MSU players hoist the CIT championship trophy after Tuesday's win over Pacific.
You can make fun of the Collegeinsider.com Tournament all you want, calling it the battle for the right to be the 114th best team in the country and crack jokes about parade routes, net cutting ceremonies and CIT banners hanging next to other more prestigious banners. But know this, by winning the 16-team postseason tournament, the Bears just took a blowtorch to its gasoline can of 2011 expectations.
And admit it, relevancy feels good.
This unbridled confidence is exactly how you wanted to feel about the Bears after this season. And you should be overjoyed. In a nutshell, the Bears went from an 11-win team to a squad that won 20 games in the regular season, and then won a tournament that helped propel last year’s champ (Old Dominion) to a first-round NCAA Tournament victory this season. The hyperventilating is pervasive, and that’s perfectly OK. Relevancy is refreshing and paper bags are welcome. Pass them around.
You should expect the Bears to make a run at the Missouri Valley Conference and the NCAA Tournament next season. That’s the natural next step. Besides, everyone returns from a roster of a 24-12 team, except for senior point guard Justin Fuehrmeyer. That’s 11 returning players, making up 95.5 percent of this year’s scoring, 94.1 percent of this year’s rebounding and 80.6 percent of this year’s assists. Add in two more wing players, as well as a point guard in the recruiting class and the roster should be as deep as the pockets of Tiger Woods (minus the mistress payouts).
MSU men's basketball coach Cuonzo Martin
I said this when I started my old site, RecSpecsOnline.com and still believe it now with TAGsgf.com, when Bears basketball is good, the Ozarks is a better place. Still, I want to help you put it all in perspective. Yes, challenging for MVC titles and NCAA berths is one thing, but it might be time to curtail your MSU = Butler-Xavier-Gonzaga talk, at least for now. MSU coach Cuonzo Martin said he’s been asked if the Bears are on the verge of being able to duplicate the recent success of the previously mentioned mid majors with winning NCAA results.
“That’s 10-plus years. That’s constant recruiting,” Martin said. “That’s building a program. We don’t want to be one and done. That takes time.”
Still, the Bears have done well enough to validate a metric ton of preseason hype, and Martin knows it. In the post-game press conference after the Bears 78-65 victory over Pacific Tuesday night, the Bears’ second-year coach said he fully expected MSU to be either No. 1 or No. 2 in the preseason MVC rankings. And I love that he brought it up, and the fact how while he didn’t know what to expect this season, he hinted that 15 wins might have been the benchmark.
“You’re looking at hopefully you could get 15 wins going into the season, if we could get 15 with seven new guys. … I couldn’t see into the crystal ball, so I couldn’t tell you, I just want our guys to play hard and compete and 24 wins, that’s a major step for our guys,” Martin said.
That’s exactly what Martin has brought to the table. You can joke about how he juggles the same phrases like, “Stay the course” “Level of toughness” or “Have a certain mindset,” but he has come in and rejuvenated the fan base in a way we haven’t seen with a cupboard of talent to match. Sure, JQH Arena has a lot to do with it — the Bears went 19-2 there this season — but the program feels legitimate to me. When Martin was asked how he would grade himself on this season as a young coach, MSU Athletic Director Kyle Moats amorously blurted out, “A” before the 38-year-old Martin could answer. The coach’s adoration is that full-fledged, whether it was that press conference, during an extended radio appearance with Jock 98.7 FM’s Sports Reporters or on fan message boards.
Kyle Weems took steps toward becoming a better defender and rebounder this season.
While we are talking about improvement, we have to talk about how Martin used the CIT perfectly. He didn’t let the players get complacent. He juggled with the rotation, putting guys on notice. We saw Nafis Ricks become a fixture in the starting lineup. We saw the big man rotation take more turns, with Will Creekmore, the CIT MVP, not in the starting lineup during the Louisiana Tech game. After playing only 27 minutes in the first three CIT games and finding himself squarely in the lack-of-defense-and-hustle doghouse, Caleb Patterson led the Bears with 16 points in 23 minutes after Creekmore got in foul trouble. It would have been easy to let the season play out and let the players assume their roles for next season. Instead, he put everyone on notice — and I think it revealed the go-to lineup for next season.
Regardless of whether it’s Creekmore, Patterson or Isaiah Rhine in the post next season, Martin has to give a bulk of the minutes to the team’s top four: Ricks, Adam Leonard, Jermaine Mallett and Kyle Weems. And I think they have to play together, at the same time. No, Weems isn’t a power forward, but he’s a versatile enough defender and an improving rebounder that he can be enough of a matchup problem that’s worth the risk. Most importantly, it provides a landscape for all five starters to score in double figures. That’s hard to match at any level of D-I basketball, let alone in the MVC.
The schedule looks nice, too. The Bears will play at Elite 8-bound Tennessee in the next season’s preseason NIT. They will begin a 2-for-1 with Oklahoma State, meaning the Bears will go there twice to the Cowboys’ one trip to JQH. Rick Majerus’ Saint Louis Billikens are back, the same team that just lost in the CBI championship. Tulsa should remain formidable. It’s unlikely the Bears can get anyone else impressive on the schedule on short notice, but stranger things have happened.
Of course, part of the expectation is that the team will improve between now and next season. It’s easy to assume that just because a 24-win team brings back 11 players that they will make the leap to greatness. Before the CIT started, we were lamenting the Bears shortcomings in (another) late-game collapse against Wichita State in the MVC Tournament.
Still, lone senior Justin Fuehrmeyer said he feels that the team has the goods to make the next step.
“They have everyone coming back and everything they need for a championships,” Fuehrmeyer said. “They’ll be right up there with a chance to win the league and who knows from there.”
Instead we’re singing their praises after wins over Middle Tennessee State, Louisiana Tech, Creighton and Pacific. Sure, it’s not exactly Murderer’s Row, but it’s a start. Better to be 114th than not, right?
Now, bring on next season, because the Bears are relevant, once again.
