FAU lands AJ Staton-McCray
On Tuesday evening, it was announced by Jon Rothstein that former Samford G Aj Staton-McCray would be transferring to FAU, and he later confirmed that via a personal Twitter post.
The Delray Beach native is a 6’5 Redshirt senior who averaged 11.5 PPG, 4.3 REB, & 1.3 assists, while shooting 44.2% from the field and 41.3% from 3 this season.
This past season was by far the most successful in his collegiate career, as he had career highs in everything but shooting % (down from 1.2%) and improved vastly on his 3 point %, up from 28.9 % the previous year.
The last time we saw Staton-McCray was in the round of 64 tournament game against Kansas where he seemingly had the chase down block of the season, which would have potentially given Samford the win, however it was ruled a foul.
That game was the culmination of 4 years of grind by both Samford, who rebuilt their program under Bucky McMillan; and for Staton-McCray who suffered a torn ACL in 2021 and played in only 3 games his sophomore season. That ACL tear came a year after a solid freshman campaign where he averaged 9.8 ppg in his first year as a bulldog.
Although they fell short in that one, he walked away with postseason experience that he can now translate directly to an FAU team that will be looking to get back to the tournament.
The first commit of the Jakus era takes a nod from football, and the 561 take over, and nabs a local transfer, who originally played his high school ball at Blanche Ely, before transferring to West Oaks Academy in Orlando.
Out of West Oaks he was a 3-star recruit, the #27 player in the state of Florida, and received offers from Appalachian State, DePaul, and others.
It took a few weeks for Jakus to land his first recruit, however the wait is over, and the first recruit is one that has a chance to make an immediate impact in Boca Raton.
With Alijah Martin and Nick Boyd officially departed, and Johnell Davis not far behind, this is the first of many recruits in-bound for John Jakus. Another name to watch could be Devo Davis, as he visited Boca Raton a few weeks back.