Baye Fall arrives at Rutgers with high upside and plays at a premium position that desperately needed an upgrade.
Can the Scarlet Knights unlock the former McDonald’s All-American’s potential and develop him into the solution at center?
The Scarlet Knights landed a commitment from Fall, a transfer from Kansas State, on Sunday morning.
They are the third school to take a shot on the potential that earned him a top-30 ranking coming out of high school, and based on the current outlook, head coach Steve Pikiell and company are banking on him solving the issues in the paint that plagued them last season.
The way Fall describes himself, he fits the mold of what Pikiell is looking for as he attempts to build a team around his roots of defense and rebounding.
“(I’m a) high energy guy, high motor, a guy who can rebound and block shots and make shots in the paint and bring energy,” Fall said in October.
Here is a more detailed look into what Fall brings to the Scarlet Knights:
Basics
Listed as 6-foot-11, 215-pound wing in his Kansas State bio, Fall arrives to New Jersey after spending significant time across the world.
The Dakar, Senegal, native played high school basketball in Denver, featuring for three different programs before heading to college. Despite the constant change, Fall developed into a premier prospect, according to most analysts.
Ranked the 28th-best prospect and fourth-best center in the 2023 cycle by the 247Sports Composite, Fall was a consensus four-star recruit who was one of the 24 players named as McDonald’s All-Americans in his class.
Rutgers recruited him hard out of high school, but Fall ultimately picked Arkansas over the Scarlet Knights, in-state rival Seton Hall and Auburn. After playing sparingly in Fayetteville — 45 minutes across nine appearances — and seeing his head coach Eric Musselman leave the program for USC, he headed into the transfer portal.
Fall landed at Kansas State, where he got even less playing time under Jerome Tang. He featured in just four games last winter, playing a total of 26 minutes across four appearances against New Orleans, Cleveland State, Mississippi Valley State and Longwood before sitting out the final 26 games of the campaign.
Across his 71 total minutes in 13 career appearances, Fall scored 17 points on 6-of-10 shooting from the floor (all twos) and 5-of-15 shooting on free throws, grabbed 18 rebounds, blocked nine shots, picked up nine fouls and nabbed three steals.
It is worth noting that a majority of his career minutes (44) came against low-major opponents, including Gardner-Webb (10 minutes), Cleveland State (11), Alcorn State (9) and Mississippi Valley State (7), which ranked dead-last out of 364 Division I teams on KenPom last season.
Offense
There is a very sample size to work with, but Fall’s offensive capabilities seem to be limited to the rim and the stripe.
Of his 10 career field goal attempts, nine were at the rim, including three dunks. He got to the free throw line more often, but of his 15 attempts as a Razorback — he didn’t attempt any for Kansas State last season — he only knocked down five of them.
All of Fall’s career field goal attempts came against low-major opponents; he did not attempt a shot in 37 minutes against high-major teams. He went 3-of-7 on free throws against SEC opposition.
Expect Fall’s offensive contributions to consist mostly of putbacks off offensive rebounds, dunks off of alley-oops/runs to the rim off of pick-and-rolls, and other shots close to the basket.
Defense
This is the area where Fall fits what the Scarlet Knights desperately need.
The most encouraging tidbit of Fall’s limited college experience comes at the rim and on the glass. His block percentage was astronomical at Arkansas (13.3%) and Kansas State (12.8%), as was his offensive rebounding rate (13.3%, 18.4%). His defensive rebounding rate was strong with Arkansas (17%) but less so with the Wildcats (9.3%).
The one caveat: a majority of his rebounds (14 of 18) and blocks (7 of 9) came against low-major opposition.
There is one bright red flag: Fall is highly prone to fouling. He averaged eight fouls committed per 40 minutes in each of his two seasons, and in his college debut against Alcorn State, he fouled out in nine minutes.
Still, the sample size is incredibly small and he never had significant run on the floor, so there are no big-picture takeaways to be had. His role and playing time will likely change dramatically at Rutgers.
Where he lands in transfer rankings
Various college basketball outlets ranked the top players in the transfer portal. Here is where Fall ranked in a few of them:
Analytic-based
Evan Miya: No. 721
Human rankings
247: NR
On3: NR
Overall
Fall was a highly-touted recruit out of high school for a reason: Recruiting analyst Adam Finkelstein of 247Sports raved about Fall’s physical gifts, athleticism and mobility, ability to move “exceptional well laterally for his size” and his potential as a “high-level rim protector.”
He has been unable to put it together at the college level yet, in part due to the multiple issues Finkelstein pointed out when Fall was a high school prospect: his “lack of efficiency” offensively, “extremely high turnover rate,” inconsistency as a defensive rebounder, tendency to “settle for a variety of fade-aways and other ‘tough twos,’ and most notably, his ”lack of strength” that got him “displaced easily on both ends of the floor” and caused him to “bounce off of more physically developed big men.”
After Arkansas and Kansas State failed to clean up his deficiencies and unlock his potential, Rutgers will hope that the third time is the charm for Fall. Turning 22 in late December, Fall is a bit old to be a developmental project, but he will likely receive more playing time in his first two weeks as a Scarlet Knight than his first two years as a college basketball player.
For Rutgers, it is a moderate-risk, high-reward situation.
If they unlock Fall’s potential, the Scarlet Knights will have the rim protector they desperately need in order to return to head coach Steve Pikiell’s preferred grind-it-out style of basketball. And, in theory, they could have him for two seasons.
If it becomes the third program in which Fall fails to live up to his high school hype, Rutgers could have arguably the worst center situation in the Big Ten for a second consecutive season.
If things land somewhere in the middle, the Scarlet Knights will have landed their biggest priority of this portal cycle: a serviceable big man, particularly on the defensive end.
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Brian Fonseca may be reached at bfonseca@njadvancemedia.com.
