Tag Archives: Colorado basketball

Josh Fortune, Paschal Chukwu

The Curious Case of Paschal Chukwu

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For the second year in a row a player who was pegged for a starter’s role and major minutes in the upcoming season has left the Providence program. Last year it was Josh Fortune announcing his intention to transfer on the Friday before Memorial Day. This year it was Paschal Chukwu a week before Memorial Day. Fortune started at the shooting guard position and likely was going to continue doing so in what would have been his junior season at Providence before announcing his intention to transfer, having his mom declare it was so that he could be closer to home and then opting to go to Colorado — a school further from his home in Virginia than Providence. Now that Paschal Chukwu has picked a new home and will get his change of scenery I thought it would be interesting to examine the entire situation and some of the comments made by Chukwu’s high school coach.

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Josh Fortune

Josh Fortune to Transfer to Colorado

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CBSSports.com’s Jon Rothstein is reporting that Josh Fortune will transfer to Colorado, per Angela Fortune, Josh’s mother.

While the original reasoning for Fortune’s transfer was to be closer to home, Colorado is in fact further away in miles from his home in Hampton, VA. Per Google Maps, Hampton, VA is 548 miles from Providence. It’s a roughly 3 hour flight and about a 9 hour drive. Now let’s look at those same stats, again via Google Maps, for Hampton, VA to Boulder, CO. The distance from Hampton to Boulder is 1,764 miles. A flight is roughly 4 hours. Driving time is 24 hours. Let that sink in for a minute.

Following the “closer to home” reasoning provided, Mrs. Fortune told Inside the Peninsula District‘s Dave Johnson “it was for professional reasons. He believes it’s in his best interest to transfer to find, in his words, ‘an environment conducive to my academic, athletic and social growth.'”

Any less confused?

In the end, Fortune leaves a school where he a school where he played in 69 games, 1,941 minutes (an average of 28.1 mpg) in his career. He would have likely been the unquestioned starting shooting guard a year after being named the team’s Most Improved Player at the end of the year banquet a month before announcing his transfer. Fortune’s competition at Colorado will likely include Jaron Hopkins, George King, Eli Stalzer, Xavier Talton, Dustin Thomas and anyone the Buffs coaching staff brings in during the 2015 recruiting class.

Fortune visited Minnesota and LSU  in addition to Colorado which was his first visit during the transfer process. According to Rothstein, Fortune chose Colorado over LSU and Valparaiso. Fortune will have to sit out the 2014-15 season per NCAA transfer rules and have 2 years of eligibility remaining.