Samford G AJ Staton-McCray transfers to Miami

DMoney

Jun 6, 2024 2 min read

From miamihurricanes.com

University of Miami head men’s basketball coach Jim Larrañaga announced Thursday the addition of transfer AJ Staton-McCray to the 2024-25 roster.

A 6-foot-5, 195-pound guard, Staton-McCray joins the Hurricanes after spending four seasons at Samford where he averaged 9.6 points, 4.3 rebounds and 1.7 steals in 84 total games played.

“AJ is a very athletic, multi-positional player whose toughness and defensive ability will fit in very well with our current roster,” Larrañaga said. “He is the ultimate competitor and shoots the ball at a high level.”

In 2023-24, Staton-McCray started 27 of 31 games played and led all Samford guards in scoring (11.5) and rebounding (4.5), while leading the entire team in steals (1.6). He connected on 41.3 percent of his 3-point attempts, an increase of 12 percentage points from the previous season (.289).

Staton-McCray helped the Bulldogs to the first Southern Conference Tournament title in program history and their first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2000. In the first round of the tournament, the Bulldogs gave No. 17 Kansas all it could handle, narrowly falling, 93-89, to the fourth-seeded Jayhawks.

The guard scored in double-figures in 18 contests as a redshirt-junior and eclipsed the 20-point mark on three occasions.

As a freshman in 2020-21, Staton-McCray was named to the Southern Conference All-Freshman Team after averaging 10.0 points, 4.5 rebounds and 1.8 assists per game.

A native of Delray Beach, Fla., Staton-McCray was a three-star recruit out of high school and helped Blanche Ely to the state title in 2019.

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mtsucalico85

Jun 6, 2024

JayCane20 said:
What was his deal at the end of the year? Injury? Doghouse? Benched? Played 13 MPG in the conference tournament after averaging 21 MPG on the season.

Really efficient player considering he really didn’t log that many minutes… assuming he was a 6th man or something.

Obviously different levels of competition but played 10 MPG less than Wooga and nearly put up the same stat line and same shooting %.

I believe he was injured, he missed the final four games of the regular season leading up to postseason play. He did start the whole season until the injury, but came off the bench afterwards and was eased into the lineup. But even off the bench, he played 25 minutes in the tourney game against Kansas and was 1 of only 4 Samford players to exceed 20+ minutes in that game.

Bucky McMillan, the coach at Samford, has a very frenetic style of play, so he rotated his lineup a ton during games. Nobody played more than 26 MPG on the team, and only one player exceeded 23 MPG.

DMoney

Jun 6, 2024

TheRichtShow said:
Echoing others here - very good addition to likely round out the 2nd unit. As miserable as last season was, this roster rebuild gives us a lot of reasons to be excited about next year. This is my guess at the depth chart:

C: Kidd, Huie
F: Johnson, Djobet
G/F: Cleveland, Staton-McCray, IJA
G: Pack, Swartz
G: Blackmon/Bethea, Bethea/Blackmon, Divine

For the 13th spot, I'd expect a HS/International Big, either a stretch 4 or athletic 5.

The biggest change from the past few years IMO is that we won't be entirely reliant on our starting 5 to score. Huie and S-M were double digit scorers last year, Bethea and Swartz are 2 of the most talented scorers in their class, and Blackmon avg'd 21 PPG

It will be very interesting to see who comes off the bench between Blackmon and Bethea. On paper, we lack some juice off the dribble which is where Bethea can really help. But it’s tough to sit a 21 PPG senior scorer from a tournament team.

Cribby

Jun 6, 2024

AmherstCane said:
This team has a lot of versatility.

Ageee. There’s more size than the last few years. There’s also a lot more flexibility. I really like this roster , they’ve flipped it with nice quality.

Cribby

Jun 6, 2024

DMoney said:
It will be very interesting to see who comes off the bench between Blackmon and Bethea. On paper, we lack some juice off the dribble which is where Bethea can really help. But it’s tough to sit a 21 PPG senior scorer from a tournament team.

That’s the one area I’ve been hoping for. We needed an attacker off the bench to put pressure on defenses.

Last edited: Jun 7, 2024

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EightiesCane

Jun 6, 2024

Cribby said:
Ageee. There’s more size than the last few years. There’s also a lot more flexibility. I really like this roster , they’ve flipped it with nice quality.

Hopefully, these players gel and can play defense. The size should help with the rebounding woes. On paper, these guys should be able to shoot and score.

A
ALLoverCANE

Jun 7, 2024

We may have the length and depth to press from time-to-time, which is rare for an L team.

simplycanes

Jun 7, 2024

It's as if our Coach knows what he's doing, man that's refreshing but so strange that we're talking about UM basketball. Excited for this season and glad we have some real flexibility on this team as to not live or die by being small and shooting outside.

CanesHoopsman

Jun 8, 2024

DMoney said:
I like this addition and Huie because they are true role players. Wooga was an elite shooter but he thought he was something he was not.

Wooga might have been an elite shooter in November, he wasn’t an elite anything in ACC play. Maybe an elite shot taker.

No one bought into the Wooga hype like I did but he will not be missed this Winter.

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Samford G AJ Staton-McCray transfers to Miami

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