Drinnon’s Lobo future in doubt; Weir stays mum on scrimmage
Soph. PG goes home to be with family
Less than a week from the season opener, the Lobos men’s basketball team is shuffling it’s roster a bit.
Sophomore Drue Drinnon has gone home to Georgia this week for a “personal” reason, according to coach Paul Weir. Whether the 6-foot-1 point guard, who is third on the team’s depth chart at the position, returns to the program is not certain.
“He kind of has a personal family situation going on with his family and I do not know the date of his return,” Weir said. “It could be something a little longer term. I’d like to keep his privacy as it is and, quite honestly, I don’t have an answer. It’s like I told our team, I quite honestly don’t know when or if he’ll be coming back.”
Drinnon, a one-time four-star rated high school recruit out of Smyrna, Georgia, who played his senior year of high school in Florida, played in 27 games last season for UNM with eight starts. He averaged 2.9 points, 2.3 assists and 13.9 minutes per game as a freshman.
Weir has said former Texas A&M point guard J.J. Caldwell will be the Lobos’ primary point guard and Ohio State transfer JaQuan Lyle will get minutes at the position, too. While Drinnon would have seen minutes after those two, the plan now is to move 6-4 guard Zane Martin to the point for the thirdstring duties.
Martin has practiced twice this week at point guard trying to get up to speed at the position, but Weir made clear the long-term decision for what to do with the depth chart hasn’t been made.
“Even in my conversations with (Drinnon), I hate talking about that, to be honest with you,” Weir said. “There is a basketball part to it, and at some point we’ll probably discuss that a little bit more, but that wasn’t the conversation to have with him. It was about him and his family and what’s best for Drue Drinnon.”
Since he started the semester, if Drinnon transfers, he would be eligible at another school no sooner than mid-semester of the 2020-21 season, unless the NCAA grants him a waiver.
HEADDINGS REDSHIRT: Freshman walk-on guard Daniel Headdings of Wasilla, Alaska, will redshirt this season.
He has been nursing a back injury all fall, though he did return to practice this week.
“It’s something we talked a little bit about before he got here,” Weir said. “I try and do everything I can to work through those things as long as we possibly can before a kid makes an announcement. He just had a back injury this fall that set him back a little bit and he’s just getting back now, but it’s still pretty ginger.”
OREGON SCRIMMAGE: The Lobos returned from Oregon very happy with how they played against the nationally ranked Oregon Ducks in a closed-door scrimmage at the Nike headquarters in Beaverton,
Oregon, though Weir said he and Ducks head coach Dana Altman agreed not to disclose specific statistics.
That includes details about former Lobo Anthony Mathis, who transferred to Oregon in the offseason.
“I didn’t really speak to him,” Weir said. “I don’t know if any of the players did. I wish him and his team all the best this season.”
Weir did say of Oregon: “I think from an offensive talent perspective, probably the best team we’ll see this year.”
SIGNING DAY: The NCAA’s early signing period starts Nov. 13 and represents the first time Class of 2020 high school or junior college recruits can sign binding National Letters of Intent to play for a college team.
The Lobos have had three players publicly announce a commitment to play for the Lobos in the Class of 2020: 6-6 point guard Nolan Dorsey of Raleigh (N.C.) Middlebrook High School, 6-9 power forward Bayron Matos of the Dominican Republic, who is playing this season at Hamilton Heights Christian Academy in Chattanooga, Tennessee, and 6-6 wing Javonte Johnson of Cheyenne Mountain High School in Colorado Springs.
Weir says he expects more. “I think we’ll be getting one more here coming up shortly in this class,” said Weir, who can’t comment on specific recruits until they are signed.
“We are, obviously, losing a lot of bigs up front, so we kind of went into this recruiting period really wanting to get bigger players and some post players, so hopefully that’ll kind of continue to materialize for us.”