While Nova Nation waits impatiently for a potential commitment announcement tomorrow, PortalUpdates is reporting that Kevin Willard has added a forward to the roster in 6’8” senior Abdou Samb.
The Upper Marlboro, MD native only appeared in seven games a year ago for Towson, starting one. In those games, Samb averaged 7.7 minutes played, scoring 0.9 points and grabbing 0.7 rebounds. The forward missed the rest of the season with an Achilles injury. His final appearance came on November 25 against Liberty, where he scored two points and grabbed two rebounds in ten minutes played. In the 2024-25 season, Samb started nine games and played in 32, averaging 1.5 points and 1.5 rebounds per contest for the Tigers.
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Samb started his career at Rhode Island before transferring to IU Indianapolis, where he had his best season of his collegiate career. The forward started 20 games, playing 19.8 minutes per contest. In 30 games total for the Jaguars, he averaged 6.4 points, 3.3 rebounds and 0.7 blocks. Samb’s career high came that year, with 14 points against UW-Milwaukee.
After playing for the Jaguars and Tigers, Samb now takes his talents to the Wildcats. Those talents are assuredly going to come in handy for practice, but it’s unlikely we see him in any games outside of the blowout situations. Think Malcolm Flaggs from a year ago. Regardless, Villanova did need another forward body (at least until Matt Hodge is back).
The roster now stands at 11 players, with two more centers likely needed to round things out. 13 total players sounds like the sweet spot in today’s game.
