Santa Clara Men's Basketball - The 2025-2026 Roster Roll Call

 

                                                                                                                                      

After achieving their fifth 20 win season in the past six years, the Broncos were poised to build off this success with momentum heading into the 2025-2026 season.  Not so fast...

Coach Sendek and his staff have proven that building rosters by developing players over multiple seasons was a winning strategy.  With the NCAA settlement now allowing pay for play and no limit on player transfers, that plan may need to be "benched."  

The term "one and done" used to be reserved for players leaving for the NBA draft, but now applies to every player who can transfer each season if they desire.  Analytics prove that returning most of your team minutes and scoring year to year is one of the strongest determinates of future success.  Loyalty now has a price tag.  

The Broncos saw 72% of their 2025 roster minutes and scoring graduate or leave for perceived brighter pasture$.  There are four players returning who played significant minutes.  The new rules on roster expansion allows 17 players.  The incoming transfers played limited minutes at their prior schools like Villanova, Iowa, Michigan State, and the NBA G league.  Several were 4 star recruits out of high school.  They all bring talent.  Even top talent needs competitive game "reps" to hone skills and learn a new offensive and defensive system.  The coaching challenge will be to see if it's possible to accelerate their competitive development.

Here's the 2025-2026 Roster breakdown.

Returnees:

Elijah Mahi - 6'7" Senior.  Strong scorer, rebounder and will be a floor leader.  Will be a key in the transition 3pt scoring attack.  Ranked 11th best in the WCC.  Could have a breakout year.

Jake Ensminger - 6'9" Junior.  Strong defender, rebounder, playmaker and can play all positions and will guard top opponents.  Ranked 12th best in WCC.

Brenton Knapper - 6' Senior.  Our most experienced guard.  Good shooter at 53% and can finish at the rim.  Good passer with a 2:1 assist to turnover ratio.  Ranked 19th best in WCC.

Bukky Oboye - 7'1" Sophomore.  Played only 100 minutes, but showed real progress late season.  Rebounder, paint scorer, effective shot blocker.  Could be a big factor this year.

Christian Hammond - 6'4" RS Sophomore.  Quick, good defender and can be an effective scorer.  He should see lots of minutes this year.

Allen Graves - 6'9" RS Freshman.  HS player of the year in Louisiana,  Can score at all levels, good rebounder, and plays long on defense.  Expect a strong season from Allen.

Walk-on's Malachi Douyen and Brendan Yarusso complete returning roster players.

Transfers:

Sash Gavalyugov - 6'3" RS Freshman from Villanova.  True point guard.  Good shooter, passer, and penetrator.  Should see lots of minutes and be a key player.

Francis Chukwudebelu - 6'10" Freshman.  Offers from Kansas, Auburn, and Xavier.  Long wingspan, good touch at the rim.  Will be needed as another post defender and rebounder.

Brad Longcor III - 6'4" Freshman.  Top 10 high school player from Illinois.  Good ball handler and defender.  Will compete for more minutes.

KJ Cochran - 6'5" Freshman.  Offers from Loyola - Chicago, Duquesne, and Temple.  Top  three ranked high school player in Pennsylvania.  Should earn some minutes at guard and at the 3 positions.

Gehrig Normand - 6'6" Sophomore.  Transfer from Michigan State.  Played off the bench in MSU's elite eight NCAA run.  Ranked 8th best shooting guard by rivals.com.  Shooter, tough defender and a gritty attitude.  Should be a major contributor this season.

Noah Badibanga - 6'8" Freshman from France.  Good international experience.  Long and thin frame and once he learns the system will contribute valuable minutes.

Chris Tadjo - 6'7" Sophomore.  250 pound frame.  Four star recruit. Transfer from Iowa.  Named MVP of the All Canadian games.  Strong post player.  Should get solid minutes at the 4 spot and center.

Thierry Darlan - 6'8" Junior.  From Bangui, Central Africa.  Played for the NBA G league with former SCU great Jared Brownridge.  Long and versatile.  Should be a staple in Coach Sendek's up tempo play.  Can score at all levels.

Juan Reyna - 6'3" Grad transfer from Jackson State.  Good shooter, defender. Will compete for minutes at guard.  

The good news is we have size and depth in numbers; if not experience.  For the new players, it's a crash course learning our system after only 30 or so practices and two scrimmages.  Might be a bit like learning a full year of Geometry with all the angles and spacing calculations in two months.

Our preseason national rankings range from 88-105.  Predictions are for 18-20 wins and anywhere from 4th to 7th place in the WCC.  The goal remains making the NCAA tournament or another NIT.  Our at-large NCAA bid chances are low odds, with winning the WCC tournament the better chance earning the automatic bid.  

One thing for sure, this season will be full of surprises.  We will see first hand the impact of how the new pay for play changes the competitive dynamics.  Our team is young, talented, and motivated just as we as season ticket holders, fans, alums, and students are to see them be successful on the court!

Santa Clara Men's Basketball - The NCAA New World - Everything is New Yet Fundamentally the Same

 

                                                                                                                                   

The NCAA as we knew it, save for March Madness, is gone.  It's now a pay for play, semi Pro operation that resides on college campuses.  Loyalty to a school is now auctioned off each post season to the highest bidders via the transfer portal.

The Broncos are a prime example of the above.  We have nearly a complete new roster with nine new players on a roster size of 17.  If you only count the returnees that played more than 100 minutes all last season, it's, experience wise, 13 new bodies including two good players who redshirted.  

More than 70% of our last season scoring either graduated or left via the portal.  Like I said, even though it's all new, the fundamentals remain the same.  They are:  find great talent via high school, international, and the portal, have facilities and a location that are top 20, a coaching staff with a winning culture AND proven ability to develop talent for the pro draft, "Enough" NIL money to land both top rated and under the radar players.  The Jalen and Pods model has been working in building a stronger roster the past three years.  Of all the above, quicky developing players will be crucial this year.  In the past, redshirts have allowed teams to use a year to further develop promising players.  While still a valid program, teams may have to pay players to redshirt in order to sit out.

All of the above begs the question, how do the Broncos compete at a NCAA potential tournament bid level given the Power 5 and top 25 schools all have war chests to pay players far in excess of what we have available today?  BTW, if any of you have a spare $50 million, please call Heather Owen immediately.

The current portal season revealed a potential sweet spot for teams like Santa Clara.  We were able to attract both transfers from perennial top 30 programs AND land top high school recruits.  It is similar, yet better than the prior years of getting transfers like Pods, Johnny O'Neil, Tyeree Bryan, Adama Bal, Elijah Mahi, and the return of Carlos Stewart.  

Our coaches have the contacts and reach and have landed transfers from schools like Villanova, Iowa, Michigan State, and the NBA G League.  Our French pipeline is paying dividends again this year with two good players.  You don't get 20 wins in five of the last six seasons and three NIT's without good talent.  

IMHO there's more talent than ever available as basketball popularity continues to explode nationally and globally.  We won't get or be able to pay for the 5 star athletes that top 20 teams will have access to.  We CAN and have found 3 and 4 stars that blossomed into 5 stars.  That's our critical path for success, to find better talent than St. Mary's and USF.  

Our new roster has six freshman, four sophomores, two juniors, four seniors and a grad transfer.  We have size.  Coach Sendek seems to love big guards and wings to run his fast paced, three point shooting scheme.  We have six guards 6'4"- 6'9", four forwards 6'7" - 6'9" and centers 6'10" to 7'0".    

The season schedule is NCAA worthy.  Our average preseason opponents rank at about 120; with ten of those games against sub 100 ranked teams including Xavier, ASU, St. Louis, Stanford or Minnesota.  Our WCC opponents ranking is around 125; unfavorably skewed by Pepperdine, Portland, and Pacific's low rankings and Gonzaga and St. Mary's high ranking. 

You will soon see players Thierry Darlan, Sash Gavalyugov, Gehrig Normand, Chris Tadjo, Noah Badibanga, and a redshirt, Louisiana State high school player of the year Allen Graves a 6'9" skilled player.  Elijah Mahi, Brenton Knapper, Bukky Oboye and Jake Ensminger are the experienced returnees.  This roster has something else we need; more "grit" as several on the staff have witnessed as players compete for minutes.  Two scrimmages will take place.  One was Saturday, October 19 and the other will be next week: giving the confirmation as to who may start and the rotations.  

Learning the details of our rapid fire play system and solid "team" defense will be a challenge for this young roster.  At the end of the day, it's basketball and still fundamentally the same.  Shoot the ball well, stops on defense and own the boards.  They've all done this thousands of times, just not with a Santa Clara Bronco jersey on!

Next up our roster scouting report.

Don't forget to forward to other interested Broncos!