Meet The Newcomers: Troy Caupain

6-3 Troy Caupain was the first of Mick Cronin's five recruits in the 2013 to commit. The Virginia native did so on June 8 last summer and headed up what is arguably UC's best class under Cronin. Yes, you could argue Yancy Gates, Dion Dixon, and Cashmere Wright were the best, but at the time they signed there were a lot of question marks - Gates (motor), Wright (Clemson decommit), and Dixon (relative unknown). Obviously, they turned out to be an outstanding class even though they all didn't leave UC at the same time...but I digress. This is about Troy Caupain, so let's get back to him, shall we?

There were a lot of rumblings last summer about UC wanting to get a couple of guards to commit sooner than later. With Cashmere Wright and JaQuon Parker exhausting their eligibility after the 2012-2013 season and the possibility of Sean Kilpatrick departing for professional ball after his junior season (4th year on campus), Mick and his staff put guards at the top of their priority list for the summer of 2012. Caupain had visited the previous spring and already established a good rapport with the staff and had seen more the campus and university when he took his official visit in September. Obviously he was sold and signed during the early signing period in November.

Since then, Caupain has gone out and done exactly what he had done prior to his commitment to UC: tore it up. Caupain was named the All-Metro player of the year for the Richmond area. The Cosby High graduate averaged a mere 27.1 points and an astonishing 15.1 rebounds per game. Yes, 15.1 rebounds per game for a 6-3 guard.

He likely will start his freshman campaign behind junior Ge'Lawn Guyn at the point guard spot. Caupain played a lot of shooting guard in high school, but he was recruited as a point guard for his ability to distribute and his ability to get to the rim. Having a "scoring" point guard in Cashmere Wright has been a luxury for UC over the last 4 years. I'm sure Cronin and his staff are licking their chops at the potential of continuing that trend. It will be up to him as to how much time he sees the court. Guyn is likely going to get the first shot at running the point. But he has been inconsistent during his time at UC and hopefully Caupain will push him. There's never anything wrong with competition and if Caupain pushes Guyn to be a better point guard then it's obviously a win-win for everyone.

In my opinion, now that UC is no longer in the brutal Big East (for the record, neither is Xavier but we can talk about that later), so it will be much easier for incoming freshmen who aren't necessarily blue chippers to get significant playing time without being exposed. And being honest, Mick could play freshmen during non-conference but once Big East play started I never wanted to see most of the freshmen on the court because they were absolutely lost. So it might be nice to be able to play freshmen for a full season instead of until January for a change. Yeah, we found a positive about being in the AAC!! (yes, there are a few more)