Former USC guard announces new destination
When he announced his intent to transfer from South Carolina late last month, Ramon Galloway said he was “looking for a different opportunity and role.”
He appears to have found both back home.
Galloway, a Philadelphia native, has made a verbal commitment to transfer to LaSalle, a member of the city’s famed “Big Five,” the Philadelphia Daily News reported Monday.
Galloway will have to sit out this coming season per NCAA rules but will be eligible to play starting with the 2012-13 season. He will have two years of eligibility remaining from there.
The sophomore shooting guard averaged 10.7 points per game this season despite a preseason foot injury suffered in a non-basketball incident and starting only four of South Carolina’s 30 games. However, coach Darrin Horn was publicly critical of Galloway’s production and progress as a player and informed him at season’s end his role in the USC rotation would be reduced going forward. When told, Galloway made the decision to leave the program and look for playing time elsewhere.
Galloway is one of seven South Carolina players who have left the program since Horn was hired as head coach prior to the 2008-09 season. He is one of three to leave this offseason, along with fellow sophomore guard Stephen Spinella and redshirt sophomore Murphy Holloway, who sat out last season after transferring from Ole Miss but now says he wishes to return to Oxford.
Additionally, USC’s point guard and leading scorer, Bruce Ellington, has joined the football team and is expected to miss a significant portion of the basketball team’s nonconference schedule. Ellington, departing senior center Sam Muldrow and Galloway were the team’s three leading scorers this season.
Galloway played much of his high school ball in the state of Florida. As a senior, he led Dwyer High to the 5A State Semifinals and averaged 17.7 points, 7 rebounds and 4.5 assists per game. As a result, he was named the South Florida Sun Sentinel’s 6A/5A/4A Player of the Year.
Galloway appeared in each of his 61 games in a Gamecock uniform. His new squad went 15-18 last season and finished 10th in the 14-team Atlantic 10 Conference. LaSalle has not made the NCAA Tournament since the 1991-92 season, but it has a rich basketball history. The Explorers won the NIT in 1952, the national championship in 1954 and returned to the title game in 1955.