Big man Isaiah Cottrell brings massive potential to UNLV

By Mike Grimala (contact)

Sunday, June 19, 2022 | 2 a.m.

Bryce Hamilton and Donovan Williams are the headliners of UNLV’s “outgoing class,” as it were, but the player who might prove to be the most important to replace in 2022-23 is Royce Hamm.

Hamm gave UNLV everything it could have asked for from the center position in his one year in Las Vegas, as he started every game, averaged a near double-double and generally brought it every night (and in every practice). He was a reliable, productive impact player at an important position.

Kevin Kruger went looking for Hamm’s replacement in the transfer portal, and his search led him to West Virginia big man Isaiah Cottrell.

Cottrell should be a familiar name to UNLV fans, as he rose to prep stardom at Bishop Gorman and committed to West Virginia as the No. 84 player in the Class of 2020. Two years later, the former 4-star recruit is still teeming with potential.

At 6-foot-10, Cottrell provides some of the traditional stuff you expect from a big man, starting with rim protection. He’s not twitchy and explosive vertically like UNLV shot-blocking specialist David Muoka, but he clocks penetration and is quick to flow to the ball and challenge close shots:

As a sophomore, Cottrell posted a block rate of 5.0%, which was not as high as Muoka (8.8%) but a tick above Hamm (3.9%).

While Cottrell appears comfortable in the restricted area rebuffing layup attempts, opponents had much better success when drawing him away from the basket and making him defend in space.

Being able to stay with smaller players on the perimeter is a critical skill for modern big men, and it’s something Cottrell is going to have to work on at UNLV. Opposing ballhandlers dribbled past him much too easily last year:

This is a good time to point out that Cottrell probably wasn’t playing at 100% last year. He suffered a torn achilles tendon halfway through his freshman year, and that’s an injury with a long timeline to get back to “normal.” Cottrell returned for opening night, but later admitted he played conservatively in 2021-22 as he regained trust in his body. Perhaps being another year out from the injury will help Cottrell regain the lateral movement it takes to contain those dribble penetration plays.

It might also have an impact on his rebounding style, which was not built on verticality last year.

Whereas a player like Hamm attacked the glass, often going above the rim to secure what Kruger calls “10-foot rebounds,” Cottrell’s approach is different, as he does most of his work on the ground.

Cottrell is good at boxing out. Whenever a shot goes up, he reliably finds a body to seal off, and he is strong enough to move opponents out of the way and clear space. That allows Cottrell’s smaller teammates to swoop in for easy boards, but it does little to pump up Cottrell’s own rebounding numbers. He posted a defensive rebounding rate of 13.7% last year, which paled in comparison to Hamm’s 32.1%.

Cottrell’s approach may be technically sound, but sometimes you just want your big man to go up and get the ball:

On the offensive end, there’s a lot to like about Cottrell’s skill set. He is a face-up big man, appearing most comfortable when he turns and attacks the defender. He does it either by putting the ball on the floor and muscling his way to the basket, or (more often) by rising up for a jump shot.

The jumper is very intriguing. Cottrell’s touch was not consistent in the games I watched, as he missed some open looks by a mile, but his stroke is so smooth and easy that you can see him becoming a true stretch-5 threat if he puts in the reps:

Of course, being a stretch-5 only brings full value if the other team is forced to play a true center in order to match up in terms of size and physicality, and Cottrell can force that mismatch with his respectable back-to-the-basket arsenal.

His post game is simple but effective. Cottrell likes to establish position on either block (or sometimes in the middle of the paint), back his defender down and turn over either shoulder for a jump hook. It’s meat and potatoes, and his touch comes and goes — in the games I watched, several of his attempts unintentionally hit glass first — but he’s good enough at it to command a true big as his defender:

Try to leave a smaller man on Cottrell, and I believe he’ll use his 245-pound frame to punish that matchup on the block.

What I didn’t see much from Cottrell on offense was vertical explosion. UNLV likes to use its big men as lob threats, but Cottrell rarely threatened the rim that way last year — possibly because he was still working his way back from serious injury.

I believe reps will be important for Cottrell, not just from a physical standpoint but also for learning his place in an offense. There were times last year when it seemed he just wasn’t quite sure how to operate within West Virginia’s scheme; he would wander, sometimes drifting into the path of his teammates or unnecessarily dragging help defenders to the point of attack.

It’s hard to quantify or show with video clips, but Cottrell just seemed out of place:

That’s a minor quibble, though, because it’s likely to be easily correctible with coaching and practice. What you can’t teach is Cottrell’s physical gifts — he is huge and powerful and teeming with potential on both ends of the court.

If Kruger and his staff can get Cottrell to achieve that potential — much the way they did with the relatively unproven Hamm last year — they could have a monster big man with three years of eligibility remaining. That would be a transfer portal home run.

Mike Grimala can be reached at 702-948-7844 or [email protected]. Follow Mike on Twitter at twitter.com/mikegrimala.