Post-Christmas Murray State Mailbag
Let's go back in time and pretend we still write letters to one another
I hope you all had a great Christmas and are (hopefully) enjoying your week of vacation with friends and loved ones — or you sent everyone home and you’re simply savoring the week of peace and quiet.
Over on Facebook, I asked for some of your questions about the men’s and women’s programs, and I thought I’d answer some of them here. Some of the questions were shortened for brevity purposes.
Here we go:
What is the biggest reason Murray State men’s seem to, for the most part, not be able to get off to a good start to a game/half the last year and a half? — Jordan Williams
The first part of this, which can probably be applied in some part to every answer here, is that Steve Prohm is 20 months removed from a complete gutting-it-down-to-the-studs rebuild of this program. Heck, he didn’t even get the satisfaction of gutting it — the proverbial studs were just handed to him. In 2006, Billy Kennedy had to do essentially the same thing in a program that was in the Ohio Valley Conference and had been to 11 NCAA Tournaments in 19 years. Even with those factors, it took Kennedy until his fourth season to get the Racers back to a championship level. Once you add in making the leap from the 27th-ish ranked conference in the OVC to a Top 10-ish conference in the Missouri Valley, it’s impossible not to recognize that this program is swimming in much deeper waters.
Lastly, in this new era of NIL, the recruiting landscape has been turned on its head in the last few years. Murray State coaches used to be able to walk recruits into the CFSB Center and tell the kids to look up. They’d show them the banners and retired uniforms, and then paint the pictures of winning championships and having the chance to follow in the professional footsteps of Popeye, Marcus, Canaan, Payne and Ja. The coaches would sell “Tradition.” When it comes to recruiting today, especially when trying to recruit the level of player Prohm and his staff are trying to get, the banners are fine — but players want to know what financial additives will come with their scholarship papers. That’s not every player, and certainly each player has different hopes and dreams, but it’s a giant component added to the entire recruiting process. Frankly, Murray State is behind in the NIL space. Back in October, the Blue & Gold Standard was introduced as “an NIL collective dedicated to enhancing opportunities for Murray State student-athletes.” That was ten weeks ago. That program is essentially an infant when compared to other schools who were able to get ahead of the NIL game a little bit sooner. Hopefully, Murray State’s NIL program will have gained enough traction, and funding, to be able to help Prohm once “Portal Season” opens up in mid-March.
OK. That was a long walk around the block to say Murray State is playing tougher competition with top-to-bottom talent that is not where it will be in a couple of years. That’s the way rebuilds work. You get your first team in the door, and then you just keep trying to add on. With this year’s edition of the team, there are two glaring issues for me. Firstly, I’ve been surprised that this veteran group of guards don’t seem to value every possession as if it’s their last. Between missing layups, missing front-end’s of 1-and-1’s, dribbling off their foot, making lazy passes — the number of unforced turnovers and mistakes is at a level that is just unacceptable. The margin for error is impossibly small right now, but it’s not like the Racers have shown they can’t swim in those waters. They’ve lost six games by six points or fewer. With even a small number of those mistakes not happening in those games, there is no way Murray State is sitting at 3-9.
The second issue is flatly defense. There are 362 Division I men’s basketball teams. Murray State is #325 in defensive efficiency, #334 in three-point defense, and #318 in two-point defense. Opponents make adjustments and they’re simply taking advantage of poor defense. Throw in the unforced mistakes and giving up runs ends up being inevitable.
Who do you think would become a surprise star for the women's team among the least used players? — Charles Dustin Roberts
It’s actually hard to narrow down “least used players” since Rechelle Turner plays everybody. She has eight players playing at least 17.3 minutes per game, and everybody that has played in all nine games has seen at least 7.3 minutes a night.
This may not be exactly what you’re looking for, but I’ll go with “surprise star” from the group of underclassmen for this exercise. I’m going to go with freshman Haven Ford. I love her upside. Kentucky’s 2023 Miss Basketball has acclimated herself to the college game quite nicely. Ford is averaging 8.3 points and 4.2 rebounds a game. Despite being one of the team’s smaller guards, she’s fourth on the team in rebounding. She plays so hard. Not one Racer has gotten to the free throw line as much as she has this year — 74.4% on 39 attempts. Ford has struggled from three at just 25.0% (8-for-32), but she’s too good of a shooter not to see that improve over time. She’s had a heck of a start to her career, and I can’t wait to watch her continue to grow as a player.
Any updates on Malek and Shawn? — Jimmy McBee
The good news on Shawn Walker Jr. is that his return seems to be nearing, relatively speaking. He strained his MCL when Quincy Anderson fell into him in the game at Austin Peay December 9th. Recovery for an injury of that type is usually in that 4-6 week window. Walker has already shed the knee brace he was walking with, and says he’s feeling good. Before he can play again, he’ll need to start going through individual work on the side, then some 5-on-0 in practice, and finally 5-on-5 full contact in practice. Before Christmas, none of those boxes had been checked as of yet. Walker is one of the best perimeter defenders the Racers have, so they’d love to have him back sooner than later. We’re still likely a couple weeks away.
As for Malek Abdelgowad, he’s been dealing with a groin injury he aggravated in practice before the Illinois State game. It’s been seemingly one-game-on, one-game-off for him every since. Hopefully with 12 days off between his last appearance at Little Rock and the next game at Middle Tennessee game, that will have been enough time for him to rest and get enough treatment to have him back to 100%. Abdelgowad is the biggest interior presence the Racers have, and they’ll need his size in Valley play.
Questions regarding the women's team: 1) Jaidah Black just returned from injury last game, and Halle Langhi, Charlee Settle and Lucia Operta are still not dressing out. What is the timeline for their return and how impactful will being able to insert at least two additional forwards into the Racer rotation be in the MVC? A little early, but how many conference wins will be needed for a 4-seed or better in the conference tournament? Way too early (but that has never stopped you before), what do you think the ceiling for this team is and what step should we be looking for next in the climb to that plateau? — Kent Harmon
Kent wins today’s award for jamming as many questions into one question as legally allowed by law. Kudos, Kent.
Firstly, as for Langhi, Settle, and Operta, coaches aren’t technically supposed to discuss illness and/or injuries of players under FERPA laws. Some do, some don’t. Rechelle Turner generally doesn’t. Ultimately, I’m not sure how much they’d be playing anyways. The three combined to average 7.7 minutes a game last season. Turner can’t play everybody. She’s already got 11 players playing at least 7.3 minutes per game, with Jaidah Black waiting in the wings to get back into the rotation as well when she’s fully healthy. Between Katelyn Young, Hannah McKay, Ava Learn and Black, I think they’ll have plenty of size for Valley play.
How many wins for a 4-seed? That will depend on how much the bottom of the league improves. Last year, only five of the 12 teams finished with a winning conference record, and those five all had at least 14 wins. I think 14 is still a pretty safe number to stick on the wall.
We’re about to find out about the ceiling of this team. The Racers currently sit at 7-2. Last year, they finished the non-conference, wait for it, at 7-2. Turner said this system was built to try to compete at a higher level, faster, in the Missouri Valley. That journey starts Saturday. Simply put, the Racers bring the #1 scoring offense in the country into conference play. That’s not a bad place to start. Until proven otherwise, I expect them to make a run at one of those top-four seeds. Beyond that, let’s just enjoy the ride for now.
Are we going to start seeing more of the talented Freshman Rice? Is it time to build for the future? — John David Poynor
With Shawn Walker out, we’ve gotten to see more time for freshmen Patrick Chew and Lawrent Rice. Rice played about 90 seconds at Mississippi State and then scored his first collegiate points in nine minutes last Friday against SMU. I think the best compliment I can give Rice is he didn’t look out of place. SMU still had all their dudes in when Rice came entered the game, and he didn’t appear to be the proverbial fish out of water. The game didn’t appear to be too fast for him, as he finished five points, two rebounds, one assist and two steals.
When it comes to Rice, while he did make a three-pointer, shooting is not his strength right now. He’s a playmaker and a facilitator and does a good job of getting other people involved. Like everybody on this team, the main questions around him are: Can we guard? Will he guard? If the answers are yes, I think he’s absolutely shown that he can get some more minutes. The problem with this season has been that every game, except SMU, has ended up close. There have been next to no low-leverage minutes to get Rice into the game to let him get comfortable. For now, I’m all for throwing him and seeing if he can continue to swim.
As for building for the future — that’s a fine line to walk. You need to be able to play young guys to show them they have a place in the program, but if the young guys aren’t your best guys, how do you play them a lot? “Building for the future” can also be looked at as “Punt on this season and try to get ready for next year.” There will be no punting. I totally get your question, but I don’t think it’s a viable situation right now.
What, in your opinion, has to change about the Men’s game for them to turn it around? Or is it too late to turn it around? They seem to stay competitive in the first half and then just get outplayed in the second half of games? — Zachary Adams
The Racers have had plenty of bad first halves this year too. Outside of Bradley, the easiest answer is they don’t stay locked in for 40 minutes. Again, back to the margin for error, if you can’t put together a complete 40-minute effort, you’ll get beat at this level. Period. The frustrating part of it this season has been we’ve seen that effort. The bar was set against Bradley. The Racers just need to get back there again.
After the SMU game, I had countless people ask me what was wrong with Murray State’s offense. I’ve seen countless people question Shawn Walker’s playing time when he’s struggling to score. I ask all of you to start looking at this team through one prism, and that’s defense. We’re all ball-watchers, and we see who scores the ball — that’s natural. Unfortunately, this season it’s been Murray State’s opponents doing the scoring.
I was perplexed about the offensive questions following the SMU loss where the Mustangs made 15 three-pointers and scored 92 points. Here’s some quick numbers I pulled up after that loss last Friday. Since the 2010-11 season:
2,435 teams allowed their opponents to make at least 15 three-pointers in a game. Those teams won only 15.5% of the time.
8,126 teams allowed their opponents to score at least 92 points in regulation. Those teams won only 3.9% of the time.
1,219 teams allowed their opponents to make at least 15 three-pointers AND score at least 92 points in regulation in a game. Those teams won only 3.4% of the time.
If you’re trying to figure out the answer as to why the Racers can’t score more, you’re simply looking at the wrong question. This team has lost games because they haven’t defended well enough — hard stop. You can’t just go outscore people. There has to be a consistent and concerted effort to defend. That’s the puzzle Steve Prohm and his staff are trying to solve this week. Is it more zone? Is it more pressing? Is it different personnel? Those answers will start to reveal themselves on Saturday against Middle Tennessee.
Is it too late to turn things around? Absolutely not. There are still 19 games left in the regular season.
Is time running out? Most certainly. The Racers will get their “Get out of Jail Free” card on Tuesday when they return to Missouri Valley play with a 1-1 record. But if the defensive effort from December doesn’t improve in January, the sands will fall through the hourglass of this season faster than any of us want to see.