San Jose State's Ibrahima Diallo transfers to UCF: How will the Knights' big man impact the AAC?

The UCF Knights got stronger down low as San Jose State's Ibrahima Diallo decided to transfer to Central Florida. He made the announcement on social media, and it will drastically change how the American Athletic Conference is viewed.

But what exactly will Diallo bring to the Knights this season? Let's take a deeper look into his impact on the program and what we should expect out of the Knights.

What should we expect out of Ibrahima Diallo?

This will be Ibrahima Diallo's fifth season of college basketball as he spent two years at Ohio State and then the last two at San Diego State. He only appeared in 13 games off the bench for the Buckeyes and took a starting role last season for the Aztecs.

Looking at his stats last season, he did well as he started all 35 games. He averaged 6.0 points, 6.0 rebounds, and 1.7 blocks on just 17.4 minutes per game. Towering at 6-foot-10, 220 pounds, he will need to improve at shooting as he shot 58.7% from the field and only 52.2% from the charity stripe.

He is not going to play too many minutes, but should be a consistent starting center and could be an exciting watch as he tries to expand his game and compete at the next level. The UCF Knights had center Tacko Fall, so there is a game plan for a player like Ibrahima Diallo to dominate with this program.

How will the UCF Knights do next season?

The UCF Knights finished 19-15 (8-10 AAC) last season. That was good for seventh in the American Conference, and nine games behind the Houston Cougars (31-3), who finished ranked No. 2 in the regular season. They did get to the second round of the NIT and lost to the Oregon Ducks.

There has been a lot of movement throughout the UCF Knights roster via the NCAA transfer portal. This program needs to be better on offense as the Knights shot only 42.9%. This team can be a lot better than they were last season, but to expect them to be contenders in the American Conference is just not realistic.

With Houston, Tulane, Memphis and Cincinnati all in the same conference, it feels like fifth place is UCF's absolute ceiling.