Wings Up Player Profiles: JaQuel Richmond

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — JaQuel Richmond didn’t get the chance to play last season, but this year he has made an impact for UNCW coming off the bench.

“First game kind of hurt me, because I realize I wasn’t playing and then I had a long year to go,” Richmond said. “But it actually made me stronger to sit there and watch and just analyze the game even more than when I was usually playing.”

The redshirt junior from Greensboro really became a spark off the bench for the Seahawks this season.

Coming from Middle Tennessee State, Richmond feels that his relationship with his UNCW teammates is what makes the transfer to the Port City the right move for him.

“Just the system and the coaching and just the players, like being around the players on and off the court,” Richmond said. “We’ve got a great relationship off the court. So being there at Middle Tennessee I want a good relationship off the court.”

The year he’s finally getting the chance to compete after having to watch all last season as his teammates won a CAA Championship without him.

“It got me pretty good,” Richmond said. “It made me even more ready to play my friends, my teammates, just how hard we all worked this past year made me want to work even harder for this year.”

In order to move on against Virginia, he’s going to have to bring a certain set of skills to the game.

“Speed, defense, leadership, just fun,” Richmond said. “Having fun with everybody.”

In his first season with the Seahawks, Richmond got the opportunity to square off against his former team with the Blue Raiders holding off the Seahawks and holding Richmond to no scoring.

Despite that game, Richmond believes that his skill set is perfect for the system run by Coach Keatts, and that will make it easy for him to play at a high level going forward.

“It makes it easy because his system is basically a pick and roll system, so just got to be strong coming off the pick and roll and learning what you got to do and not to do coming off the pick and roll” Richmond said.

The new faces of the Seahawks didn’t just help celebrate, guys like Richmond made an impact all year long.

UNCW takes on UVA this Thursday at 12:40 p.m. The game will be broadcast on truTV.