WKU Basketball: Kansas Transfer Dwight Coleby Commits to WKU

Redshirt junior forward Dwight Coleby is going to be a Hilltopper. While WKU’s backcourt has been busting out the seams with players, an…

Redshirt junior forward Dwight Coleby is going to be a Hilltopper. While WKU’s backcourt has been busting out the seams with players, an experienced addition to the frontcourt could be a major help the the Hilltoppers success next season.

The 6'9 forward saw limited action with the Jayhawks this past season averaging only 1.7 points but don’t let the lack of stats or minutes playing deceive you. Coleby started his career at Ole Miss and was making strides going from averaging 2.4 points and 1.9 rebounds his freshman year as a Rebel to 5.4 points and 4.8 rebounds his sophomore year before he left to Kansas. Obviously with talented players like Josh Jackson, his playing time at KU was limited compared to what it could be at WKU.

Out of all the new players coming in next season, Coleby is one of the few that is a big guy AND has experience playing at a high level in the NCAA. He started his career in the SEC and has spent a year at one of the perennial powerhouses of college basketball under Bill Self. That experience could be very beneficial early on for WKU. The Tops do have some younger forwards such as freshman Marek Nelson, redshirt freshman Robinson Idehen, and redshirt sophomore Moustapha Diange so Coleby could see some good minutes at WKU and could be a good presence in the paint. But there are still several pieces for WKU in general that will have to fall into place before November of this year.

One of them is the scholarship situation. While the signing of freshman guard Chris Duarte hasn’t been acknowledged by WKU officially yet, the Hilltoppers are on currently on pace to have 16 scholarship-level players on their roster next season but only 13 scholarship spots; and that’s including Coleby. I don’t know of many, if any, high level scholarship players that would want to come to WKU to be a walk-on their senior year to help a C-USA level team so there are a lot of questions surrounding what players will be on scholarship, who will be redshirted, will anyone else besides Tobias Howard leave the team between now and November, and so on. With senior forward Justin Johnson trying his hand at football, it is possible that he might decide to pursue football full time and forgo his last season as a basketball star to learn football. Who knows what all will happen between now and this fall but Stansbury wouldn’t still actively pursue all these talented players and transfers if he didn’t have a plan for them once they got to the Hill.

Coleby fills a position need for WKU and gives the Hilltoppers more size, depth, and experience at the forward position and with a year at Kansas under his belt, he could be due for his breakout season.