Middle Tennessee State University Athletics
COLUMN: Playing with an identity
1/23/2022 6:45:00 PM | Men's Basketball, Women's Basketball, BRAA
Both Middle Tennessee basketball teams have distinct styles of play. That makes them even more fun to watch, Doughton says.
MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — I fell in love with college sports for a lot of reasons. The passion of each school's fanbases, the year-round ability to cheer on your favorite school, or just watch any two schools in the country play, and the ability for athletics to be a path to improve one's future all appealed to me.
Even things more in minutate of the sport, like the coaching carousel and tracking recruiting rankings made things more fun as my understanding of the collegiate athletics world grew.
But right at the top of the list of why, if you catch me at the right moment, I'll still insist that college sports are better than professional sports is this: college sports lends itself to so many different identities for teams to play. And now that we're nearing halfway through the C-USA season in both men's and women's basketball, it's been amazing to watch each team's identity get realized in real time this season.
To be fair to the NBA and its contemporaries in other professional sport leagues, there is some form of identity in every team. The Grit N' Grind Memphis Grizzlies obviously played a very different style than the fast-paced Mike D'Antoni Phoenix Suns, for instance.
But over time, as the teams gathered more information on the most efficient way to play, rules like a shorter shot clock and more stringent foul calls changed what was optimal, and talent adjusted their own skill sets accordingly, each NBA game has a tendency to look fairly similar on a night to night basis.
That's far less true of college basketball, where success can be found with a plethora of different ways depending on the players each team has, and in what way the coach wants to use them. And both the 2021-22 Blue Raiders and Lady Raiders have distinct styles that make them stand out from their C-USA peers. Which makes watching them in the Murphy Center all the more exciting.
We'll start with Nick McDevitt's squad, since they've had the lion's share of C-USA home games thus far. Their identity is simple on its surface, but hard for opposing teams to handle. Full-court pressure defense through a variety of defensive sets speeds the other team up, leading to turnovers MT tries to turn into easy points. Offensively, MT runs a lot of its set through a high post player, with hard cuts both on and off screens to get open. Crucially, however, they attack the offensive glass, trusting their natural length to help prevent fast breaks while going for second chance points.
And of course, the most critical part of such a high-effort system is a deep bench, with minutes distributed relatively evenly each game depending on who has the hot hand, either offensively or defensively.
For Rick Insell's Lady Raiders, from what I've heard in my months on campus, their identity hasn't changed all that much since Insell was the coach at Shelbyville High School. That's a great thing, of course, because those Shelbyville teams were pretty darn good. Insell's teams also start defensively, though more focused on their halfcourt defense, where physicality and teamwork to create turnovers is emphasized, usually in the form of corner traps this season in particular. Offensively, the Lady Raiders have the ability to "shoot the heck out of the basketball," as Insell says, so a lot of their sets are focused on finding an open perimeter shot, though the team has renewed its focus on going inside since the start of conference play, to decent success.
So great, these two teams have distinct identities. What's the point? Well, dear reader, my point with this Sunday breakdown is two-fold:
1. The identity of both of these teams is fun to watch and is successful. Maybe it's just the COVID year messing with my mind, but the Murphy Center can get loud on the turnovers both teams can generate defensively, creating their own energy even on nights where shots aren't falling. And if the shots are finding the net? Well, I'm not sure there's a more entertaining ticket in the mid state for the winter.
2. Not every team has an identity as well defined as these two teams do, which makes their success all the more likely. For me, either watching teams come visit the Murphy Center this year or flipping through after work on TV, I can usually figure out what a team is trying to accomplish. Almost none of them are as consistent in what they're trying to do as MT basketball is this season.
So, if you haven't already, come to the Murphy Center in the coming weeks! The best part of the C-USA schedule this year is that a lot of the teams' most important games, the ones against their East division counterparts, are back loaded, so every game down the stretch will have vital importance heading into tournament play.
I really think you'll grow to love the identity of these teams, and college sports themselves, if you haven't already.
Even things more in minutate of the sport, like the coaching carousel and tracking recruiting rankings made things more fun as my understanding of the collegiate athletics world grew.
But right at the top of the list of why, if you catch me at the right moment, I'll still insist that college sports are better than professional sports is this: college sports lends itself to so many different identities for teams to play. And now that we're nearing halfway through the C-USA season in both men's and women's basketball, it's been amazing to watch each team's identity get realized in real time this season.
To be fair to the NBA and its contemporaries in other professional sport leagues, there is some form of identity in every team. The Grit N' Grind Memphis Grizzlies obviously played a very different style than the fast-paced Mike D'Antoni Phoenix Suns, for instance.
But over time, as the teams gathered more information on the most efficient way to play, rules like a shorter shot clock and more stringent foul calls changed what was optimal, and talent adjusted their own skill sets accordingly, each NBA game has a tendency to look fairly similar on a night to night basis.
That's far less true of college basketball, where success can be found with a plethora of different ways depending on the players each team has, and in what way the coach wants to use them. And both the 2021-22 Blue Raiders and Lady Raiders have distinct styles that make them stand out from their C-USA peers. Which makes watching them in the Murphy Center all the more exciting.
We'll start with Nick McDevitt's squad, since they've had the lion's share of C-USA home games thus far. Their identity is simple on its surface, but hard for opposing teams to handle. Full-court pressure defense through a variety of defensive sets speeds the other team up, leading to turnovers MT tries to turn into easy points. Offensively, MT runs a lot of its set through a high post player, with hard cuts both on and off screens to get open. Crucially, however, they attack the offensive glass, trusting their natural length to help prevent fast breaks while going for second chance points.
And of course, the most critical part of such a high-effort system is a deep bench, with minutes distributed relatively evenly each game depending on who has the hot hand, either offensively or defensively.
For Rick Insell's Lady Raiders, from what I've heard in my months on campus, their identity hasn't changed all that much since Insell was the coach at Shelbyville High School. That's a great thing, of course, because those Shelbyville teams were pretty darn good. Insell's teams also start defensively, though more focused on their halfcourt defense, where physicality and teamwork to create turnovers is emphasized, usually in the form of corner traps this season in particular. Offensively, the Lady Raiders have the ability to "shoot the heck out of the basketball," as Insell says, so a lot of their sets are focused on finding an open perimeter shot, though the team has renewed its focus on going inside since the start of conference play, to decent success.
So great, these two teams have distinct identities. What's the point? Well, dear reader, my point with this Sunday breakdown is two-fold:
1. The identity of both of these teams is fun to watch and is successful. Maybe it's just the COVID year messing with my mind, but the Murphy Center can get loud on the turnovers both teams can generate defensively, creating their own energy even on nights where shots aren't falling. And if the shots are finding the net? Well, I'm not sure there's a more entertaining ticket in the mid state for the winter.
2. Not every team has an identity as well defined as these two teams do, which makes their success all the more likely. For me, either watching teams come visit the Murphy Center this year or flipping through after work on TV, I can usually figure out what a team is trying to accomplish. Almost none of them are as consistent in what they're trying to do as MT basketball is this season.
So, if you haven't already, come to the Murphy Center in the coming weeks! The best part of the C-USA schedule this year is that a lot of the teams' most important games, the ones against their East division counterparts, are back loaded, so every game down the stretch will have vital importance heading into tournament play.
I really think you'll grow to love the identity of these teams, and college sports themselves, if you haven't already.
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