Ten Newcomers Added to Wave Men's Roster
After a year an anemic offense that had a hard time hitting shots, Tulane men's basketball coach Ron Hunter and his coaches went recruiting with a mission.
"The number one thing I wanted: we had to improve our offense," Hunter insisted. "And I wanted to go out and get guys who had proven at the college level that they could score. I don't care if it was Division III or NAIA, we wanted to get some guys that were proven scorers."
In fact, there was a threshold Hunter aimed for: 40% or better from beyond the three-point arc.
"There are a lot of guys who can shoot. There are not a lot of guys who can make shots," Hunter shared. "So that's number, 40%, was something consciously that we looked at and we feel really good about the guys that we got"
Players Who Can Shoot Well from Downtown
Off balance, straight away, or under pressure, junior guard TJ Nadeau, fresh off a two-year stint at Detroit Mercy out of D-1's Horizon League, can hit it all.
Nadeau averaged 11.3 points on 42.7 percent shooting from the field and 40.7 percent from three over two seasons with the Titans, starting all 31 games last year while averaging 13.8 points on 49.0 percent shooting overall and 46.7 percent from three in 2025-26.
Out of Division II's University of Tampa, junior Ryan Blount brings length to the guard spot.
Blount averaged 16.2 points, 5.9 rebounds, and 2.4 assists per game across his two seasons with the Spartans. Last season, he led the team averaging 21.0 points on 48.0 percent shooting from the field and 41.0 percent from three. In his last season in Tampa, Blount cored more than 20 points in 18 games as a sophomore including a career-high 33 points twice.
Well-traveled redshirt junior forward Carson Schwieger spent a year at Division 1, Queen's University of Charlotte after seeing action in half of Valparaiso's games as a freshman and sitting out a redshirt freshman year at Wright State, but boy can he hit the outside shots.
Schwieger averaged 10.1 points and 3.1 rebounds across 24.5 minutes per game for Queens, shooting 40.9 percent from three which ranked 34th in the country. He put up double digits figures in 14 games including a career-high 29 points against North Florida.
Another redshirt junior forward, Jordann Dumont has the same profile as Schweiger: long, lanky, and deadly from beyond the arc.
The Montreal native didn't get much playing time at either of his previous two schools, Virginia Commonwealth or Villanova, but when he did, he was hitting 45.5% of the 20-threes he put up. Dumont played two years at Hamilton Heights Christian Academy in Chattanooga, Tennessee, after moving from Canada, scoring more than 1,000 points in just two seasons.
Hitting the Three Will Open the Inside
Last season's lack of accurate shooting left the inside game something to be desired, as defenses just collapsed on forward Tyler Ringgold, giving him little to work with. Hunter thinks that will change.
"If Tyler stays in his position and you've got shooters all around him, that opens the door up even more," Hunter agreed. "Where last year, you didn't guard those guys because we consistently couldn't make those shots, (that should change this year)."
Ball Handling Up a Notch
With the exit of Rowan Brumbaugh to SMU in the transfer portal, Tulane needed another ball handler to compliment junior point guard KJ Greene, and the Green Wave think they've found him in junior Krystian Lewis, who played for his hometown Louisiana Monroe Warhawks the last season after starting out at Pearl River CC.
Lewis led Louisiana Monroe in scoring with 18.4 points per game on 36.2 percent shooting from the field, 31.5 percent from three, and 84.1 percent from the free throw line. And he can dish it out, leading the Warhawks with a team high 103 assists and recording a team best 45 steals.
"He's good. I don't know where he's going to play, yet" Hunter said about the talented guard. "(Lineup position) One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight...He's going to play because he can score the ball."
Bringing in the Bigs
After losing some of his big guys to graduation, Hunter felt the need to add to the team's size in the paint, here's junior forward Joah Chappelle, spending last year at Georgia State, previously at Pearl River CC.
Chappelle averaged 7.3 points and 5.3 rebounds per game last year for the Panthers… Led the team with 51 offensive rebounds and 24 blocks. He posted a career-high 23 points and a career-best 12 boards against Fort Valley State. In high school, he was named the 5A player of the year his senior season.
Hunter and his coaches didn't have to go across the pond to grab 7' 1" center Dame Salane, but that's where the big guy hails from. A native of Italy, the redshirt freshman moved to the United States to begin his prep career playing at Oak Hill Academy in Virginia and Stafford High School in Texas. He helped Stafford make the 2024 UIL Texas 4A Boys’ Basketball State semifinals as a senior.
Salame redshirted last season at Arizona State. In high school he averaged 7.8 points on 56.1 percent shooting and 78.6 percent from the free throw line while adding 5.9 rebounds and 2.4 blocked shots across 27.5 minutes per game.
"I took him to an Italian restaurant when he got here (to New Orleans)," Hunter told us. "He said it was so good. He felt right at home."
Trio of Frosh on the Roster
Freshman wing player Tobias Brinkley came out of Atlanta as a four star recruit from Decatur High School. The 6' 7" forward/guard averaged a double-double with 15.3 points and 10.2 rebounds to go with 2.1 assists and 1.2 steals per game.
Frosh Noah Mister began his prep career at Mount Carmel High School in Chicago, leading his team to back-to-back sectional championships as a junior and sophomore while averaging 16.5 points and 3.2 assists during his junior campaign in 2024-25. The 6' 2" guard ended his career in Florida at Victory Rock Prep School .
Finally, shooting guard Ryan Meltzer, who stands 6' 1". He played his prep career for Coach Jackson Johnson at Newman School in Boston, Massachusetts.
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Doug has covered a gamut of sporting events in his fifty-plus years in the field. He started doing sideline reporting for Louisiana Tech football games for the student radio station. Doug was Sports Director for KNOE-AM/FM in Monroe in the mid-80s, winning numerous awards from the Louisiana Sports Writers Association for Best Sportscast and Best Play-by-Play. High school play-by-play for teams in Monroe, Natchitoches, New Orleans, and Thibodaux, LA dot his resume. He did college play-by-play for Northwestern State University in Natchitoches for nine years. Then, moving to the Crescent City, Doug did television PBP of Tulane games and even filled in for legendary Tulane broadcaster, Ken Berthelot in the only game Kenny ever missed while doing the Green Wave games. His father was an alumnus of Tulane in the 1940s, so Doug has attended Tulane football games in old Tulane Stadium, the Superdome, and Yulman. He was one of the 86,000 plus on December 1, 1973, sitting in the North End Zone to seeTulane shutout the LSU Tigers, 14-0. He was there when the Posse ruled Fogelman and in Turchin when the Wave made it to the World Series. He currently is the public address voice of the Tulane baseball team.