By Emma Deo
Not all college athletes follow the same path. For many, high school to Division III is only one step apart, but for many junior colleges are a place to make yourself stand out to scouts.
Junior college transfers make up a large piece of the Plattsburgh men’s basketball roster, a trait that makes the team’s makeup unique. Junior guard Kareem Welch joined the team this semester after years of community college and not playing.
Across all other current 2024-2025 Plattsburgh rosters, there are just four junior college transfers, split evenly among men’s soccer, women’s soccer, softball and baseball. The Plattsburgh men’s basketball roster is home to six junior college transfers.
Welch has been a standout on the men’s basketball roster this season.
In his first season at Plattsburgh State, Welch has appeared in all six games. He averages 9.8 points, 4.3 rebounds and 22.7 minutes per game. Welch also leads the team and SUNYAC in assists with 29.
“He’s trying to get everyone else involved so he can make his teammates better instead of putting up 25 to 30 points a night,” senior guard Kevin Tabb wrote in a text. Tabb and Welch played together at Thomas Jefferson High School with Welch.
Tabb said that he felt like Welch was the best player in the league in high school.
Plattsburgh State men’s basketball head coach Mike Blaine sees Welch’s potential.
“They have a great connection from their time back at Thomas Jefferson. So it’s nice to have when you bring in guys in, for them to have a little bit of a touch point to build off of and build relationships with,” Blaine said. The fact those guys are used to playing with each other has been beneficial,”
In 2019 in the New York City Public Schools Athletic League, Welch scored the most points, as well as averaging the most points in the league at 37.
“Nobody could defend him. He was averaging 37 points per game,” Tabb wrote. “He was making the game easier for me.”
After high school, Welch did not have plans to play collegiate basketball until the Odessa College men’s basketball coach reached out to him. Odessa is a junior college in Odessa, Texas. Welch moved from New York to Texas within the next few days after their phone call but had his season canceled due to COVID-19.
“I didn’t really play basketball for a whole year after that because when I went to SUNY Sullivan, I had to sit out for almost two years,” Welch said.
Prior to a 2024 amendment to NCAA rules, athletes had to sit out a year after transferring schools. Because of this rule, Welch was 21 years old before he started playing collegiate basketball again.
“When I transferred to Sullivan, I was only there for one year, but it felt like a family,” Welch said. “I had expectations, and the coach set expectations, and those expectations were exceeded.”
At SUNY Sullivan, Welch averaged 21.3 points, 6.8 rebounds, 5.2 assists and 32 minutes per game. During this time, Welch was named a NJCAA Division II All-American, All-Region XV Player of the Year and First-Team All-Region.
Blaine then recruited Welch, and he transferred to SUNY Plattsburgh.
“He’s got a great feel for the game. He’s got a great sense to find guys and create shots for his teammates and he’s also got an ability to score at a high level himself,” Blaine said. “Kareem does a great job understanding where we can attack, where he can put some pressure on a defense and find a shot for his teammate or himself.”
When recruiting from junior colleges, Blaine is simply looking to add quality players from all backgrounds to a quality program.
“We have an opportunity when a young man who maybe needed some time to get himself acclimated to be a student athlete at the college level, does so at a two-year school, or maybe he does so because of a cost benefit or cost savings option for the first couple years over four-year school, but we believe that he’s a quality player, a quality student and somebody we wanted to add to the team,” Blaine said.
Another advantage of recruiting from the junior college level for Blaine is that he has an opportunity to see how players adjust to the farther collegiate three-point line before they come to his program.
“Sometimes you can’t quite fully assess the time it might take to adapt and adjust for a high school student, but if you’ve got a transfer student, they’re already familiar with playing with those dimensions and that consistency,” Blaine said.
Junior colleges give athletes an opportunity to get to a school that is the right fit for them, even if their path looks different from the average athlete.
“We’ll recruit any student athlete that we think is a fit to be a contributor to our program in all phases, whether it’s a grad transfer, a four-year school transfer, junior college transfer, or first year from high school,” Blaine said.
Welch has been proving himself capable of a high level of play at the DIII level, and has had the opportunity to do so next to his old teammate, Tabb.
