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Cincinnati adds a seven-footer

Mick Cronin

Cincinnati’s head coach Mick Cronin laughs during basketball practice in Boston, Wednesday, March 21, 2012. Cincinnati is scheduled to play Ohio State in an NCAA tournament East Regional semifinal college basketball game on Thursday. (AP Photo/Elise Amendola)

AP

According to Adam Zagoria of SNY.tv, Cincinnati has gotten just that much bigger up front.

Mick Cronin has landed David Nyarsuk, a 7-foot-1 native of Sudan that spent last season playing for Mountain State, an NAIA program in West Virginia. He averaged 9.8 points, 8.0 rebounds and 2.9 blocks there.

Nyarsuk originally committed to West Virginia back in 2009, when he was attending Mountain State Academy, (Mountain State Academy and Mountain State University are two different entities. I know, it confused me, too.) but was never able to get academically eligible. He’ll have two seasons left to play for Mick Cronin.

There’s no guarantee that Nyarsuk will ever be much more than a seven-footer for Cronin to send out there to take up space and block some shots (or get dunked on?), but he will add depth and size to an already solid front line. Justin Jackson, Cheikh Mbodj, Jermaine Sanders and Kelvin Gaines are all back for another season, while Shaquille Thomas will be eligible this season along with JuCo transfer Titus Kubles.

With Cashmere Wright, Sean Kilpatrick and JaQuan Parker returning in the back court -- not to mention Jeremiah Davis and Ge’Lawn Guyn -- Cronin will have no shortage of pieces to work with.

Competition for playing time is not a bad thing.

Rob Dauster is the editor of the college basketball website Ballin’ is a Habit. You can find him on twitter @robdauster.