Freshman heads to Troy after 1 year with Knights

After playing in just 22 games for the UCF Men's Basketball team, point guard Will Weathers has decided to take his game to another program.

A 6-foot guard, Weathers has decided to transfer from UCF to Troy University. He will be ineligible next season but will redshirt and be available to play in the 2010-11 season.
UCF head coach Kirk Speraw was unavailable for comment.

Weathers played an average of 11 minutes a game this past season and averaged 1.6 points and 1.1 assists.

He could never really find playing time behind freshman star point guard A.J. Rompza, and with the signing of Nik Garcia, Marcus Jordan and R.J. Scott during the offseason, he decided to transfer to the Trojans.

Troy head coach Don Maestri is excited to have Weathers joining his roster.

"The thing that he helps us with is that our point guards are seniors this year," Maestri said.

"We will already have in place a point guard for not this coming season, but the following season that will have had a chance to work in our system a whole year. He is allowed to practice even though he is not eligible to play games.

"He will get a lot of experience with how we want to play as compared to signing some guy out of high school or junior college."

Weathers signed with UCF before last season after averaging 17.5 points per game and 7.2 assists per game as a senior in Lewisville High School in Texas. He was born in Louisiana  and started his high school ball at Holy Cross High School in New Orleans before moving to Texas.

Maestri had experience coaching at Holy Cross and got a good recommendation from

Weathers' high school coach about what he could bring to the Troy program.

"When I was a high school coach, I coached at Holy Cross High School, where Will [played]," Maestri said. "His high school coach at Holy Cross talked to me about him, also about his quickness and defensive ability. For us, that's where the press comes in, so we think he can do a good job for us on the offensive end and the defensive end."

With the addition of Weathers, Troy now has five guards on its roster with four of them being seniors. In a press, up-tempo offense, which is what Troy likes to run, the point guard is the premier player.

Rumors about a possible transfer for Weathers began in the late spring once the Knights became interested in recruiting a couple of more guards.

Speraw, who used to coach in the Atlantic Sun Conference before UCF moved to Conference USA, is familiar with Maestri.

They had known each other back before Speraw was the coach at UCF — about 17 years ago — and with Troy being in the A-Sun, they coached against each other at least two times a season before the Knights moved to C-USA.

Maestri said he and Speraw had extensive talks before Weathers decided to make the move.

"Coach Speraw and I go back a long way, and he knows exactly how we play," Maestri said. "He thinks [Weathers] will fit a real up-tempo, pressing style of basketball. He thought he could do fine in our program."

Without Weathers, the Knights still have five guards on their roster without the addition of Garcia, Jordan and Scott.

Weathers' best performance in a Knight uniform came back on March 7 against East Carolina, when he scored 4 points on 2-for-4 shooting in 17 minutes of play, helping the Knights to a 74-71 victory at the UCF Arena.