CHICAGO – UIC head men's basketball coach Rob Ehsan announced Friday that graduate student guard Josiah Hammons (Chicago, Ill./Curie/Sam Houston State) will join the Flames' program for the 2025-26 season. Hammons is the latest addition to next year's UIC roster, following commitments from redshirt junior forward Ante Beljan, junior guard Mekhi Lowery, graduate student forward Abdul Momoh and graduate student guard Sam Silverstein.
 
"We're thrilled to welcome Josiah back home to Chicago, where he's experienced so much success at both Curie and Truman," Ehsan said. "He's a lefty combo guard with a dangerous three-point shooter in a number of ways, whether off movement, off the dribble or on the catch, and he'll add offensive punch to our lineup next year."
 
A 6-foot-2, 185-pound guard, Hammons returns to his hometown of Chicago, where he starred at Curie Metropolitan High School (also the alma mater of Flames' guard Carlos Harris III) before embarking on a college career that has included stops at Mott College, Truman College, Incarnate Word and most recently, Sam Houston State. In his lone year at SHSU in 2024-25, Hammons averaged 6.7 points per game with a .384 three-point percentage and 53 treys while appearing in all 32 contests and starting 15 times for the Bearkats. He scored in double figures nine times including a season-best 20 points in a Jan. 18 game at Jacksonville State.
 
Prior to his time at Sam Houston, Hammons averaged 12.5 points per game during the 2023-24 season at UIW, leading the Cardinals with 81 three-pointers. He also ranked among the Southland Conference leaders in multiple categories during league play, including three-pointers per game (second – 2.7) and three-point percentage (fifth - .360). In 2022-23 at Chicago's Truman College, he ranked fifth in scoring among all National Junior College Athletic Association (NJCAA) Division I players at 23.6 points per game (along with 9.0 rebounds and 4.3 assists per game), and added 11.3 points per game in his first post-graduate campaign ('21-22) at Mott College in Flint, Mich.
 
During his final two seasons at Curie, Hammons helped the Condors to a combined 64-4 record as the top-ranked team in Illinois Class 4A and a top-15 national ranking for parts of both seasons. Curie finished third in the state in 2019 with a 35-2 record and was poised for a similar run in 2019-20 before the COVID-19 pandemic ended that season.
 
During Ehsan's first season at UIC, the Flames finished with a 17-14 record and tied for fifth place in the Missouri Valley Conference. UIC also registered its best regular-season winning percentage (.567) since 2004 and picked up four Quad 1-2 wins (second-best in the Valley). What's more, the Flames posted five wins over teams that competed in the postseason, including victories over Drake, Yale, Bradley and Illinois State, and produced the program's second-highest scoring offense (76.0 ppg. – fourth in MVC) in the past 30 years.
 
Details on season ticket packages for the 2025-26 Flames' men's basketball campaign will be available in the coming weeks. For more information, fans are encouraged to contact the UIC Athletics Ticket Office (312.413.8421; athleticsticketing@uic.edu).
 
For more information on UIC men's basketball, fans are encouraged to visit UICFlames.com, or follow the Flames on social media through X (@UIC_MBB and @UICFlames) and Instagram (@uic_mbb and @uicflames).
 
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