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Hill grad John Carroll already impressing at Hartford

09/03/2014, 1:15pm EDT

By Josh Verlin

Josh Verlin (@jmverlin)
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It took Hartford freshman John Carroll until the third game of his new team’s trip to Australia to get his clearance to play.

A delay the arrival of his transcript from Ireland kept him on the bench for the first two contests of that five-game journey, which began on August 15 and ended 11 days later.

Once the Dublin native got onto the court, however, Hartford coach John Gallagher found it tough to keep him off it.

“He came in, had 15 and 10 rebounds in his first college experience, and he did not blink an eye,” Gallagher said. “I think John has the ability to be a major player for us this year because of his mentality. He’s got a huge upside from the basketball standpoint, but he’s really competitive…if you’ve ever seen John play, he has that to the n-th degree.”

A 6-foot-7 combo forward, Carroll arrived at the Hill School last year for a postgrad season after two years at IMG Academy in Florida. He was an instant success in his one year in Pennsylvania, leading Hill to its first-ever PAISAA title.

What Carroll did in that win against Westtown and its 7-foot-1 center Georgios Papagiannis was almost superhuman. He scored 16 points and grabbed 11 rebounds while holding Papagiannis–a likely NBA draft selection in two years–to just five of each just one night after the Greek forward had 23 points against high-major forward Satchel Pierce and the Kiski school.

In other words, Carroll showed then that he could compete with other college-ready players. When he committed to Hartford a few weeks after that February 22 title game, Gallagher and his staff knew they were getting an under-the-radar player who could make an impact.

They just didn’t realize how big of an impact he was ready to make.

“I think before the practices started, I thought [he would play] 8-to-12 [minutes per game], and he’s just ripped out of that,” Gallagher said. “Whatever has happened, he’s going to make me play him over 20 minutes per game, and he’s earned that.

“He needs to learn what we do, he needs to learn the intricacies of the offense, he needs to learn the defensive calls and what we’re in, but he needs to be out there just on his mentality and his scoring ability.”

The mentality that Gallagher talks about is what exactly has set Carroll apart even through the 10 short practices the team was able to have before leaving on their trip.

That toughness he brought against Papagiannis–and to every other game this season at the Hill School–has come with him up to Hartford, and it’s had an impact on the whole team.

“I had more altercations in 10 practices with John than I did in the last year,” Gallagher said, adding that while emotions have run high, they haven’t escalated too far.

“And it’s not just John, he’s affected everybody else. We have a senior-laden group that’s really mature and they understand what’s on the line, but John’s thrown an interesting recipe into it that I kinda really like.”

Carroll certainly enjoyed himself Down Under, even after a 26-hour journey to get there and even when he wasn’t able to play initially.

In visiting a country he called “a big Ireland with good weather, basically,” he and his teammates got to see Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra, the first two of which he said were some of the best cities he’s ever seen. He got to take in an Australian League Football game, something he was familiar with from his childhood in Dublin.

It helped, of course, to have three Australian teammates–sophomore Dougal Weir, junior Taylor Dyson and senior Corban Wroe are from Sydney, Sassafras and Brisbane, respectively. Even back when he committed, Carroll had a feeling he would find camaraderie with that trio, and he was right.

“Well, Irish and Australians are very similar,” Carroll said. “I was just speculating before but it’s definitely true.”

Now it’s just one month away from the beginning of the six weeks of practices that precede the regular season, and the time to see where Carroll really fits into this rotation.

For as many minutes as Gallagher might like to play him, this is in no way an inexperienced or shallow squad that’s desperate for freshmen playing time. The frontcourt already features senior power forward Mark Nwakamma, a two-time all-conference first team selection who averaged 15.1 ppg and 5.9 rpg last year.

“I just try and push Mark in particular because he’s one of the best players in the league, if not the best player, and he plays a similar position to me,” Carroll said.” I just think if I can go play, score on him and defend him really well, I just think I’ll be okay. I know he’s helping me, I hope I’m helping him.”

Nwakamma is one of six seniors that will be on the roster, with a full nine players returning from last year’s 17-16 squad, which was Gallagher’s fourth at the program. If they’ll be advancing to their first-ever NCAA Division I Tournament, they likely wouldn’t have thought they’d need a freshman to contribute.

Carroll has changed all of that in a short period of time.

“I never thought I’d get a kid from Ireland that can do what he can do, in my lifetime, I never thought,” Gallagher said. “And I say that because I’m Irish, and I’ve got Irish blood in me, but when you say you’re from Dublin, Ireland, the first reaction–and I had it when I recruited him, was–there’s no way this kid is going to be able to play.

“And it’s the direct opposite.”