OPINION|
There was a time, not that long ago, when college basketball practice began in mid-October and Midnight Madness was a big deal as teams around the land got official team workouts rolling.
Over the last decade, the game has morphed into a year-round activity. No longer is the summer limited to informal pick-up games and weightlifting, NCAA Division I teams now get eight hours a week to work, with four of those hours allotted for skill-related work as a team or in groups.
When Dana Ford’s Missouri State Bears convened this week, Ford probably felt like it was Oct. 15 instead of June 15. Ten familiar faces were on hand a year after name tags were needed as 13 new players joined a scant three holdovers.
“We’re not like an expansion team this summer,” Ford said, comparing the job of a college head coach these days to an NBA general manager.
After being slammed by the transfer portal a year ago, when 10 players left, nearly everyone eligible to return to the Bears did so with only Jonathan Mogbo and James Graham leaving. Ford is understandably feeling a lot better about things headed into the 2023-24 season. The Bears are able to jump right in and start installing offensive principles.
“Last year, just getting a roster together was the priority over everything,” Ford said, noting that he already has a good idea of who his leading scorers will be rather than simply getting to know his players.
Those offensive mainstays will include returnees Donovan Clay, Chance Moore, Dalen Ridgnal and Alston Mason. Matthew Lee is back practicing after suffering a torn ACL in the second game of last season. Sophomores Damien Mayo and N.J. Benson are going to be key contributors and Raphe Ayres is a hustler familiar with some game experience.
“Matthew Lee is a guy we missed all of last year,” Ford said of the point guard who transferred from St. Peter’s. “We won 17 without him. I think we win 20 with him.”
Newcomers to watch include Xavier University transfer Xavier Edwards, a strong 6-foot-9 forward, Saint Louis transfer guard Nick Kramer and highly rated freshmen Davion Hill and Tyler Bey.
There’s even a notable new face on the coaching staff with Jay Spoonhour, son of the legendary Bears’ coach from 1983-92 Charlie Spoonhour, on hand. Jay Spoonhour was head coach at Eastern Illinois, considered by many as the Siberia of college hoops, from 2012-21 with a 119-157 record.
Ford said he reached out to Spoonhour after Jase Herl left Missouri State for an assistant’s job at North Texas.
“He’s the right guy at the right time,” Ford said of Spoonhour. “I like the dynamics of this staff. Two guys (Spoonhour and Randy Peele) on the staff have been DI head coaches. The more the better. They have a clearer understanding of what it’s like to sit in this seat.”
There’s no telling in today’s college basketball world of constant roster turnover, where everyone’s roster is a new puzzle season-over-season, who will be a Missouri Valley Conference contender or pretender. This Bears’ team potentially matches up with anyone in the league. There’s talent and experience.
Now, with the season opener at West Virginia less than five months away, the work is underway inside the practice-gym walls for what will be a season of higher expectations.
The non-conference schedule is close to being finished. The Bears open at West Virginia and follow with the home opener against another NCAA Tournament team, Oral Roberts. Ford is working on making the home opener a “throwback” game, played in Hammons Student Center and complete with old-style “SMS” jerseys. That would be a blast.
Other home non-league games will be “buy games” against Sam Houston State, South Carolina State and Lindenwood. The eight team Paradise Jam in the U.S. Virgin Islands in mid-November will find the Bears facing Florida Gulf Coast in the opener and most likely Kent State (28-7 and the NCAA Tournament last season) with a first-round win.
The field includes Atlantic 10 runner-up Fordham (25-8 last season). San Jose State and Norfolk State, on the other side of the bracket, were 20-game winners a year ago.
Other road games are Middle Tennessee State, the start of a home-and-home with Tulsa and a yet-to-be named Power 5 school.
Ford realizes that fans will not be pleased that a big name is not on the home schedule. It’s not for a lack of trying. He wishes fans realized how difficult that is to pull off in this day and age.
“Our program is respected to the point where people are not lining up to say ‘we’ll play Missouri State.’ There are some teams in our league that people don’t mind playing,” Ford said. “It takes two to tango.”
Ford likens it a bit to last year’s schedule which, while liking marquee names, was rated as the best non-conference slate in the Valley.
“Our schedule might not have been ‘name pretty’ but it proved to be the best non-conference in our league last season,” Ford said.
They won’t begin keeping score until November, but Ford feels good about the possibilities entering his sixth season at MSU.
“I really like our guys and they like each other,” Ford said.
Ford already knows most of them and what they can do on the basketball court. That’s a huge advantage from a year ago.
