Mid-Major Madness: All Posts by Adam Hermann

#WATCHTHEM: The Damage Wichita State Can Do

2013-05-10T12:45:02Z

It has been a little over a month since Wichita State made its improbable run to the Final Four. We chronicled that here, along with all the reasons why and why not the Shockers had a chance to win the whole thing. Our own Adam Hermann looks back at the run that was. Thanks to coach Gregg Marshall for his assistance.

Judging only from a few quick Wikipedia facts, one might conclude that Wichita State University is a farming school. Their mascot, the Shocker, is a shortened version of the school's previous nickname, the Wheatshockers. The mascot's image is a grinning, aggressive shock of wheat. The school's newspaper is named The Sunflower. One Wichita State satellite campus is located in Maize, Kansas; "maize" is a commonly used name for corn.

In the grand scheme of college basketball, Wichita State might as well be on some plot of land in the middle of Kansas. They compete in the Missouri Valley Conference (MVC), often considered the most elite mid-major conference in the country. Of course, this is like complimenting someone for being the fastest runner on his or her junior varsity track team.

At least, that's how the six major conferences treat mid-major conferences such as the MVC. But when the Shockers broke into the mainstream's eye this past March, they suddenly were garnering attention from the same basketball analysts who had been ignoring them all season. For those who had been following them since November, their season slogan of "#WATCHUS" had never rung so true.

The Run

All season long, mid-major fans knew that the Shockers were something special. They had continued to "#WATCH" them. Now the rest of the country was finding out what they had been missing.

"I have never seen our community so thrilled about Shocker hoops," one Shocker fan, who asked to be cited as FSF, said. "Everywhere I went, folks were discussing it and joining together to witness the games all over town and in their homes."

With an endowment one-fiftieth - yes, that's fifty, as in five-zero - the size of the University of Michigan, the Shockers were able to push through Midwest region, reaching the national semifinals just the same as the Wolverines. A student body of 14,806, just 66.4 percent of their semifinal opponent Louisville, was enthralled by the determination of 14 young men and their resilient coaching staff, helmed by Gregg Marshall, who is now working on his second mid-major project as head coach.

After serving as head coach of Winthrop for nine seasons of .700 basketball and leading the Eagles to seven NCAA Tournament appearances, Marshall knows a thing or two about special mid-major programs and what they can do for an area.

This Shockers run had that kind of magical impact.

"When we were playing in the tournament and winning, you heard from folks back home saying, ‘The city is on fire!' or ‘This place is electric!'" Marshall said.

Yet the impact on the community in the immediate sense is just one aspect; for a coach like Marshall and a program like Wichita State, the goal is long term success and the building of a rabid fan base, both of which can be born from a run as influential as the Shockers' streak.

"I think the overall feeling of "I can do this" is instilled in the community," he said. "A positive vibe overcomes the entire area, city, region, which translates to more folks starting projects or taking a chance because they see good in what the Shockers achieved."

They are more than a school with a funny mascot and a one-off tournament run in Gregg Marshall's eyes. Wichita State's men's basketball team sent a message in late March to America, alerting them to the kind of strength and talent that can come out of Charles Koch Arena on East 21st Street. More importantly, they sent a message to the Wichita community, convincing themselves that this run was supposed to happen, and could happen more than once.

They can do this.

The Plan

Here at Mid-Major Madness, unlike most fans of the annual NCAA Cinderella story, we pay attention to the little guys all year long. It takes an extra level of dedication because mid-majors don't get the same national television coverage that Big Ten teams do.

Which is why, when we ruminate on the run, it feels more satisfying than anything else. Not disappointing that they lost, or frightening that it might not happen again. It felt good to watch it happen.

So many major conference team fans automatically discount teams from the other conferences. They don't think it is possible for a run like this to occur. But when you watch these teams for four months, you see the potential -- and we specifically had the numbers to back up that potential -- and it doesn't come as a shock.

Not only do we find validation in Wichita State's emergence on the national stage, it seems entirely believable that a run like this could change the Shockers basketball program long-term.

The Shockers could be that next consistent threat, a la VCU and Butler, who have seen their past successes in the tournament translate into consistently competitive programs on the national stage. Gregg Marshall is building a team based on strong high school and JUCO recruiting. And most of all, they face a top level of competition in the Missouri Valley, even though few people acknowledge that.

This team could make the next several tournaments, and the only thing that should hold them back is themselves.

For all of their success this season, however, the Shockers' most profound impact on the mid-major community will come into focus in the next year or two.

The college sports landscape has recently been put through a washing machine, shaking it up and spitting it out new and fresh. It sounds exciting, but the refreshing of conference alignment has hit smaller conferences hard. Even the MVC has felt the effects of realignment, with Creighton, its flagship basketball program, jumping ship to join the new Big East.

Teams have scattered from the smaller mid-major conferences in search of more generous paydays. If Wichita State decides to stay in the Missouri Valley Conference, it would be a boon for the MVC and mid-major fans everywhere.

It brings to mind the differing patterns that teams have taken lately versus what Gonzaga University did after the 1999 NCAA Tournament.

This past season, Butler and VCU moved to the Atlantic-10 after their deep tournament runs, looking to elevate their respective profiles with a bigger name mid-major conference.

However, in 1999, Gonzaga burst onto the scene with a run in the NCAA Tournament akin to what Wichita State did this year. They reached the Elite Eight rather than the Final Four, but they knocked off a number of higher-seeded teams as a 10-seed en route to a single-digit loss to the eventual tournament champion.

As Ron Lieber of the Wall Street Journal pointed out in 2004, the university experienced a 65-percent increase in the size of the freshman class between 1997 and 2003 in the wake of the run. Head Coach Dan Monson left for the head coaching position at the University of Minnesota, the school his Bulldogs had beaten in the first round of their Cinderella run.

Yet Gonzaga stood pat, staying in the West Coast Conference, their longtime home.

If the Shockers decide to stay in the MVC after this run in the tournament, and with Creighton gone, they would unquestionably be the premier basketball program in the conference. It could give them a sense of consistency and a strong reputation, two facets that Gonzaga has used to build their program. Since that 1999 run, the Bulldogs have won at least 23 games and have appeared in the NCAA Tournament each year.

Wichita State should take the same approach.

They need to do everything they can to keep the program running consistently, much like Gonzaga has with Mark Few. They should think very hard about staying in the Missouri Valley Conference and becoming the dominant players there for the foreseeable future. That will give them the best chance of the sustained success that can come from this run.

The Lesson

It is hard to realize in the heat of the moment that winning is not the only way to create a legacy.

On Saturday, April 6, 2013, it was hard to swallow the loss for all of Shocker Nation. Yet just minutes after the crushing loss to Louisville, Gregg Marshall sat on a black folding chair in the Wichita State locker room in the Georgia Dome and told his team to keep their heads held high. He told them that they should be proud of this season. That they should be proud of the way they played, and how far the team progressed in the NCAA Tournament. And that they should be proud to wear the Wichita State jersey.

"This isn't the end," Marshall said, "because you've done something that now every team that ever plays at this university will strive to repeat."

Marshall spoke with the future in mind. He spoke of the fans the team had gained during the run, from the city of Wichita, to the western United States, to the fans that they did not even know about.

This speech was not just about this tournament run. Marshall was using this loss to explain the larger impact of what those young men had just done for the school that gave them this opportunity. Those people in Wichita, and Kansas, and around the country were not just rooting for these players. They were rooting for a new program, a new logo, and a breath of fresh Kansas air.

After he and his team returned home to Wichita, the ever-impressive head coach took out a full-page newspaper ad in the Wichita Eagle, thanking the team's fans for their rabid support throughout the regular and postseasons.

At the bottom it read, "We Keep Marching."

Matt Brady and the State of the CAA

2013-04-24T01:03:10Z

This season, the James Madison Dukes of the CAA played a meaningful game against the Indiana Hoosiers of the Big Ten. For this, and for their CAA Championship victory, JMU decided to give head coach Matt Brady a four-year extension on Tuesday.

While it was a 21-point dissapointment (get it?), there's something to be said for Brady's ability to will his team to that game in the NCAA Tournament. The Dukes were the third-best team in the Colonial all season, deemed by many to be a semifinal challenger but ultimately unworthy of the conference's autobid.

Instead, as a certain Mid-Major Madness writer predicted, they ran the table in the tournament and then topped LIU-Brooklyn for the program's first Tournament win since defeating West Virginia in 1983. Matt Brady has now been rewarded thusly.

But what of the CAA as a whole?

Well, the most volatile team that remains in the now excruciatingly made-over conference is actually James Madison. The grandest of rumors have swirled around their potential departure, and after reaching the NCAA Tournament and extending Matt Brady for four years, Colonial members should be sweating it out the next week or so.

If ever there were a time to make a conference switch, the time would be sooner, rather than later. The Dukes' are at a high, and high-tailing it out of the CAA with a confident coach in tow would make JMU look like a program on the rise.

However, according to William & Mary Athletic Director Terry Driscoll, all current members of the CAA have verbally agreed to stay. It will be interesting to see how individual programs treat this commitment in the coming months and even years with conference realignment wreaking havoc all over mid-major land.

In terms of reconstructing their profile as a mid-major power conference and enticing programs to join in the future, the conference is hoping to actually add three more schools in the near future. The current count stands at nine, and speculation is rampant. But it seems, as our own Parks Smith put it, that the two choices are either expanding south or expanding north.

The only two Virginia-based schools left are James Madison and William & Mary, which puts the conference at a crossroads: do they want to balance out the locations of their members by adding southern schools? Or do they want to move north and commit to a northern profile?

If the rumors of James Madison's potential departure prove to hold weight, they might be better off going with the latter program and shooting up north. Two names that come up that are located far from the conference's Virginia roots are Albany and Stony Brook.

Of course, a grand part of this is speculation. If James Madison is truly committed to furthering their program within the CAA, this conference could rebuild in the coming years and not deviate from their identity.

With Matt Brady in tow until 2017, the Dukes control their destiny. They might just control the Colonial's as well.

Chris Fouch Granted Sixth Year of Eligibility

2013-04-16T01:10:13Z

We are constantly reminded of how sports are team-based ventures. And yet one player is often the difference between an average team and an elite one.

One player who could have made a world of difference this past season is Chris Fouch, Drexel's elder statesman guard who, after missing all but 81 minutes of the 2012-2013 season, will return for his sixth and final season this fall. The news broke on Twitter from City of Basketball Love.com writer Josh Verlin:

Just got word that the NCAA has officially given Drexel's Chris Fouch his 6th year. @jonrothstein @caahoopsstaff @jakelfischer
— Josh Verlin (@jmverlin) April 16, 2013

This comes as no surprise; the last time Mid-Major Madness spoke with Drexel head coach Bruiser Flint, he was confident that Fouch would be eligible to return. Fouch played just two and a half games this past season, scoring 50 points in those 81 minutes before he broke his ankle in the second half of the Battle of 33rd rivalry game against the University of Pennsylvania.

With his return, the Dragons once again become a team to fear in the CAA, as they were last September before stumbling Fouch-less to a first round conference tournament exit. With his return, Frantz Massenat in his final season as a Dragon, and Damion Lee reaching what should be a peak season, the Drexel backcourt is -- on paper -- the best in the Colonial.

Coaching Carousel: Hofstra To Hire Niagara's Joe Mihalich

2013-04-10T00:39:25Z

After a season (and early offseason) of bad news, Hofstra felt it was time for their men's basketball program to catch a break.

On Tuesday, after a long on-campus visit, the Pride hired now former Niagara head coach Joe Mihalich.

According to an unnamed source close to the process, the team is expected to make a formal announcement on Wednesday about the filling of their head coaching position, left vacant after Mo Cassara was fired following a disappointing 2012-13 campaign.

This is a landmark move for both programs. Mihalich spent 15 years at the helm of the Purple Eagles' program, running up a record that saw him 62 games over .500 at the end of this season. He led the team to two NCAA Tournaments in that time, and was actually named MAAC Coach of the Year this year.

That award, combined with the fact that a 7-25 record was able to lure a well-established coach like Mihalich, is what makes this hire so impressive for the Pride. They don't have much in the way of excitement or future promise; after Taran Buie announced that he intends to transfer earlier this offseason, the team will be losing much of its (already shallow) scoring.

It will be interesting to see what Mihalich says tomorrow in the press conference and if he comments on his intentions in the coming season with this program.

One thing's for certain: nobody could have predicted this working out better for a Hofstra team in desperate need of direction and leadership.

Taran Buie to Leave Hofstra After Cassara Firing

2013-04-03T17:34:22Z

I remember writing my first iteration of the CAA Power Rankings back on November 19, placing the Hofstra Pride in the fifth slot out of eleven teams. They had just racked up three straight wins led by Taran Buie, including an impressive win over Nate Wolters and South Dakota State. But, while the Jackrabbits of SDSU would end up in the NCAA Tournament, the Pride ended up winning just four games after that three-game streak.

When the season ended, Hofstra fired head coach Mo Cassara, disappointed in his coaching efforts despite him being shorthanded after the crime circle early in the season that involved of his four players.

And now, says Rob Dauster, the Pride have lost their leading scorer, Taran Buie.

So much for "Pride."

Buie, who was a Penn State transfer, has two more years of eligibility after sitting out the 2011-12 season post-transfer. He averaged 12.4 points and 3.6 rebounds, leading the team in scoring among players with a minimum of 10 games played.

This is rough news for a Hofstra program that was already going to be in dire need of points next year. Along with the departure of Buie, Stevie Mejia and David Imes are graduating, taking their collective 19.5 points per game with them. That's more than 31 points per game departing an offense that was already number 333 in the nation. Yikes.

It will be interesting to watch the reactions of Jimmy Hall and Shaquille Stokes after Cassara's firing and Buie's departure. The two, who played only seven games each because of the aforementioned crime circle, were key players in the Pride's hot start. Hall had a shot at making the CAA All-Freshman team as he was averaging 12.7 points and 9.4 rebounds per game, and Stokes brought 10 points per game, albeit on 27.8 percent shooting.

Now, with the basketball program crumbling around them, do they make a move? If so, do they stay in the CAA or elsewhere?

A telling milestone in their respective futures will be when Hofstra fills the head coaching vacancy. When they find the ~~poor soul~~ right man for the job, he'll have to talk to the players and convince them that what he brings to the table is worth sticking around for.

Even with Hall and Stokes hanging around, however, it's hard to envision a scenario in which the Pride aren't at the bottom of the CAA come March of 2014.

The Grass Is Never Greener

2013-04-02T23:52:11Z

What do Shaka Smart, Brad Stevens, and Andy Enfield have in common? Well, it's a pretty obvious common thread. The three have taken their respective college basketball programs to unexpected heights in the NCAA Tournament over the last three years.

In essence, they coached Cinderellas. At schools like VCU, Butler, and Florida Gulf Coast, it takes ingenuity and creative coaching to get a Cinderella team to great lengths in the craziness that is March Madness. Smaller teams are going up against powerhouse programs with seemingly unlimited resources and recruiting power at their hands, and yet the coaches of these smaller teams devise schemes that are able to find loopholes and the potential for success.

Smart, Stevens, and Enfield have all been able to do just that. They've taken small schools without recent Tournament longevity and coached them to national recognition, capturing the adoration of the American media and people along their journeys.

However, there is one thing that separates two from the other.

Smart, who coached his VCU Rams to a Final Four berth in 2011 and led them back to the Tournament in the two years since, signed a contract extension that has him at VCU until 2023.

Stevens, after his first national championship run with Butler in 2010's March Madness, signed a 12-year extension that keeps him a Bulldog through 2022.

But Enfield, the most recent sensational Cinderella coaching story, decided yesterday to ditch his FGCU Eagles and head diagonally across the country for the head coaching job at USC.

It was a curious move to be certain, and not one that we wanted to see happen. But when you move past the obvious, shocking lack of loyalty, what stands out is how little sense this move makes for Enfield logically.

Enfield is heading to a USC program that finished 14-18 overall and went 9-9 in a Pac-12 that wasn't exactly on top of its game. The Trojans are losing their top scorer Eric Wise, and two of their top four scorers. In total, the team is losing 25.5 points per game from their top seven contributors due to graduation. Not exactly a recipe for immediate success.

By staying at FGCU, Enfield would have been stepping back into a fan base who worshipped the ground he walked on (they're pretty crazy, you know -- they shouted this) and started to build something special down there. In his two years as head coach, he took an Eagles team that went 10-20 the year before, added five wins, and reached the finals of the Atlantic Sun Conference championship. This year, Enfield found a way to tack on 11 new wins and win the Conference championship, propelling the team to the NCAA Tournament. We all know what happened from there.

He would be losing Sherwood Brown, a rough loss as Brown was essentially FGCU's mascot during the tournament run. But after Brown, no other player averaging 6.0 points per game or better is graduating. Turnover would have become turnover, and the school could have started to work towards building an Atlantic Sun juggernaut.

Instead, Andy Enfield and the Trojans are the match made in commercial heaven. He brought the world Dunk City, and USC is in California, the most commercial area in America. But what kind of success can Enfield actually have with the Trojans if he's stepping into such a precarious situation? After all, his new employer's sports programs are better known for their failed draft picks and their scandals than anything resembling basketball success.

First, I ask if Enfield can recruit well in California? It depends on what you consider recruiting "well." He'll be fighting off Steve Alford and the mythic allure of playing for UCLA, an uphill battle, and only has a Sweet 16 run to his name. Sure, he'll get a few players who loved Dunk City like the rest of us. But players who are serious about playing college basketball in California know that UCLA is the place to be, whether they have Wooden, Howland, Alford, or George Washington at the helm.

And then I ask if Enfield will have the chance to build anything at USC? Next season doesn't seem promising with the departures and no jump on this year's recruiting class. If next season isn't successful, what will entice recruits to come to USC? The fact that their head coach had a burst of success in 2013 and then failed the next year? Not exactly a big ticket item for serious players with big dreams.

Maybe I'm wrong about the USC job. Maybe Enfield's heralded relentless recruiting prowess will create a whirlwind of success for the program.

But I know that I'm not wrong when I say that, had he consulted the likes of Shaka Smart and Brad Stevens instead of the likes of Hollywood, he would have stayed with his Dunk City purveyors. And, like them, he could have created something special for a school that already found its place in the hearts of armchair analysts around America.

FGCU's Andy Enfield To Interview With ODU? (Updated)

2013-04-01T18:37:19Z

In case you hadn't noticed, the college basketball world has been extremely active as of late. It makes sense; last month was March.

But on MLB's Opening Day, college hoops refused to sleep as the pile of coach-less schools and intriguing candidates continued to intrigue.

After Florida Gulf Coast's improbable run to the Sweet 16, their head coach Andy Enfield was destined to field offers from higher profile programs. Today, news broke that he and Old Dominion actually began talking before the Tournament about him filling their head coaching position.

The Monarchs have had a hole at the top of their coaching staff after they fired Blaine Taylor on February 5. Taylor had taken over the program in the 2001-2002 season and led Old Dominion to their most successful stretch in history with a .649 conference winning percentage during his ten year tenure.

According to the Virginia-Pilot's Ed Miller, the two parties conducted a Skype interview on March 14 before the NCAA Tournament began.

As Miller reports, the Monarchs had planned to finish their job search before this week after interviewing former Western Kentucky head coach Dennis Felton and UNC assistant Steve Robinson, among others. But Athletic Director Wood Selig says that the school will wait for the right candidate.

Will Enfield be that right candidate? Only time will tell.

One thing we know for sure is that stepping from the Atlantic Sun Conference and a program like Florida Gulf Coast to Conference-USA and a storied school like Old Dominion would be big time movement for Enfield.

And he'd have March Madness to thank for it.

UPDATE: Another thing we know for sure is that Enfield's Fort Myers home is on the market, according to Fox News. In a story published on March 29, the house is apparently being sold for $50,000 less than the original buying price, which makes it seem like he's trying to move it sooner rather than later.

After today's news about Old Dominion, it seems as if he has something in the works. Maybe he's confident in his chances with the Monarchs, or maybe he's been chatting with the folks in Minnesota.

Either way, check back this week for updates as we continue to stalk Andy Enfield's house and telephone calls. In a non-creepy way.

Full Time Out: Drexel's James "Bruiser" Flint

2013-03-29T23:30:18Z

Mid-Major Madness: If you could pinpoint one major reason as to why the season went the way it did, what would it be?

Bruiser Flint: "We just didn't play well at the ends of games, you know? And that's the bottom line, we didn't make plays at the ends of games. We've got a lot of other reasons, but honestly, most of our games came down to the last two or three minutes, and we just didn't pull it out. We didn't make plays on either end of the floor, whether it was defense, offense, foul shots, you know what I mean? We just didn't make plays."

MMM: What's the biggest lesson your team can take away from this season?

BF: "We've gotta be tougher, we've gotta be mentally tougher in what we do. That was a big reason we didn't play well at the end of the games. We just weren't mentally tough enough to get over the hump. We have to understand that a little bit, and then another thing that we learned is we have to prepare better. I don't know if we were prepared, mentally or physically, for what was in store for this season. I think in a lot of ways we just thought it was gonna happen like the season before, and it didn't. It's a different type of pressure, and we didn't handle it well."

MMM: We've heard complaints about your team's defensive drop-off this year. It wasn't huge, but what do you make of it, if anything at all?

BF: "Everybody talks about our defense, but I mean, teams really still only score 60 points on us [it was actually 63.3 points per game, but we'll give Bruiser some wiggle room]. We're not gonna hold everybody to 50 points per game. But some of our defensive woes were because of the things we did on offense, and I think that once we got into league play, we got a little better in that way. I think any team will take holding teams to 60 points per game, that wasn't our problem. We weren't as good as we were last year, without question. But a lot of our issues were on the offensive end, not the defensive end."

MMM: Switching gears, let's talk about Damion Lee for a second. What did you make of his inconsistency this year, and how can he improve for next year?

BF: "One of the things with Damion was that he was injured and he was sick at different times during the year, so he had one stretch where he was really good, and the next stretch he wasn't really good. He had an illness where he lost 10 pounds and I didn't think he ever recovered from that point. And of course there was his bothersome knee.

But again, he has to realize that when you're playing at that caliber, he and [junior guard Frantz Massenat], they have to realize there's a different type of mentality coming at you after [Lee] was Freshman of the Year, and [Massenat] was Preseason Player of the Year, and so I told them that you've become circle players. They circle you because they know what types of players that you are. At times I don't think those two handled that well, but you know, you learn from it. [Lee] is only a sophomore. As much as we want to complain about it, he's still the third-leading scorer in the conference as a sophomore. So he was a little inconsistent, but you have some bumps and some injuries, but he's got a bright future."

MMM: Can you give us word on the potential return of Chris Fouch?

BF: "We've put the paperwork in, and we'll find out after that goes through, but the people here don't feel that it should be a problem. But you never know."

MMM: If/when Fouch returns, how much confidence do you have going forward for next season?

BF: "We've still got a lot of guys returning. The one we struggled to do this year is score, and the one thing that [Fouch] does well is score. But I actually thought [Kazembe Abif] had a pretty good season, and he was probably our most improved player over the season, so we'll look for good things from him. Hopefully [freshman guard Tavon Allen] can do a little better after he was thrown into the fire a little bit. I don't think he was really ready, but now he's got a taste of it, and if you watch him, you see he's got a lot of talent. I think [Seton Hall transfer] Freddie Wilson will add something as he gives us a different type of player. And then we'll need probably our young guys to step in because we did lose [senior forward Daryl McCoy], so our freshmen bigs will have to come in and give us some minutes. But we do return a pretty good nucleus, and like I said, I think the biggest lesson we had to learn this year is how prepare. And not just physically, but how we prepare mentally to take on the challenges we're gonna have in front of us."