The Lipscomb men’s basketball team will soon say goodbye to five seniors, but the loss of that class just got a bit easier to handle.
Former Valparaiso forward Parker Hazen announced his transfer to Lipscomb via Twitter Monday afternoon. He will have two years of eligibility remaining and can play immediately because he’s arriving from a junior college.
Hazen is fresh off a stellar sophomore season at Iowa Western Community College. He averaged 8.5 points and 6.7 rebounds in 30 games for the Reivers.
The 6-foot-8, 205-pounder began his college career at Valparaiso in 2017-18. But after averaging just one point in 8.3 minutes per game his freshman season, Hazen opted to transfer in search of more playing time.
“Just planning out how things might go for me the next couple years, it may be close to the same year I had this year and not getting a lot of minutes,” Hazen told the Chicago Tribune last March. “I want to go to a place where I’ll have an opportunity to play — that’s really the only reason.”
Hazen signed with Valparasio after a decorated prep career at Columbia City (Ind.) High School, where he averaged 15.8 points per game as a junior. ESPN ranked him as the seventh-best player in Indiana his senior year, while 247Sports listed him as a three-star and the 18th-best player in the state.
The lanky forward should provide an immediate shot in the arm for a Lipscomb squad that loses forwards Rob Marberry, Eli Pepper and Matt Rose and guards Garrison Mathews and Nathan Moran.
Joining Hazen as newcomers for 2019-20 are power forward Jacob Hobbs, small forward Kaleb Coleman and shooting guard K.J. Johnson, who each signed letters of intent with Lipscomb last November.
Photo courtesy of valpoathletics.com