This is the third and final part of a three-part series previewing the three main position groups for Utah State men’s basketball — guards, wings and bigs.
The big-men for Utah State are a collective unknown, a contrast to the guards and wings. Those two other position groups are no less full of newcomers, but players like Darius Brown, Josh Uduje, Max Agbonkpolo, Nigel Burris and others have spent a good deal of time on a basketball court in college. Meanwhile, of the four players categorized here as the Aggie bigs, there’s only one player who’s been a key player in a rotation at the Division I level, and none have been a regular starter.
Despite that fact, this position group is brimming with potential. You’ve got a top 100 junior college recruit, a reigning sixth man of the year, and a pair of former top 100 high school recruits that have transferred from Pac-12 schools. The lack of consistent playing time and/or starts just means that potential is unharnessed.
The first player to go over is the one most likely to see consistent time and the one with the most D1 experience: Great Osobor. The transfer from Montana State, following head coach Danny Sprinkle, is just about a lock to start at power forward when healthy. But unlike the wings discussed in the previous position breakdown that could play power forward, Osobor isn’t a perimeter player. He’s a post and has more in common with the centers. In fact, expect to see Osobor playing center this season in small-ball lineups.
Osobor should provide a scoring punch from the post, something the Aggies have lacked for a couple of seasons. As the sixth man for MSU, Osobor scored 10.1 points per game in just 19.0 minutes played (a scoring rate that earned him the Big Sky’s Sixth Man of the Year award). Osobor went about this scoring largely from post-ups. According to Synergy Sports, about 52 percent of Osobor’s offense came from post-ups, the 17th-highest rate in the country according to Synergy Sports. And Osobor was very efficient in those attempts, hitting more than 61 percent of his field goal attempts. This style of play also helped Osobor be one of the most prolific foul-drawers in the nation, ranking 15th in fouls drawn per 40 minutes.
Though standing just 6-foot-8, Osobor will have the ability to play small-ball center because of a wingspan that is reportedly around 7-foot-3. He’s not going to be a shot-swatting machine, but has the length and size (250 pounds) to hang with most centers he’d match up with.
The remaining three players in this category make up the three-horse race for the starting center position and it’s the three players who are also among the least known on the team due to lack of time on the floor. These three are Isaac Johnson, Jackson Grant and Kalifa Sakho.
Johnson is a name many Aggie fans may recognize as he was on the roster last season. He didn’t play, though, instead redshirting to retain eligibility. Despite not playing last year, though, Johnson has the somewhat random distinction of being the only player on this roster to play in front of Aggie fans in the Dee Glen Smith Spectrum. It’s just that Johnson happened to be wearing an Oregon jersey at the time (he played four minutes in the 2022 NIT game between Oregon and Utah State).
Though he stands an even seven feet tall, Johnson brings more perimeter skills than most centers. He spent most of his high school days playing small forward and power forward and showed solid ability to hit 3-point shots. He made 77 threes throughout his high school career, hitting around one per game across his sophomore, junior and senior seasons.
Grant transferred from Washington this offseason, having initially committed to Montana State but when Sprinkle moved to Logan it didn’t take too long for Grant to alter his commitment. Grant actually has a lot of similarities to Johnson in the broad strokes, at least in terms of what they could bring. He’s a couple inches shorter, standing “just” 6-foot-10, but brings the same capabilities of being a 3-point shooter as a center. Though, in terms of hype and resume, Grant has a bit more. He was the Washington High School Player of the Year and a McDonald’s All-American coming out of high school with national recruiting analysts declaring he could become a dominant offensive force inside the paint and along the 3-point line.
But for all the hype these two players have, none of it has come to fruition. Johnson played just 76 minutes in 14 appearances for Oregon as a freshman with Grant appearing in 25 games as a freshman for Washington but then only playing 14 games as a sophomore. Both simply flamed out at their previous stops, not living up to being four-star recruits. Perhaps Sprinkle will be able to turn around their careers, much as he did with RaeQuan Battle, who flamed out at Washington (much as Johnson and Grant did with their Pac-12 careers) but went on to score 17.7 points per game last year for the Bobcats.
Sakho is the one center on the team who doesn’t come from a D1 team, instead rising from the junior college ranks. JuCoRecruiting.com ranked Sakho as the No. 72 junior college recruit of the 2023 class, though his stats don’t show it very well since he had three teammates ranked above him on that same list, including No. 2 ranked recruit, forward, Christian Coleman, and No. 24 recruit, center Malek Abdelgowad. Having two players in the frontcourt ahead of him left Sakho with only a handful of minutes to make what impact he could. And that impact came largely with his defense, rebounding and rim finishing.
Unlike Johnson and Grant, Sakho has the potential to be a high-level rim protector, something the Aggies haven’t truly had since Neemias Queta wore the blue and white in Logan. His rebounding potential should also help a team that, according to Sprinkle, is trying to get a handle on rebounds.
