Morgan State Bears

Date/Time: Saturday November 16th @ 1:00 at the Charles E. Smith Center in Washington, DC.
Record Last Year: 9-21, 4-12 (11th in the MEAC)
Preseason Ranks: 272nd (KenPom), 267th (Bart Torvik), 347th (Sports Illustrated), 339th (CBS)
Projected Record: 15-14, 11-5 (1st in the MEAC)
Postseason Last Year: None.
Coaching Record: Kevin Broadus, 1st year at Morgan State. Previously went 37-24 in two seasons at Binghamton, including an NCAA appearance before the Bearcats program tanked considerably, mired in several assault investigations. Broadus was suspended and Binghamton just hasn't been able to recover since. A very sad story. Broadus has plenty of ties around DC, having served as an assistant at Bowie State, UDC, American, GW, Georgetown, and most recently at Maryland. For a MEAC school, this is a very solid hire in my book, and Morgan State should rise in the rankings in short time. You can already tell by the guys he's been able to bring in (more on that later).

All Time Record: 4-0, with the most recent meeting a 73-66 victory during the 2017-18 season. In that game, Yuta led the way with 26 points and 7 rebounds (to go with 5 steals! a total we are lucky to reach now as a team), with Jair (13 points) and Arnaldo (12 points) pitching in with significantly less efficiency. 

Offensive Efficiency: 295th (KenPom), 224th (Bart Torvik)
Defensive Efficiency: 242nd (KenPom), 296th (Bart Torvik)
Tempo: 108th (KenPom), 66th (Bart Torvik)

Key Returning Players:
Stanley Davis (SR; Chester, PA) 12.5 ppg, 7.1 rpg, 1.7 apg; 45% FG, 20% 3-pt, 80% FT
      2017-18 against us: 15 points; 6-7 FG, 2-2 3-pt, 1-5 FT in 31 minutes.

Sherwyn Devonish-Prince Jr. (SO; Bladensburg, MD) 10.7 ppg, 2.1 rpg, 2.2 apg; 35% FG, 27% 3-pt, 87% FT
      2017-18 against us: DNP

Isaiah Burke (SO; Bowie, MD) 9.3 ppg, 1.3 rpg; 39% FG, 37% 3-pt, 70% FT
      2017-18 against us: DNP

Kyson Rawls, Jr. (JR; Middletown, DE) 8 ppg, 1.7 rpg, 1.3 apg; 33% FG, 31% 3-pt, 82% FT
      2017-18 against us: 0-2 FG in 4 minutes.

David Syfax (SR; Detroit, MI) 7.6 ppg, 4.6 rpg; 37% FG, 34% 3-pt, 68% FT
     2017-18 against us: 13 points, 4 rebounds; 5-7 FG, 1-2 3-pt, 2-4 FT

Key Losses:
Martez Cameron (Graduated; Chicago, IL) 7.3 ppg, 2.6 rpg, 3.7 apg; 38% FG, 39% 3-pt, 59% FT

Comments:
Morgan State played a very deep rotation last year (as you can tell by the number of key returning players) but I think it says a lot that despite ranking in the top 25 in tempo, only two players cracked double figures. The Bears were just a lousy offensive team, hoisting up enough bricks that could make a whole street of houses. The good news is that Kevin Broadus is a home run hire for them, and the Bears pretty much run it back from last year (minus Martez Cameron, who was their main PG). It remains to be seen whether the Bears will continue sprinting up and down like last season (at Binghamton, Broadus had teams ranked 273rd and 98th in pace his two seasons). The increase in tempo from the first to second year might indicate that Broadus has a desire to continue running a fast-paced offense, but early indications show that the Bears are unlikely to continue playing quite that fast, at least this season. At the very least, expect Morgan State to shoot a few more threes (not anywhere close to our rate though) and get to the hoop more than they did under Bozeman, who fell in love with the inefficient midrange shot much like our team in previous years. Morgan State was actually fairly decent on the defensive end by MEAC standards (7th in the conference) but just could not get anything going offensively, and transition opportunities were completely mishandled. 

Broadus does have some returning pieces to work with in his first year at the helm. It does help that Sherwyn Devonish-Prince Jr. and Isaiah Burke are now experienced at the D1 level and are ready to make the sophomore jump in the backcourt. Neither was an efficient shooter last year, although Burke is far and away the best shooter from deep on this team (2/3 of his attempts have come from 3 so far this season, and he has knocked them down at a respectable 35% rate). I am sure with time though the refined system that Broadus runs will help their efficiency some (early returns have both shooting over 40% from the field, but Prince is just 1-8 from the FT line...OUCH). With Cameron gone, expect Burke and Prince to share the ball handling duties at point.

Another guy that can help out with ball-handling and playmaking is Stanley Davis, a 6'4" guard from Chester, PA (Jameer Nelson's hometown) who can play multiple positions on the floor and is Morgan State's leading returning scorer. While he is also off to a great start distributing the ball with 3 assists per game, the bigger stat that jumps out is his rebounding. Davis averaged 7 boards a game last year (and has similar numbers thus far this season) - by comparison, the next highest average on the Bears is fellow senior David Syfax who averaged just under 5. In many ways, Davis represented the 2018-19 MSU team as a whole - loved taking midrange shots, and was active on the boards to salvage poor offensive possessions. Stopping him will be key to stalling the Bears offensively, and that includes keeping him off the glass. LaPri McCray-Pace is the final key guard in their rotation. As his name suggests, he prefers to play with great pace in transition and doubles as a solid rebounder much like Davis.

While I do think Bart Torvik's Preseason Projected Record for Morgan State is high, there is definitely a reason to believe the Bears are trending up this year. Apart from the aforementioned returners, Broadus hit the transfer portal to inject some more talent and athleticism to the roster, landing what I'll call the "transfers Troy" (it has nice alliteration to it), Troy Holston, Jr. and Troy Baxter, Jr. Both Troys are journeymen, with Holston (a top 150 recruit out of HS) spending time at South Florida and St. Joe's, and Baxter (a top 100 recruit out of HS) at UNLV and Florida Gulf Coast. It appears Holston has not seen any action yet, but Baxter has been an impact guy right out of the gate, posting 7 points and 5 rebounds per 21 minutes of action (on not so great efficiency). The addition of Baxter will help Syfax out up front, along with another transfer in Jamar Brown, a walk-on who was formerly on scholarship at Wagner (he is one of 9 walk-ons on the roster; the entire freshman class is made up of walk-ons). Brown is averaging 6 points and 4 rebounds per game to begin the year, not bad numbers at all for a backup. Expect Syfax, Baxter, and Brown to get most of the minutes up front.

The remainder of Morgan State's rotation don't figure to make a big impact. Kyson Rawls is a name I mentioned in the 'key returners' section, but Broadus has appeared to give him the Armel treatment and not give him the opportunities he had previously, although Rawls does still average 17 minutes a game. Malik Miller will eat any remaining minutes at guard, although he is still pretty raw offensively (his 80% FT shooting suggests he could be an impact guy in a couple years though). Up front, Victor Okafor, Peter Sorber, Dutchman Lagio Grantsaan, and former Stephen F. Austin forward turned walk-on Stefon Fisher will vie for backup minutes, as well as former Tulane player Taron Oliver, Jr. (for those counting at home, there are six 'Jr.'s on the team). Oliver hasn't seen any action yet, but was a 3 star recruit out of HS and those kinds of players don't come every day to a school like Morgan State.

With the number of guys I've mentioned, it's clear Broadus is still tinkering with rotations ahead of conference play. I hope we do the same. Whether Amir plays or not, I hope to see some other guys get some action in this one, namely Armel (which will likely be dependent on how much we are leading by). We haven't seen Shawn and Chase yet either, the latter of course because of injury, but are there any plans to redshirt Shawn? If he doesn't play tomorrow, I don't see him getting any time the remainder of his freshman year. Hope JNJ is a bit better with his turnovers. He has the ability to make some really nice plays, but if he turns the ball over 3-4 times in a short span, I'd sit him down in favor of someone else. That would serve as the right balance between letting him play through mistakes and holding him accountable for the turnovers. MSU is a better rebounding team, so it will be interesting to see how many rebounds AT can pull down in this one. I also think some of Javier's minutes should go to Juice and whoever else is having a great day shooting the ball. I wouldn't be surprised if we saw another lineup change tomorrow. Morgan State is not known for taking away the three ball, so we should be able to run our offense JC style, although teams aren't shooting great against them from deep yet (which is of course a bit of luck as well). Hope we can turn some of those three point percentages around heading into conference play (I know tough given the personnel, but I just don't see us shooting 29% the rest of the year).

Predicted Score: GW 75, Morgan State 66. 82% chance to win (Bart Torvik). ESPN says we have an 80.5% chance to win. Hoping for the best!
 

Last edited by dmvpiranha (11/15/2019 1:30 pm)

I don't agree GWmayhem. More important this year for JC to establish a number of things other than W's and L's. He will not be judged on his record year 1. More important, for him to establish his style of play and program culture. Those that fit will stay and those that don't won't. He is recruiting players that will fit his system. If you are trying to establish a certain playing style it makes no sense to junk it just to try and win a single game early in the year. He is learning about his team and his players are learning what it is going to take under JC. It's a question of long-term gain for short-term pain.

GWRising, I was not suggesting that JC should have shelved his gameplan for the AU game.  I understand the need to teach players his systems.  What I was suggesting was that after 30 minutes or so, I felt it was time to make the adjustments that would have enabled GW to take advantage of their athleticism.  Even though GW would go on to take the lead, I never really saw any adjustments that allowed for this.  Examples:  we never figured out their pick and rolls all night largely because our taller players were slow to pick up their guards (or just weren't able to).  We insisted on staying big which helped allow Nelson and Beckton to have huge games (combined 33 points on over 50% combined shooting).  Mazzulla was desperately needed for defense and Juice should have been given some more run as well.  Instead, Mezie and Javy took their minutes.  And, we needed to force some turnovers with "mayhem" but this was not even attempted.  AU turned the ball over 7 times the entire game.  These things are not even necessarily deviating from JC's principles.  Simply put, we needed to be more aggressive and more athletic when the game was on the line against a team like AU.  You'll never see me make this statement against VCU or in fact, most A10 schools because we won't have this advantage.  Even in the final possession, not giving the foul was one thing but we didn't even attempt to double team Nelson with 2 seconds left.  If we had, he either has to make a shot with two guys on him or he must make a quick pass and have someone else get off a shot, all within two seconds.  Instead, it looked like 4 defenders watching Nelson play Mezie one-on-one.  Where was the pressure?

The Dude, I am sure the computer models had this as a relatively even game and rightfully so given our record last season along with the loss at an actually pretty good Towson.  However, GW plays in the A10 and AU plays in the Patriot League.  We are able to recruit better basketball players and in my estimation, we did have an obvious advantage in talent.  We lost not because the talent level of the two teams is relatively equal but because we failed to take advantage of our strengths, at least that's how I saw it.  This year's GW team ought to be 5-7 wins better than last year's team.  On our home court, the AU game should have been a clear victory.  Credit to AU for playing smart and hard but I'm not convinced it should ever have come down to a final possession type of game.

Almost 4 minutes in and it's 2-1 Morgan State.  What a stinky game.

A10 Talk @A10Talk 52s 
GW currently limiting Morgan St. to just 28% from the field. That’s the good news. Bad news is Colonials shooting just 30% and their lead has been cut to 1 with 2:55 left in the first. #RaiseHigh

Has JNJ been playing the 1 or the 2?  I have to imagine if Harris is playing that JNJ is locked in as the 2.

Armel with some nice minutes at the end of the half

Hurt his leg on defense. Limped off the court, come back later, and quickly came off again. Is back on the court at halftime but not looking like he’s going to play (standing with assistants)

WOW
Jameer Nelson Jr with a THROWDOWN dunk