On Wednesday UTRGV Men’s Basketball signed junior center transfer Jeff Otchere. Otchere will be joining UTRGV after playing the last 2 seasons at Stony Brook of the American East Conference. While at this time at Stony Brook Otchere earned all-defensive honors and was named American East defensive player of the year. UTRGV head coach Lew Hill believes Otchere’s defensive prowess will be an excellent fit for the team.
He’s a rim protector. He gives you athleticism he gives you experience. In his conference one year he was defensive player of the year. He just anchors the back of that press, we never had anyone like that back there that can intimidate you. Plus, he rebound, he runs, and he is physical, so we are excited.
Otchere was also being recruited by “power-five” schools like Auburn and Arizona State according to reports. Yet, as coach Hill explains, landing Otchere is not only a big step for UTRGV but also for the Western Athletic Conference.
In order to catch New Mexico State and stay at the top of this conference, which is potentially getting better every year, you got to get players that you don’t supposed to get sometimes. So that says from where the program was when I got here to where it is today.
Additionally, coach Hill said that the key to landing Otchere, was the prior existing relationship they had with Otchere. This relationship began when Otchere was transferring from Garden City Community College to Division I back in 2018.
We recruited him out of junior college, so we knew about him already. We had a connection with his family, so there was already [a] preexisting relationship; had a connection with his old junior college coach so he knew us and we knew them, so it was good.
Jeff Otchere will also my joining transfer Malik Lawrence-Anderson who committed to play for UTRGV back in November.
Reporter Luis Rubio
