Greyhounds add one more piece

It’s been an NBA offseason where you need a scorecard to keep track of all the wild and wacky moves.

For the NCAA Division II Eastern New Mexico men’s basketball team, it hasn’t been anywhere near as crazy. But the Greyhounds have made a flurry of moves since the spring, and perhaps a scorecard to track it all wouldn’t be a bad idea.

In a span of just under three months, the Hounds added Brandon Meadows (Apr. 11), Marvin Mapaga (May 16), Yosnier Cobas (May 17), Jose Serrano (June 28), and just last week, Nico Matheus.

That followed a pair of in-season pickups, as Eastern received 2019-20 commitments from Ibn Zaid and Austin Kingman last winter.

Floor generals. Terrors in the post. Versatility. High motors. Smooth jumpers. Dead aim from beyond the arc. Segler and assistant coach Andre Shaw reeled in a little bit of everything for the upcoming season. When discussing the bounty Monday night, Segler built to Clippers-fan pitch — he was excited about basketball in the second week of July.

“Most of them, if not all of them, were All-American, first-team, all-region,” Segler said of his recruits. “Whatever league or conference they were coming from they won awards.”

All well and good. But, Segler says there’s an even more significant common thread among the acquisitions. They’re quality people.

“We had a really high-character bunch of guys last season, and so when we recruited this bunch of guys we wanted to add to the character of our guys, which is really high,” Segler said. “One thing we thought really worked for us, we thought we had a really strong family bond. Because Portales is a small family atmosphere, I thought that was important. I’m going to have them in living rooms of families that are feeding us, so if those guys aren’t going to hold up the standard of being high-character guys, that’s going to be a problem.”

Matheus’ signing was the most recent and perhaps the most intriguing. While ENMU often scouts players with some collegiate experience, Matheus will jump right out of high school ball and into a green and white Greyhound uniform. Segler and Shaw had no qualms about bringing in a player directly from the prep ranks.

“To get one that we like and trust is really cool,” Segler said.

Though his family originates from Venezuela, Matheus played for Byron Nelson High School in Trophy Club, Texas, roughly 20 miles north of the Dallas-Fort Worth area. Last winter Matheus earned First-Team All-District 5-6A honors while helping Byron Nelson High to a 23-11 record.

“We always try to keep our ears and eyes open down there (in the Dallas-Forth Worth area),” Segler said. “He just kind of got better as the year went on. ... He can move, he can put the ball on the floor. He is so big (6-4) as a shooter than other guys. We will be able to create some opportunities for him and he’ll be able to put it in.”

Meadows, Eastern’s first postseason recruit this year, is a combo guard from Freeport, Bahamas by way of Eastern Wyoming College. He averaged 13.8 points per game last season, shooting 50 percent from the field, and ripped down 9.6 rebounds per contest.

“Brandon’s a great kid,” Segler said. “I think he’s kind of a sleeper in this class. He’s a very unassuming athlete; he’s 6-3, he’s thin. But he is sneaky athletic. He’ll go down the lane and dunk on somebody. ... He almost looks from a different era to me. When Coach Shaw and I first saw him he looked like a player from the 70s. It was kind of like watching Magic (Johnson). ... His creativity is going to take people by storm.”

Mapaga is also a JUCO transfer with international flavor, originating from Libreville, Gabon. He is 6-7, 230 pounds.

“He’s a beast, man. He’s just a big, really strong, talented guy,” Segler said. “He’s a dunker, he’s a chaser, he’s a hitter. You meet him in person and he’s kind of like a big teddy bear; on the floor he doesn’t come across like that. He’s an enforcer.”

Less than 24 hours after trumpeting Mapaga’s signing, Eastern announced that the 6-7, 210-pound Cobas — from Miami’s Colombia College — was also coming aboard.

“Yos, man, is a beast,” Segler said. “In the Lone Star Conference there were some big men that gave us trouble. I sometimes left the games feeling down about our post play.”

That will likely not be the case with Cobas.

“Yos is one of those guys who can play both the forward spots,” Segler said. “He is just tough as rocks, he’s a tough young man. He loves physicality. Because the Lone Star is so physical ... he’s going to proliferate in that environment because he loves to be physical first.”

Cobas has a father who’s a truck driver, a mother who’s worked multiple jobs. “They’re like a Portales family, they fit in with our dynamic,” Segler said. “His mom, when I talked with her, it was like talking to a Portales family. When we laid out what we were all about she was like, ‘We’re all in.’”

Serrano is yet another 6-7 guy originally from overseas, starting out in Barinas, Venezuela and most recently playing for Southwestern Community College in Chula Vista, Calif. There was competition for Serrano’s services, and not just from other colleges.

“He’s already had professional offers from his home country, from Venezuela ... but he’s coming with us,” Segler said. “His talent and size, that’s more of the high-major Division I stature. So to have a guy like that is really incredible.”

Eastern opponents also can’t sleep on the Zaid and Kingman pickups.

The 6-1 Zaid, from Gavilan Junior College in Gilroy, Calif., was officially a Greyhound-to-be on Jan. 23.

“He’s just like a quarterback-type leader guy,” Segler said. “True point guard, great decision-maker.”

Contrary to the small, slippery Zaid, Kingman is a big dude at 6-8, 220 pounds. Kingman had just wrapped a 15-point scoring season at Tacoma (Wash.) Community College when his signing was announced on March 5. Despite their differences in build and style of play, Kingman may have as much in common with Zaid as he does with his frontcourt teammates.

“Austin is a big pick-and-pop guy that can shoot,” Segler said. “While Yos is more of a power player, back-to-the-basket guy, Austin is more of a technician, more of a shooter.”

The seven of them will converge on Eastern New Mexico University in late summer, bringing with them different skills, different interests and identities, different cultures and nationalities. Segler thinks they’ll each find the university area to their liking.

“Coming to Portales isn’t quite as foreign,” he said. “Being able to go to the school in the States, that’s a blessing in itself. You don’t hear the same concerns about being in a small town. It’s better than being in a country that’s going through communism. For those kids it’s great to be part of the college basketball system.”

Helping Segler unite them all was Shaw, his trusted lieutenant.

“I really rely on him when it comes to recruiting,” Segler said. “He’s constantly seeking and talking and working the phones at night. ... He never stops. Coach Shaw has done a great job of developing these relationships. He sets me up for success.”

It’s all part of a year-round process of trying to flesh out the best available athletes to maximize success, improve on the previous year’s performance. In this case, the previous year’s performance was a 13-15 season that ended with an 87-85 overtime loss to Tarleton State in the first round of LSC Tournament play at Frisco, Texas’ Comerica Center last March 8.

“We’ve got to keep building, man,” Segler said. “We’ve got to keep pushing.”