bulldog De'Shayne Montgomery to take about his decision to come to Georgia.
uga.rivals.com
Sean Paul CBS: The Bulldogs make a good add. Athletic guard with scoring ability from all three levels. Georgia has a trio of sophomore guards who could have big seasons — DeShayne Montgomery, Blue Cain and Silas Demary.
Fredericksburg News: De’Shayne Montgomery is a star for Mount St. Mary’s
After a year at Hargrave Military Academy, the true freshman is breaking out in the MAAC.
“When Tommy Messinger first saw him, he knew he had to have him. The 6-foot-4-inch wing playing for SOH Elite at an Under Armour event in Atlanta made an immediate impression on the then-Hargrave Military Academy Head Coach.
“He banged a 3, dunked on somebody, then blocked three consecutive shots, and I was like ‘Who the heck is this kid,’” Messinger said. “It wasn’t in the book.”
After the game, he did some digging, and he learned that the player was De’Shayne Montgomery.
A little over a year later, the unheralded Floridian is now starring as a true freshman for Dan Engelstad at Mount St. Mary’s. In an 80-48 win over Siena, Montgomery scored 27 points, the most by a Mountaineers freshman since Shivaughn Wiggins scored 28 against FDU on March 2, 2013.
“He had a pop to his game,” Engelstad, who was also at that event in Atlanta, said, “We don’t have anybody that can do some of the things he can do. You saw him play with spirit, and he had this way of competing.”
Montgomery’s talent rarely goes unnoticed, but playing AAU ball off the circuit and high school ball for a school that didn’t do a good job of recording games did not do him any favors. In fact, that tournament in Atlanta was Montgomery’s first with SOH Elite, and it came after his high school graduation.
His high school career with Somerset Prep in Fort Lauderdale was very successful, as he scored 19 points per game in his senior year to go along with six rebounds, five assists, three steals, and two blocks, but there wasn’t much interest. That all changed when he first suited up for SOH Elite in July of 2022.
Montgomery, who grew up playing soccer thanks to the German influence of his mother, didn’t take to basketball until ninth grade. He credits a neighbor as the one who introduced him to the game.
“I met this one kid who moved on my street and I started playing basketball with him outside, and ever since then, I fell in love with basketball,” he said.
After attending a summer camp run by Ralph Mata, the head of the SOH Elite program, Montgomery went back to his stomping grounds to hone his craft. By his junior year of high school, he was back on Mata’s radar thanks to a mutual friend.
In his senior year — still with no offers — Montgomery’s Somerset Prep team defeated Mata’s Miami Country Day in the regional tournament, prompting an invite to join the SOH Elite program in the summer. From there, the offers started rolling in as coaches took notice.
“His first week playing with us, he had three offers,” Mata said. “He was just never in front of the right people.”
Among the “right people” was Engelstad, who was floored by Montgomery’s talent.
“He’s got a natural feel, but he does some things that you just can’t coach.” he said. “His ability to get into passing lanes, make plays in transition, and finish at the rim is unique.”
“We tried hard to get him to the Mount [for the 22-23 season],” Engelstad added, but the Montgomery family believed that a post-graduate year would best serve De’Shayne.
“My dad told me how I need to develop my game some more since I started so late,” Montgomery said. “I don’t have to ‘waste’ a year of college eligibility.”
Even with the heavy courtship of Messinger, Montgomery had his reservations about starting at Hargrave.
“I didn’t know anything about the school at all,” he said. “At first, I didn’t want to go because it was a military school.”
“There’s a lot of uncertainty when you first get to Hargrave,” Messenger said. “About finding your way personally, navigating the military structure, and being around more talented players”
However, the same pitch that has been used for years by Hargrave coaches such as Kevin Keatts and A.W. Hamilton, that the school allows for players to develop with limited distraction, ended up bringing Montgomery to campus.
Montgomery believes that taking a post-grad year helped him develop in a way that a year in college wouldn’t, and will benefit him in the long run as he pursues his dream of playing basketball professionally. Thanks to individual workout sessions with Hargrave assistant Kasey Bryant, Montgomery improved his ball handling and shooting.
Bryant ran Montgomery through drills such as dribbling through cones, catch and shoots, shooting off screens and handoffs, and much more.
“At Hargrave, they focus on you individually,” Montgomery said, “It helps you get better at what you need to do so you can take that extra step before college.”
“[Montgomery and I] would always go in and work out,” Montgomery’s Hargrave teammate Kailon Nicholls, now at Duquesne, said. “The coaches were always willing to sacrifice their time to work on whatever we needed to work on.”
Nicholls was Montgomery’s workout partner, and throughout the year, he observed plenty of growth in his game thanks to his ability to soak in information.
“He’s not the type to kind of brush off what you tell him,” Nicholls said. “He was always willing to learn.”
Montgomery continued to make positive impressions on his coaches. Engelstad stayed in contact with him, but at this point, he was far from the only coach interested.
“He had a lot of high-major interest early on,” Messinger said. “And a lot of [smaller] schools that came to watch us play didn’t want to waste their time on him when they heard who was interested.”
However, the high-major interest began to fizzle out as the year went on. With many programs using the transfer portal instead of the prep ranks, Montgomery was never officially offered by any of the high-major programs.
This was excellent news for Engelstad, who had become even more enamored with bringing Montgomery to the program after seeing him succeed at Hargrave.
“If you go to Hargrave, you love basketball,” Engelstad said, “It’s in the middle of nowhere, it’s the limit of distraction, and it’s a factory. Guys get better and they’re pushed to get mentally stronger.”
While Mount St. Mary’s was never out of the picture, it became an increasingly larger part of the picture when the high-major interest went away.
“I worked hard to get him on an official visit,” Engelstad said. “We have something really great to offer at Mount St. Mary’s, and we want to roll our sleeves up and fight against anybody.”
Montgomery didn’t commit on his official visit to the Mount, but Engelstad still felt confident, and he was rewarded soon after. From the airport of another official visit, Montgomery called Engelstad and told him the good news.
“I thought there was no other coach that wanted to coach De’Shayne as much as I did,” Engelstad said of his pursuit.
So far, it has paid massive dividends.
Through his first 12 college games, Montgomery is averaging 13.5 points and 3.7 rebounds per game, and that’s not even close to the most impressive part. Thanks to his soccer instincts and 6-foot-10 wingspan, he’s the only freshman in Division I basketball with a block rate of 4% or higher, and a steal rate of 5% or higher.
Hargrave has a rich tradition, sending many coaches, including Kevin Keatts and A.W. Hamilton, to the next level. Even Messinger has used his success at Hargrave to get a college coaching job, working on Grant Billmeier’s staff at NJIT. The program has sent 26 players to the NBA, and Montgomery is hoping to be the 27th.
His current coach absolutely thinks he can get there.
“He has a future in the highest level of basketball,” he said.”
https://www.midmajormadness.com/2023/12/26/23993808/deshayne-montgomery-is-a-star-for-mount-st-marys
SB Nation: A hoop got Mount's De'Shayne Montgomery hooked five years ago, and now he's a budding star
“During his freshman year of high school in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, De’Shayne Montgomery received a knock on his door that changed the rest of his life.
One of his best friends, Jaiden Miller, had just moved onto the street and had a basketball hoop in his driveway, and he was looking for people to come over and play.
Up until then, basketball had pretty much been a foreign subject for Montgomery, who is now a promising freshman guard at Mount St. Mary’s.
He grew up in south Florida playing and dreaming of a future in soccer. There is German blood on his mother’s side of the family. So, he visualized himself playing and scoring goals in that storied soccer country’s top league, Bundesliga.
But after a summer of playing basketball with Miller and other friends, Montgomery’s priorities started to change and his improbable journey to tiny Emmitsburg, Maryland, and Mount St. Mary’s began.
“Now I am trying to play basketball the rest of my life,” he said this week in a phone interview with the News-Post.
During his freshman and sophomore seasons at Piper High School, Montgomery said he barely got onto the court during games because he was “so terrible.”
But then he transferred to Somerset Prep at North Lauderdale. His game started to pick up when he was a junior and then took off during his senior season when he averaged 19 points, six rebounds, four assists and three steals.
By the time he hit the Under Armour showcase circuit the summer following his high school graduation, the tall, long and athletic Montgomery (6-foot-4, 190 pounds) had transformed from a complete novice to a Division I college prospect within the span of four years.
Mount St. Mary’s basketball coach Dan Engelstad liked him enough that he handed Montgomery his first full scholarship offer. Except Montgomery turned it down. He and his family were not sure he was ready for Division I basketball yet. They told Engelstad that De’Shayne needed more time to develop as a person and a player.
“Anytime you don’t get the commitment early, you have to look at everything that’s out there,” Engelstad said. “We recruited [De’Shayne]. We recruited a lot of other guys, too. We had to go out and do what was best for our roster.”
Did Montgomery feel like he was taking a risk by turning down the Mount?
“Yeah,” he said. “... But sometimes you have to roll the dice.”
Montgomery enrolled at Hargrave Military Academy in Chatham, Virginia. He got used to the cold winters and the strict lifestyle at the school. And he excelled on the basketball court, helping the Tigers finish 44-2.
Montgomery averaged 16 points, 6 rebounds, three assists and two steals for Hargrave and earned honorable mention All-American honors.
“It shaped me as a basketball player and a person,” Montgomery said of his one year at the military academy.
Bigger colleges began to express interest. But Engelstad never abandoned his pursuit.
“When it got later and we found out De’Shayne was still available and we had a chance at it, I was extremely encouraged, excited,” Engelstad said. “We tried to do everything we could to get him here because he is a special talent.”
Montgomery has yet to start a game for the Mountaineers. But he’s been a valuable contributor off the bench, playing roughly 25 minutes per game. He leads the team with 30 steals, is tied for the team lead with 11 blocks and is second on the team in scoring at 13.5 points per game.
“You get the ball in space with him, and it’s over,” Engelstad said of Montgomery’s attacking mindset. “He’s one of the best finishers in transition I have ever coached.”
Montgomery made his college debut on a big stage in College Park against Maryland. He provided a spark for the team in what became a 68-53 loss to the Terps, contributing eight points and two steals in 18 minutes off the bench.
He said he felt very nervous at first in a big arena against a Power Five conference opponent. But Montgomery gradually settled down as he and the team started to play better.
Eleven days later, he scored 17 points in 27 minutes at Capital One Arena in D.C. against Georgetown, and later scored a season-high 27 points in 25 minutes of a Dec. 3 home game against Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) rival Siena.
In the 10 games the Mountaineers (5-8) have played since the 83-72 loss at Georgetown, Montgomery has reached double figures in scoring in eight.
“I believe in De’Shayne’s talent,” Engelstad said. “I knew what he was capable of doing. I knew De’Shayne was going to have a really good year. ... I think the guy is just getting better and better.
“The more I got a chance to learn about him and his family, the more I liked. It was the most excited I’ve been when I got a commitment from a young man. It took a year and a half.”
https://www.fredericknewspost.com/s...cle_6773e020-4b7e-5b4a-b0b5-5d6442e9031b.html
Justin Abson
Transactions
Dilione PG Tennessee to Penn State
Scott F North Texas to St. John’s
Abson PF Appalachian State to Georgia
93 Kyle PF South Dakota State to UCLA
Greer CG St. Joseph’s to Temple
59 Townsend SF Oakland to Arizona
38 Pope SG Oregon State to Texas
126 Leffew SG Mount St. Mary’s to Syracuse
Middleton SF Ohio State to Seton Hall
Ewin C JUCO to Florida State
Pedulla PG Virginia Tech to Mississippi
Young Temple to Virginia Tech
4-23
Transactions
Elvin SG Dayton to Oklahoma
49 Payne C Minnesota to Texas A&M
132 James SF Louisville to NC State
58 Fidler SF Nebraska-Omaha to Michigan State
Manon SF Cornell to Vanderbilt
Hutchins PF Seton Hall to James Madison
Iwuchukwu C USC to St. John’s
Jefferson St. Mary’s to Iowa State
Moore SF Missouri State to St. Bonaventure
87 Billew Iowa State to Wake Forest
To Portal:
Melendez SF UGA
Brown PG Seton Hall
Onyenso C Kentucky
Murray SG Mississippi
Nunez PG Mississippi
Wague C Alabama
Meah C Washington
Brown G Missouri
Gardner PF USC
Walton SF Memphis
UGA
UGA Lineup
Demary, Jr SO 9.9 3.8 2.5
Cain SO 7.1 2.4 0.7
Montgomery SO 13.2 3.5 2.0
James SO 4.3 2.6 0.5
Newell FR
Abson PF JR 7.9 7.1
Anselem-Ibe GR 2.6 2.1 0.3
Out
Abdur-Rahim - Providence
DeLoach - Loyola (Chicago)
Hill
Jordan
Melendez
Moncrieffe
4-23 Updates:
Commit 🔔 🐶 🏀 !!!
Mount Saint Mary’s transfer and MAAC Rookie of The Year De'Shayne Montgomery has committed to Georgia.
The 6’4” guard appeared in 32 games, averaging 13.2 points, 3.5 rebounds, 2.0 assists, and 1.7 steals. Montgomery shot 58% from 2, and 41% from 3 (28/68).
Dasher UGA Sports: Bulldogs add De'Shayne Montgomery
https://uga.rivals.com/news/bulldogs-add-de-shayne-montgomery
Dasher UGA Sports: Behind the Scenes: Why De'Shayne Montgomery transferred to Georgia
“I just really like the school. I saw whole different types of people. It’s very diverse, and that really stood out to me,” Montgomery said. “It’s like a family type of environment. Even though there are so many people and staff, it feels like one big family. I feel like they have my back.”
Inside, UGASports caught up with new Bulldog De'Shayne Montgomery to take about his decision to come to Georgia.
UGASports - Behind the Scenes: Why De'Shayne Montgomery transferred to Georgia
Inside, UGASports caught up with new Bulldog De'Shayne Montgomery to take about his decision to come to Georgia.
uga.rivals.com
Sean Paul CBS: The Bulldogs make a good add. Athletic guard with scoring ability from all three levels. Georgia has a trio of sophomore guards who could have big seasons — DeShayne Montgomery, Blue Cain and Silas Demary.
Fredericksburg News: De’Shayne Montgomery is a star for Mount St. Mary’s
After a year at Hargrave Military Academy, the true freshman is breaking out in the MAAC.
“When Tommy Messinger first saw him, he knew he had to have him. The 6-foot-4-inch wing playing for SOH Elite at an Under Armour event in Atlanta made an immediate impression on the then-Hargrave Military Academy Head Coach.
“He banged a 3, dunked on somebody, then blocked three consecutive shots, and I was like ‘Who the heck is this kid,’” Messinger said. “It wasn’t in the book.”
After the game, he did some digging, and he learned that the player was De’Shayne Montgomery.
A little over a year later, the unheralded Floridian is now starring as a true freshman for Dan Engelstad at Mount St. Mary’s. In an 80-48 win over Siena, Montgomery scored 27 points, the most by a Mountaineers freshman since Shivaughn Wiggins scored 28 against FDU on March 2, 2013.
“He had a pop to his game,” Engelstad, who was also at that event in Atlanta, said, “We don’t have anybody that can do some of the things he can do. You saw him play with spirit, and he had this way of competing.”
Montgomery’s talent rarely goes unnoticed, but playing AAU ball off the circuit and high school ball for a school that didn’t do a good job of recording games did not do him any favors. In fact, that tournament in Atlanta was Montgomery’s first with SOH Elite, and it came after his high school graduation.
His high school career with Somerset Prep in Fort Lauderdale was very successful, as he scored 19 points per game in his senior year to go along with six rebounds, five assists, three steals, and two blocks, but there wasn’t much interest. That all changed when he first suited up for SOH Elite in July of 2022.
Montgomery, who grew up playing soccer thanks to the German influence of his mother, didn’t take to basketball until ninth grade. He credits a neighbor as the one who introduced him to the game.
“I met this one kid who moved on my street and I started playing basketball with him outside, and ever since then, I fell in love with basketball,” he said.
After attending a summer camp run by Ralph Mata, the head of the SOH Elite program, Montgomery went back to his stomping grounds to hone his craft. By his junior year of high school, he was back on Mata’s radar thanks to a mutual friend.
In his senior year — still with no offers — Montgomery’s Somerset Prep team defeated Mata’s Miami Country Day in the regional tournament, prompting an invite to join the SOH Elite program in the summer. From there, the offers started rolling in as coaches took notice.
“His first week playing with us, he had three offers,” Mata said. “He was just never in front of the right people.”
Among the “right people” was Engelstad, who was floored by Montgomery’s talent.
“He’s got a natural feel, but he does some things that you just can’t coach.” he said. “His ability to get into passing lanes, make plays in transition, and finish at the rim is unique.”
“We tried hard to get him to the Mount [for the 22-23 season],” Engelstad added, but the Montgomery family believed that a post-graduate year would best serve De’Shayne.
“My dad told me how I need to develop my game some more since I started so late,” Montgomery said. “I don’t have to ‘waste’ a year of college eligibility.”
Even with the heavy courtship of Messinger, Montgomery had his reservations about starting at Hargrave.
“I didn’t know anything about the school at all,” he said. “At first, I didn’t want to go because it was a military school.”
“There’s a lot of uncertainty when you first get to Hargrave,” Messenger said. “About finding your way personally, navigating the military structure, and being around more talented players”
However, the same pitch that has been used for years by Hargrave coaches such as Kevin Keatts and A.W. Hamilton, that the school allows for players to develop with limited distraction, ended up bringing Montgomery to campus.
Montgomery believes that taking a post-grad year helped him develop in a way that a year in college wouldn’t, and will benefit him in the long run as he pursues his dream of playing basketball professionally. Thanks to individual workout sessions with Hargrave assistant Kasey Bryant, Montgomery improved his ball handling and shooting.
Bryant ran Montgomery through drills such as dribbling through cones, catch and shoots, shooting off screens and handoffs, and much more.
“At Hargrave, they focus on you individually,” Montgomery said, “It helps you get better at what you need to do so you can take that extra step before college.”
“[Montgomery and I] would always go in and work out,” Montgomery’s Hargrave teammate Kailon Nicholls, now at Duquesne, said. “The coaches were always willing to sacrifice their time to work on whatever we needed to work on.”
Nicholls was Montgomery’s workout partner, and throughout the year, he observed plenty of growth in his game thanks to his ability to soak in information.
“He’s not the type to kind of brush off what you tell him,” Nicholls said. “He was always willing to learn.”
Montgomery continued to make positive impressions on his coaches. Engelstad stayed in contact with him, but at this point, he was far from the only coach interested.
“He had a lot of high-major interest early on,” Messinger said. “And a lot of [smaller] schools that came to watch us play didn’t want to waste their time on him when they heard who was interested.”
However, the high-major interest began to fizzle out as the year went on. With many programs using the transfer portal instead of the prep ranks, Montgomery was never officially offered by any of the high-major programs.
This was excellent news for Engelstad, who had become even more enamored with bringing Montgomery to the program after seeing him succeed at Hargrave.
“If you go to Hargrave, you love basketball,” Engelstad said, “It’s in the middle of nowhere, it’s the limit of distraction, and it’s a factory. Guys get better and they’re pushed to get mentally stronger.”
While Mount St. Mary’s was never out of the picture, it became an increasingly larger part of the picture when the high-major interest went away.
“I worked hard to get him on an official visit,” Engelstad said. “We have something really great to offer at Mount St. Mary’s, and we want to roll our sleeves up and fight against anybody.”
Montgomery didn’t commit on his official visit to the Mount, but Engelstad still felt confident, and he was rewarded soon after. From the airport of another official visit, Montgomery called Engelstad and told him the good news.
“I thought there was no other coach that wanted to coach De’Shayne as much as I did,” Engelstad said of his pursuit.
So far, it has paid massive dividends.
Through his first 12 college games, Montgomery is averaging 13.5 points and 3.7 rebounds per game, and that’s not even close to the most impressive part. Thanks to his soccer instincts and 6-foot-10 wingspan, he’s the only freshman in Division I basketball with a block rate of 4% or higher, and a steal rate of 5% or higher.
Hargrave has a rich tradition, sending many coaches, including Kevin Keatts and A.W. Hamilton, to the next level. Even Messinger has used his success at Hargrave to get a college coaching job, working on Grant Billmeier’s staff at NJIT. The program has sent 26 players to the NBA, and Montgomery is hoping to be the 27th.
His current coach absolutely thinks he can get there.
“He has a future in the highest level of basketball,” he said.”
https://www.midmajormadness.com/2023/12/26/23993808/deshayne-montgomery-is-a-star-for-mount-st-marys
SB Nation: A hoop got Mount's De'Shayne Montgomery hooked five years ago, and now he's a budding star
“During his freshman year of high school in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, De’Shayne Montgomery received a knock on his door that changed the rest of his life.
One of his best friends, Jaiden Miller, had just moved onto the street and had a basketball hoop in his driveway, and he was looking for people to come over and play.
Up until then, basketball had pretty much been a foreign subject for Montgomery, who is now a promising freshman guard at Mount St. Mary’s.
He grew up in south Florida playing and dreaming of a future in soccer. There is German blood on his mother’s side of the family. So, he visualized himself playing and scoring goals in that storied soccer country’s top league, Bundesliga.
But after a summer of playing basketball with Miller and other friends, Montgomery’s priorities started to change and his improbable journey to tiny Emmitsburg, Maryland, and Mount St. Mary’s began.
“Now I am trying to play basketball the rest of my life,” he said this week in a phone interview with the News-Post.
During his freshman and sophomore seasons at Piper High School, Montgomery said he barely got onto the court during games because he was “so terrible.”
But then he transferred to Somerset Prep at North Lauderdale. His game started to pick up when he was a junior and then took off during his senior season when he averaged 19 points, six rebounds, four assists and three steals.
By the time he hit the Under Armour showcase circuit the summer following his high school graduation, the tall, long and athletic Montgomery (6-foot-4, 190 pounds) had transformed from a complete novice to a Division I college prospect within the span of four years.
Mount St. Mary’s basketball coach Dan Engelstad liked him enough that he handed Montgomery his first full scholarship offer. Except Montgomery turned it down. He and his family were not sure he was ready for Division I basketball yet. They told Engelstad that De’Shayne needed more time to develop as a person and a player.
“Anytime you don’t get the commitment early, you have to look at everything that’s out there,” Engelstad said. “We recruited [De’Shayne]. We recruited a lot of other guys, too. We had to go out and do what was best for our roster.”
Did Montgomery feel like he was taking a risk by turning down the Mount?
“Yeah,” he said. “... But sometimes you have to roll the dice.”
Montgomery enrolled at Hargrave Military Academy in Chatham, Virginia. He got used to the cold winters and the strict lifestyle at the school. And he excelled on the basketball court, helping the Tigers finish 44-2.
Montgomery averaged 16 points, 6 rebounds, three assists and two steals for Hargrave and earned honorable mention All-American honors.
“It shaped me as a basketball player and a person,” Montgomery said of his one year at the military academy.
Bigger colleges began to express interest. But Engelstad never abandoned his pursuit.
“When it got later and we found out De’Shayne was still available and we had a chance at it, I was extremely encouraged, excited,” Engelstad said. “We tried to do everything we could to get him here because he is a special talent.”
Montgomery has yet to start a game for the Mountaineers. But he’s been a valuable contributor off the bench, playing roughly 25 minutes per game. He leads the team with 30 steals, is tied for the team lead with 11 blocks and is second on the team in scoring at 13.5 points per game.
“You get the ball in space with him, and it’s over,” Engelstad said of Montgomery’s attacking mindset. “He’s one of the best finishers in transition I have ever coached.”
Montgomery made his college debut on a big stage in College Park against Maryland. He provided a spark for the team in what became a 68-53 loss to the Terps, contributing eight points and two steals in 18 minutes off the bench.
He said he felt very nervous at first in a big arena against a Power Five conference opponent. But Montgomery gradually settled down as he and the team started to play better.
Eleven days later, he scored 17 points in 27 minutes at Capital One Arena in D.C. against Georgetown, and later scored a season-high 27 points in 25 minutes of a Dec. 3 home game against Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) rival Siena.
In the 10 games the Mountaineers (5-8) have played since the 83-72 loss at Georgetown, Montgomery has reached double figures in scoring in eight.
“I believe in De’Shayne’s talent,” Engelstad said. “I knew what he was capable of doing. I knew De’Shayne was going to have a really good year. ... I think the guy is just getting better and better.
“The more I got a chance to learn about him and his family, the more I liked. It was the most excited I’ve been when I got a commitment from a young man. It took a year and a half.”
https://www.fredericknewspost.com/s...cle_6773e020-4b7e-5b4a-b0b5-5d6442e9031b.html
Justin Abson
Last edited:
