Help is on the way: Recruits look to spark Raiders on hardwood

The Three Rivers College men’s basketball team has had more than its share of struggles on the hardwood the last two seasons, but a talented class of incoming freshmen might just help turn things around for the Raiders next season.

TRC already has signed several recruits for the 2024-25 season, including Antonio Wiliams, Stephen Okoro, Kene Obiora, Daniel Culberson, C.J. Washington, Ater “AT” Manyuon, Kevin Peleyron and Deion Buford-Wesson.

Williams is a 6-7 wing/forward from Hopkinsville High School in Kentucky and averaged 26.1 points and 13.5 boards for the Tigers this season, including a 45-point performance in December against Madisonville-North Hopkins.

“We’re extremely excited about what he brings to the table,” Three Rivers assistant coach Trey Rakes said. “He has a relentless motor. He’s very athletic. He played in a good region there in Kentucky, has proven himself and has gotten better these last couple of years.

“We’re excited that he’s gonna be a Raider. He’s just, again, has a great motor, he defends at a high level and he finishes at the rim well. He’s working on his outside shot. But he does a lot of good things and I think they’re going to translate early in his career as a Raider.”

Meanwhile, Culberson and Washington were an outside-inside duo for a Little Rock (Arkansas) Central team that just won a Class 6A state championship. Culberson plays point guard and is a tenacious defender, while Washington is a 6-9 inside player.

“Both kids are proven,” Rakes said. “They come from a great program there with Brian Ross as their head coach there in Little Rock. I had the opportunity to see them play in the King of the Bluegrass holiday tournament in Louisville, Kentucky at Christmastime. They made it to the finals of that (tournament) and I was blown away with both kids.”

Central finished second in the King of the Bluegrass tournament and both Culberson and Washington were named to the all-tournament team. Both scored 16 points in the KOB semifinals against Bowling Green — then in the finals against Great Crossing, Culberson had 15 points, six rebounds and five steals in the title game, while Washington had eight points and seven rebounds.

“C.J. protects the rim — he actually had eight blocks in the state championship game and had a double-double on top of that as well,” Rakes said. “He does a lot of good things and his best basketball is ahead of him. … Daniel Culberson, he’s a dog is what he is. He is a leader and he willed that team to a state championship. He was the guy who ran that team and was the head of their snake.

“He’s very quick, very strong and very well put together. He can score in a lot of different ways. He sees the floor. Probably the best part of his game is he can really pass it.”

Also coming aboard is Deion Buford-Wesson, who played at Link Year Prep this past season and was the starting point guard on Jonesboro’s 2023 Class 6A state title team in Arkansas. He also was a high school teammate of current Raider Devarious Montgomery.

“He’s very similar to (Culberson) in the sense of, at the point guard, he’s talented,” Rakes said. “He’s another leader. ... He was actually the MVP of (Jonesboro’s) state championship team.”

Rakes said he is “very excited” to add Buford-Wesson, who the Raiders recruited as a high school player at Jonesboro.

“We’re ecstatic about Deion and we expect huge things from him early,” Rakes said. “Being a kid that has that experience (at Link Year Prep and at Jonesboro), we want him to come in and be a leader and be a difference maker.”

Also slated to join the Raiders is big man Stephen Okoro, a 2023 graduate of Principia High School in St. Louis. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch last spring described Okoro as “a 6-foot-9 defensive wizard (who) made the most of his only season with the Panthers.”

Okoro averaged 13.5 points, 14.1 rebounds and 2.39 blocked shots a game as he helped the Panthers take second at the state tournament. He played for Combine Academy, one of the nation’s top prep schools, this past season and turned down three Division I offers to join the Raiders.

“He’s exactly what we needed in the sense of he rebounds and he goes and gets it,” Rakes said. “He’s not a slight frame — he’s a big frame. He’s strong and he’s a tough kid. ... He’s a little raw offensively, but as far as rebounding, blocking shots and scoring in the low post, that what he does well and that’s exactly what we needed.”

Manyuon, a 6-4 lefthanded point guard, played this past season at United Prep in Nixa, Missouri, where he was coached by the late Robert Yanders, a Missouri State-West Plains standout in the late 1990s. He graduated from high school in Austin, Minnesota in 2023.

“He’s extremely talented, another kid that had Division I offers,” Rakes said. … “He is a kid that has a very, very high motor and a very tough kid. We played him in a preseason scrimmage at Three Rivers before we started off in October and he lit us up.”

Obiora is a 6-3 combo guard who Rakes said is dedicated and “wants to get better.”

“He’s very strong, very well put together and can shoot it — and very talented,” Rakes said.

Peleyron, a 6-7 wing, is a native of Spain and played this past season at the Rock School in Gainesville, Florida.

“He’s very well-tested, he’s strong and has a great frame — he’s at 220 (pounds),” Rakes said. “Another kid that’s athletic and that rebounds extremely well.”