DALLAS – It’s Oct. 21, 2021. Middle Tennessee men’s basketball is preparing for another preseason practice, just under three weeks away from opening day of the 2021-22 season.
The league had just released its men’s basketball preseason poll for the 2021 season, and head coach Nick McDevitt prepared to address his student-athletes about the Blue Raiders’ position – last out of 14 member institutions.
“We already know, coach,” said then-sophomore guard Eli Lawrence. “We know they picked us last.”
Caught off guard from his original prepared statement, McDevitt mixed up his next words.
“Well, how do you feel about that?”
“You’ll see,” responded Lawrence.
The team responded with a “spirited” practice and eventually wound up finishing the year 26-11 overall, winning the C-USA East Division with a 13-5 mark and capping the year with an appearance in the championship game of the CBI.
“You saw,” said Lawrence when asked to reflect back on that moment last October.
A year removed from tying the lowest win total in program history, the Blue Raiders matched the NCAA record for the largest year-to-year turnaround with a 21-win improvement last season. The consensus answer to what keyed this reversal was the team’s personnel.
“We had enough athleticism, length and depth to compete in a league like this,” said McDevitt. “For a while, I thought we were a little young and small at critical positions. I don’t think you can be either and win big, and we were both.”
At one point several years ago, half of McDevitt’s eight scholarship players were true freshman.
“There are certain levels I think you can have the first-year guys and still win,” McDevitt said. “I don’t think this is one of them.”
Fast forward to last season, when just three of the 12 Blue Raiders to take the court were freshman.
“We had to weather that storm and finally got to where our guys were a little bit older and we were able to bring in enough size, length and experience,” McDevitt said.
Then, with the roster in place, the next step was chemistry. Although seventh-year forward DeAndre Dishman says it was there from the beginning.
“From the start in the summer, everybody was connected and tighter,” Dishman said. “We became hungry and knew what we could do.”
Middle Tennessee jumped out to a 7-1 start, which included claiming the Mayan Division title at the Cancun Challenge after an initial loss to mid-major power Stephen F. Austin.
Over the next month and a half, the team suffered a 2-5 stretch that culminated with an 0-2 start to conference play. However, that span featured losses to Ole Miss and an eventual 31-3 Murray State squad, as well as a 14-day gap between competition after a COVID outbreak. The team managed to have just one practice ahead of the Blue Raiders’ C-USA opener against Rice.
Having not been together for that long, a pair of tight road losses in which they led in the second half didn’t feel like losses.
“They believed they could win,” McDevitt said.
And win they did. Middle Tennessee went on to win 13 of its final 16 games to claim its first regular season title since 2017-18.
Without Second Team All-C-USA selection Josh Jefferson, the Blue Raiders managed to play six postseason games, ending in a triple-overtime loss to UAB at the C-USA Basketball Championship and a double-overtime loss to UNC Wilmington in the CBI title game.
McDevitt & Company shattered all expectations but twice suffered bitter defeat in March. So now what?
“We know what it feels like to get there, but we have to grow off of that and apply it,” Dishman said.
Even after weathering the storm of lineups with just eight scholarship players or a lack of size and athleticism, McDevitt admitted that a team fresh off such a breakout season is the hardest to coach.
“The secret to this team is going to be if we are satisfied with having a great turnaround and having a pretty good season or are they still hungry to have a great season,” McDevitt said.
And to say the expectations run high in the locker room would be an understatement.
“Anything less than 26 wins wouldn’t necessarily be a disappointment, but I feel like that’s our bar,” Lawrence said.
The recipe was there for the Blue Raiders. They maintained that chip on their shoulder even after winning 26 games in the prior year. Their only two departing letterwinners were their top individuals in minutes and scoring, but they were set to return 11 others alongside a few newcomers expected to make an immediate impact.
“There are guys who want, need and expect new roles,” McDevitt said. “Guys who were coming off the bench are now starters. Guys that were ninth and 10
th men are now in the regular rotation.”
That type of roster build became even more important when team captain and key backcourt piece Jalen Jordan suffered another torn ACL on the first day of practice that would cause him to miss a second consecutive season.
“Jalen had worked so hard to get back,” McDevitt said. “He went through a hard rehab and was playing really well.”
But just as nothing had ever kept the Blue Raiders down in the past, they adapted. Without the 6-foot-2 guard in the lineup, it opened it up to some longer players in McDevitt’s arsenal such as 6-foot-7 guard Teafale Lenard Jr., a C-USA All-Freshman team honoree in 2021-22.
The league’s coaches took notice of what the program had cooking in Murfreesboro, voting Middle Tennessee to the fourth spot in the preseason poll heading into the 2022-23 campaign.
“How will that make them feel?” asked McDevitt.
“We’ll see.”