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Former Georgia Tech forward Julian Royal transferring to George Mason

Travis McKie, Julian Royal

Georgia Tech’s Julian Royal, right, and Wake Forest’s Travis McKie, left, battle for a rebound during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game in Winston-Salem, N.C., Saturday, Feb. 16, 2013. Georgia Tech won 57-56. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton)

AP

6-8 forward Julian Royal committed to attend Georgia Tech while Paul Hewitt was the head coach, only to never play for the man who recruiting him with Hewitt taking over at George Mason after being fired by the ACC school.

After two seasons in Atlanta Royal will get the opportunity to play for Hewitt, as it was reported by Mason Recruiting that Royal has decided to transfer to George Mason. Vanderbilt was also in the running for Royal’s services.

In two seasons at Georgia Tech, Royal averaged 3.2 points and 1.9 rebounds per game in just under 12 minutes of action per contest.

As a sophomore Royal’s playing time dropped by nearly ten minutes per game (6.6 mpg), and he averaged just 1.7 points and 1.2 rebounds per game.

Originally Royal, considered to be a Top 100 recruit out of high school, committed to attend Georgia but flipped to Georgia Tech thanks in large part to Hewitt.

Royal will have two years of eligibility remaining after sitting out the 2013-14 campaign, and his arrival helps a George Mason program that will need to replace power forwards Jonathan Arledge and Johnny Williams after their debut season in the Atlantic 10.

Over-hyped or just under-utilized, Royal will now have a year to work on his game and get better. After losing both Jonathan Arledge and Johnny Williams after this upcoming season, bringing in Royal to fill the void will help ease the transition of breaking in the 2014 recruiting class. The Patriots will have a lot of new faces on the roster at that point and it will be a huge bonus to plug in a veteran forward.

In addition to Royal, George Mason should have veterans Anali Okoloji and Eric Copes in the front court in 2014-15.

Raphielle can be followed on Twitter at @raphiellej.