For three months, Jarvis Doles considered and evaluated his options.
In the end, the opportunity to join the UAlbany men’s basketball program was too good to pass up.
“I took my time and went through the process,” Doles said Sunday in a phone interview, a day after announcing his commitment to join the Great Danes with a social-media post. “I was ready to commit early, but then I pulled back because I wanted to take my time and listen to all the schools.”
For the 6-foot-9 forward who entered into the NCAA transfer portal in mid-March, the final decision saw Doles pick UAlbany over Robert Morris. A graduate transfer from Drexel coming off a season in which he was a medical redshirt because of a foot injury, Doles is expected to be immediately eligible for the Great Danes and able to play two seasons.
“On and off the court, I felt Albany was the best overall life situation for me,” said the 22-year-old Doles, who is from Baltimore.
A 215-pound forward, Doles appeared in 58 career games at Drexel, and averaged 3.6 points and 1.8 rebounds per game on 39.8% shooting. In his last full season of action — his sophomore year — Doles averaged 4.1 points and 1.5 rebounds in 10 minutes per game.
Joining a UAlbany team with a relatively thin frontcourt, Doles should have ample opportunity to earn immediate minutes for the Great Danes. Doles will be one of four scholarship players on next season’s UAlbany roster listed as 6-foot-6 or taller, and projects as one of four forwards on the team along with rising redshirt juniors Brent Hank and Adam Lulka, and graduate transfer Kellon Taylor who focused more on football than basketball at Duquesne.
That chance to earn minutes on a guard-heavy team was important for Doles, as was the connection he felt he made with head coach Will Brown and his assistant coaches during a recruiting season that has been conducted virtually because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I definitely liked coach Brown and the staff,” said Doles, who majored in communications at Drexel. “Talking to them, the conversation just flowed. It seemed easy. That made me feel really comfortable.”
With Drexel, Doles played at SEFCU Arena in 2018 during a preseason scrimmage. Doles said he’ll need to wait until he can eventually get to campus to meet his new teammates, but that he did exchange messages via a social-media platform with former UAlbany guard Ahmad Clark — who is from Maryland — about joining the Great Danes.
Doles fills the Great Danes’ final open scholarship for the 2020-21 season.
Categories: -Sports-, College Sports
