“Wearing this G, he’s going to play hard as heck,” White told reporters. “He’s going to play with joy. That’s how he approaches every day. He’s fun to coach. He’s going to be a good addition to our team. He’s a little bit different than our other backcourt guys. He complements them well. We’ve got to get him adjusted to this level, of course, to playing with these guys. It’s all going to be new to him, but it’s exciting at the same time.”
Montgomery made up for lost time by scoring 16 points in his first game against Buffalo and then 22 three days later against Charleston Southern. In his third game, he scored 10 points against South Carolina State in Georgia’s final non-conference game.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
Those are the kind of performances the Dayton Flyers will need from Montgomery in the 2025-26 season. He became the first transfer to commit to UD this spring on Sunday, making the decision on the same weekend he visited campus and two weeks after he entered the transfer portal.
Here’s what Dayton fans should know about Montgomery and what his decision means for Dayton:
1. First school: Montgomery played his freshman season at Mount St. Mary’s in the nation’s 25th-ranked conference, the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference. He averaged 13.2 points, 3.5 rebounds and 2.0 assists in 32 games. He started 10 games and averaged 27.8 minutes per game. He was named the MAAC Rookie of the Year in 2024.
“He’s got a natural feel,” Mount St. Mary’s coach Dan Engelstad told MidMajorMadness.com in 2023, “but he does some things that you just can’t coach. His ability to get into passing lanes, make plays in transition and finish at the rim is unique.”
Montgomery entered the transfer portal for the first time in March 2024 after his freshman season. He narrowed his choices to Southern California, Georgia, Mississippi and Mississippi State before picking Georgia in late April.
“The coaches told me they liked how I got downhill and that I could playmake,” Montgomery told On3.com after his commitment. “They want me as a combo, to play the one and the two.”
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
2. Second school: Now playing in the nation’s top-ranked conference, the SEC, Montgomery averaged 6.5 points and 2.8 rebounds per game in 17 appearances with Georgia. He averaged 15.5 minutes per game. After his strong start in his first three appearances, he hit double-digits only once the rest of the season. In one eight-game stretch, he missed all 12 of his 3-point attempts and committed 12 turnovers.
Montgomery did not play in the final five games of the regular season or in Georgia’s SEC tournament game. In a first-round NCAA tournament loss to Gonzaga, he scored two points in seven minutes.
3. High school career: Montgomery is from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and graduated from Somerset Prep Academy Charter School, where he averaged 19.5 points as a senior. He spent a postgraduate year at Hargrave Military Academy in Chatham, Va., averaging 16.4 points.
According to the MidMajorMadness.com story, Montgomery got a late start in basketball because he grew up playing soccer. He didn’t have any scholarship offers until his senior year. Engelstad tried to get Montgomery to come to Mount St. Mary’s in the 2022-23 season, but the family had already decided Montgomery needed an extra year to get ready for college basketball.
“My dad told me how I need to develop my game some more since I started so late,” Montgomery said. “I don’t have to ‘waste’ a year of college eligibility.”
Hargrave coach Tommy Messinger first saw Montgomery at an Under Armour recruiting event.
“He banged a 3, dunked on somebody, then blocked three consecutive shots, and I was like ‘Who the heck is this kid,‘” Messinger told MidMajorMadness.com “It wasn’t in the book.”
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
4. Transfer history: Montgomery is the 17th Division I transfer who has entered the program since coach Anthony Grant took over at Dayton in 2017. He’s the third transfer from Georgia, following Toumani Camara, who committed to Dayton in April 2021 after two seasons with the Bulldogs and Tyrone Baker, who committed to Dayton in April 2022 but left the program in December that same year.
5. Roster update: With freshman Hamad Mousa entering the transfer portal on Saturday and Montgomery announcing his commitment, Dayton once again has eight spots open on the 2025-26 roster.
Dayton’s 2025-26 roster looks like this if no more players leave.
Seniors: Javon Bennett; and Jacob Conner.
Junior: Montgomery.
Redshirt sophomores: Jaiun Simon.
Sophomores: Amaël L’Etang.
Freshmen: Damon Friery; and Jaron McKie.
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