With five players graduating and the loss of both Kyle Smyth and Ra’Shad James due to transfers, Iona’s basketball team has started its efforts to recruit players for next year. After landing junior college recruits DaShawn Gomez and David Laury last autumn, alongside Hudson Catholic guard Grant Ellis, the Gaels brought in several more players from the JUCO ranks. The first player was DaSean Anderson from LA Trade Tech in California. According to LA Tech’s assistant coach Ken Hunter, Anderson is, “extremely athletic. He can get to the rim. He can create so many things offensively. He’s such a mismatch nightmare.” Shortly after Anderson’s move, the Gaels successfully recruited two new shooters, A.J. English and Brandon Parga. English, who just completed a postgraduate year with St. Thomas More in Oakdale, Conn., averaged 18 points per game. St. Thomas More coach Jere Quinn said of English, “A.J. is a multi-dimensional scorer. He [English] is a pretty talented kid.” Parga played for Citrus Community College in California last year, where he averaged 17.8 points per game and 3.4 rebounds per game for a team that finished 28-2 last year. Parga also helped lead Citrus to the CCCAA State Championship game in 2010-11. Probably the biggest acquisition that Iona has made was to recruit Tavon Sledge, a freshman guard from Iowa State. Sledge, who was ranked as the third-best player out of New York City from the class of 2011 and the 79th best player of the class of 2011, went to Iowa State over the likes of St. Johns, West Virginia and Cincinnati, among others. But after playing in only eight games for the Cyclones last year, Sledge decided to transfer and chose to attend Iona. Sledge will need to sit out a year due to NCAA rules, but is happy with his move, telling SNY, “[Iona] gave me a vision of a place where I could improve my game a lot more and help me succeed. I’ll have the opportunity to run the team and be the facilitator on the floor and help the team win. Hopefully, we can make it to the NCAA Tournament.”