Middle Tennessee State University Athletics
COLUMN: Ahead of CUSA play, what can Men’s Basketball do to right the ship?
1/7/2024 4:42:00 PM | Men's Basketball
There are sparks in MTSU’s play that might ignite the Blue Raiders in the second half of the season
MURFREESBORO, Tenn. — Outside of his opening statement, Nick McDevitt didn't talk much about the Middle Tennessee men's basketball teams 84-47 win over Reinhardt on Wednesday night.
"I thought our team's preparation over the last couple of days was from a maturity standpoint what you wanted to see," McDevitt said of the win over the 5-8 NAIA foe. "I thought our guys respected our opponent, Reinhardt, tonight and came out ready to play. They practiced the right way the past couple of days, clearly soaked in the scout and did a nice job tonight."
The 12-minute press conference for McDevitt, Justin Bufford and Jalen Jordan instead centered on one major question: What can y'all do to turn this season around?
When you enter Conference USA play with a 6-9 record, the problems a basketball team must fix are almost too numerous to list. But most teams with a 6-9 nonconference record weren't picked as co-favorites for the CUSA title at the start of the season, and thus don't have the players available to them that prompted those expectations.
While injuries to center Josh Ogundele and, particularly, Preseason All-CUSA point guard Camryn Weston have forced the Blue Raiders to figure things out on the fly, the pieces this team has to work with should be producing much better basketball than the Blue Raiders have played up to this point in the season. And while many, many things will need to be corrected to finish near the top of the league, there's flashes shown by the Blue Raiders this season to demonstrate how that just might happen.
Here's three points of the emphasis the Blue Raiders must succeed in to reach their goals in CUSA play.
Find the Rhythm on Offense
Most of the column inches, podcast hours and social media chatter surrounding Blue Raider Men's Basketball this winter has been focused on the offense, which has been, charitably, in a rut ever since Weston tore his ACL during MTSU's win over Stephen F. Austin on November 9.
As of 1 p.m. on Sunday, KenPom ranks MTSU's offensive efficiency as the 334th best in college basketball. With 362 teams in Division-I this year, that puts the Blue Raiders in the bottom 30 offenses in the country. While the Blue Raiders are above average on the offensive boards, a poor outside shooting game (26.7 percent, 349th in CBB) and scary turnover percentage (20.5 percent of possessions, 324th in CBB) are the two biggest metrics weighing down the Blue Raiders' offensive performance.
There's been progress, at least on the court, in solving the underlying problems causing those two metrics to skyrocket since Weston's absence. The decision to move Jestin Porter back to off-ball guard, with both Jalen Jordan and O'zhell Jackson sharing time at point guard, has resulted in more open shots in the flow of the offense for MTSU, particularly in the first half against Murray State. There were plenty of opportunities to land devastating blows from outside against the Racers.
"We definitely had to step up," Jordan said. "It's still new for some people, including myself as well, but I think we all looked at each other and told ourselves that we have to step up."
Unfortunately, the shots did not fall, with a plethora of players MTSU expected to be contributors outside going through dry spells all at the same time, notably Justin Bufford and Porter. The pair combined to shoot nearly 40 percent from three in CUSA play last season but have combined to shoot just 23.6 percent from beyond the arc this year. Positive regression, so to speak, is almost certainly on the horizon.
"(Bufford) shot 40 percent from three last year," McDevitt said after the Reinhardt game. "If you continue to play the right way, eventually a good shooter starts making shots. Seeing one go in tonight for him and some others is going to be really good for us, really big."
McDevitt also pointed out that having more players shoot successfully from outside will open the games of slashers like Jackson and Jacob Johnson.
"(Jackson's) kind of a downhill guy, likes to get others involved," McDevitt said. "Well, that's not as easily done if the paint is packed in because of who else is out there and whether or not they're making shots. As we start to get in a shooting flow, a shooting rhythm, it allows other guys (to get involved). They may not be shooters, but they flourish well with shooters around them."
With facilitating roles more stabilized following Weston's injuries, along with the continued installation of more plays and sets from the coaching staff, I anticipate the players MTSU expects to be shooters will get more open looks in CUSA play than they got in November and December. And if those players in shooting slumps can re-find their touch, the offensive metrics should pick up enough for the Blue Raiders to become a threat.
Get back to Blue Raider Basketball on Defense
Injuries to Weston and Ogundele forced McDevitt to shorten his bench minutes early in nonconference play. Those additional minutes for starters, as well as not going 10 or 11 deep off the bench, resulted in MTSU slowing the pace of the game down drastically. There are just seven teams in college basketball that play at a slower pace than MTSU is playing this season.
That's helped the Blue Raiders stay a relatively decent defensive team through non-conference play, particularly from outside (where MTSU is ranks in the top third in opponent three-point percentage) and in keeping teams off the foul line (MTSU ranks in the Top 50 in opponent free throws taken per game).
But that defensive identity, defending half court sets for 30 seconds at a time, not giving up threes or fouls, has taken the Blue Raiders away from the havoc they were known for the past two seasons, most often done through diverse pressing schemes in the backcourt coupled with frequent rotation off the bench.
A season ago, MTSU ranked 24th in opponent turnover percentage. In the CUSA East Division Title season of 2021-22, MTSU was 68th in the same category. In 2023-24, the Blue Raiders are ranked just 229th in opponent turnover percentage.
"We were just playing too soft," Justin Bufford said. "That's not who we are, the last two years that hasn't been who we are. We're a tough bunch of guys. We pride ourselves on being tougher than anybody."
McDevitt has, after Christmas, gone back to that press, high rotation, defensive scheme that helped spark MTSU to back-to-back semifinal appearances at the CUSA Tournament. And the head coach was pleased with the minutes the back end of the bench gave him after the switch.
"Every guy has got to be ready to play," McDevitt said. "Over the last 3-4 weeks, we've started to develop a little bit more depth. Chris Loofe has played really well for the last month. Tre Green is starting to give us quality minutes. Ty Mosley is starting to give us quality minutes."
MTSU often got a spark on both ends of the court from their various presses, which have the benefit of disrupting the offensive rhythm of their opponent even if MTSU isn't turning them over. And if you listen to Bufford, the pressing and rotation likely helped develop the team's overall identity in years past.
A return to those pressing schemes should help the Blue Raiders find that edge that's been missing at times defensively, which could also help solve the handful of other, recurring problems (giving up dribble-drive pressure, allowing too many offensive rebounds) in myriad ways.
Find a way to stay mentally disciplined
In Aaron Sorkin's The West Wing, White House Chief of Staff remarks that elections are often won on just one square foot of real estate, the candidate's head. For the Blue Raiders, I think each person managing their one square foot of real estate will be the biggest difference maker in the second half.
Even in a disappointing first half of the season, there were segments in nearly every game that showed that the team's moment-to-moment ceiling was still high. MTSU had double-digit leads over UAB, Southern Utah and Murray State and held a nine-point lead over Wofford. All four of those games resulted in losses.
Conversely, MTSU was unable to recover from early game runs at St. Mary's or in the Bahamas against UIC and Ohio. Handling both success and adversity, McDevitt said, has been a point of emphasis.
"That's an area this team has to grow a lot in," McDevitt said. "There's been times where we get off to a good lead and we start trying things because we've got an 8, 9, 10-point lead early in the game. 'It's our night! We're hot!' You tend to hit those dry spells.
"The opposite has happened," he continued. "When you're playing on the road against good teams, they're going to make plays. You're facing some adversity, but you've got to handle that well. Just being more consistent is something that we've talked about."
MTSU must find ways to stay mentally tough enough to avoid turnovers on offense, particularly non-steal TOs like offensive fouls and errant passes, where KenPom ranks MTSU in the bottom ten teams in the nation. Mental toughness will help the Blue Raiders make more free throws (MTSU sits just outside the bottom 20 in free throw percentage nationally). And it should help the team's occasional defensive lapses, such as getting beat down the court in transition, something that's happened at least once a game after the holiday break.
"Conference play is all about being disciplined and getting better every day," Bufford said. "If we just take the mindset of 'nobody's going to deny us' and just keep being consistent, I believe in conference play, we'll come out pretty good."
Perhaps more important than mental discipline for MTSU, however, is belief in one another that they can turn things around. Confidence, reasonably, might be down after the results of the winter. But, in my opinion, the ability is still there to find a way to win. Does the team still believe that? Jalen Jordan thinks so.
"We need to keep executing and continue to believe in each other, because believing is the biggest thing," Jordan said.
The early CUSA schedule sets up well for MTSU, with no games against WKU or Liberty, who look to be the two top teams in the CUSA this year after the Hilltoppers 70-68 win over the Flames on Saturday, until February. Outside of Thursday's game against LA Tech, who sits just inside the KenPom Top 100, the highest KenPom ranking MTSU will play in January is No. 161, Jacksonville State. Four of MTSU's six games in January will be at home.
The opportunity is there to change the arc of the season for the Blue Raiders. It won't be easy by any means. If even one of the myriad issues I discussed today doesn't improve, the margin for error is so small, that one issue might still end up being the difference between wins and losses. But I think they've got a chance. And I know I'll be watching, with eagerness, the rest of the way, to see if they can take it.
"I thought our team's preparation over the last couple of days was from a maturity standpoint what you wanted to see," McDevitt said of the win over the 5-8 NAIA foe. "I thought our guys respected our opponent, Reinhardt, tonight and came out ready to play. They practiced the right way the past couple of days, clearly soaked in the scout and did a nice job tonight."
The 12-minute press conference for McDevitt, Justin Bufford and Jalen Jordan instead centered on one major question: What can y'all do to turn this season around?
When you enter Conference USA play with a 6-9 record, the problems a basketball team must fix are almost too numerous to list. But most teams with a 6-9 nonconference record weren't picked as co-favorites for the CUSA title at the start of the season, and thus don't have the players available to them that prompted those expectations.
While injuries to center Josh Ogundele and, particularly, Preseason All-CUSA point guard Camryn Weston have forced the Blue Raiders to figure things out on the fly, the pieces this team has to work with should be producing much better basketball than the Blue Raiders have played up to this point in the season. And while many, many things will need to be corrected to finish near the top of the league, there's flashes shown by the Blue Raiders this season to demonstrate how that just might happen.
Here's three points of the emphasis the Blue Raiders must succeed in to reach their goals in CUSA play.
Find the Rhythm on Offense
Most of the column inches, podcast hours and social media chatter surrounding Blue Raider Men's Basketball this winter has been focused on the offense, which has been, charitably, in a rut ever since Weston tore his ACL during MTSU's win over Stephen F. Austin on November 9.
As of 1 p.m. on Sunday, KenPom ranks MTSU's offensive efficiency as the 334th best in college basketball. With 362 teams in Division-I this year, that puts the Blue Raiders in the bottom 30 offenses in the country. While the Blue Raiders are above average on the offensive boards, a poor outside shooting game (26.7 percent, 349th in CBB) and scary turnover percentage (20.5 percent of possessions, 324th in CBB) are the two biggest metrics weighing down the Blue Raiders' offensive performance.
There's been progress, at least on the court, in solving the underlying problems causing those two metrics to skyrocket since Weston's absence. The decision to move Jestin Porter back to off-ball guard, with both Jalen Jordan and O'zhell Jackson sharing time at point guard, has resulted in more open shots in the flow of the offense for MTSU, particularly in the first half against Murray State. There were plenty of opportunities to land devastating blows from outside against the Racers.
"We definitely had to step up," Jordan said. "It's still new for some people, including myself as well, but I think we all looked at each other and told ourselves that we have to step up."
Unfortunately, the shots did not fall, with a plethora of players MTSU expected to be contributors outside going through dry spells all at the same time, notably Justin Bufford and Porter. The pair combined to shoot nearly 40 percent from three in CUSA play last season but have combined to shoot just 23.6 percent from beyond the arc this year. Positive regression, so to speak, is almost certainly on the horizon.
"(Bufford) shot 40 percent from three last year," McDevitt said after the Reinhardt game. "If you continue to play the right way, eventually a good shooter starts making shots. Seeing one go in tonight for him and some others is going to be really good for us, really big."
McDevitt also pointed out that having more players shoot successfully from outside will open the games of slashers like Jackson and Jacob Johnson.
"(Jackson's) kind of a downhill guy, likes to get others involved," McDevitt said. "Well, that's not as easily done if the paint is packed in because of who else is out there and whether or not they're making shots. As we start to get in a shooting flow, a shooting rhythm, it allows other guys (to get involved). They may not be shooters, but they flourish well with shooters around them."
With facilitating roles more stabilized following Weston's injuries, along with the continued installation of more plays and sets from the coaching staff, I anticipate the players MTSU expects to be shooters will get more open looks in CUSA play than they got in November and December. And if those players in shooting slumps can re-find their touch, the offensive metrics should pick up enough for the Blue Raiders to become a threat.
Get back to Blue Raider Basketball on Defense
Injuries to Weston and Ogundele forced McDevitt to shorten his bench minutes early in nonconference play. Those additional minutes for starters, as well as not going 10 or 11 deep off the bench, resulted in MTSU slowing the pace of the game down drastically. There are just seven teams in college basketball that play at a slower pace than MTSU is playing this season.
That's helped the Blue Raiders stay a relatively decent defensive team through non-conference play, particularly from outside (where MTSU is ranks in the top third in opponent three-point percentage) and in keeping teams off the foul line (MTSU ranks in the Top 50 in opponent free throws taken per game).
But that defensive identity, defending half court sets for 30 seconds at a time, not giving up threes or fouls, has taken the Blue Raiders away from the havoc they were known for the past two seasons, most often done through diverse pressing schemes in the backcourt coupled with frequent rotation off the bench.
A season ago, MTSU ranked 24th in opponent turnover percentage. In the CUSA East Division Title season of 2021-22, MTSU was 68th in the same category. In 2023-24, the Blue Raiders are ranked just 229th in opponent turnover percentage.
"We were just playing too soft," Justin Bufford said. "That's not who we are, the last two years that hasn't been who we are. We're a tough bunch of guys. We pride ourselves on being tougher than anybody."
McDevitt has, after Christmas, gone back to that press, high rotation, defensive scheme that helped spark MTSU to back-to-back semifinal appearances at the CUSA Tournament. And the head coach was pleased with the minutes the back end of the bench gave him after the switch.
"Every guy has got to be ready to play," McDevitt said. "Over the last 3-4 weeks, we've started to develop a little bit more depth. Chris Loofe has played really well for the last month. Tre Green is starting to give us quality minutes. Ty Mosley is starting to give us quality minutes."
MTSU often got a spark on both ends of the court from their various presses, which have the benefit of disrupting the offensive rhythm of their opponent even if MTSU isn't turning them over. And if you listen to Bufford, the pressing and rotation likely helped develop the team's overall identity in years past.
A return to those pressing schemes should help the Blue Raiders find that edge that's been missing at times defensively, which could also help solve the handful of other, recurring problems (giving up dribble-drive pressure, allowing too many offensive rebounds) in myriad ways.
Find a way to stay mentally disciplined
In Aaron Sorkin's The West Wing, White House Chief of Staff remarks that elections are often won on just one square foot of real estate, the candidate's head. For the Blue Raiders, I think each person managing their one square foot of real estate will be the biggest difference maker in the second half.
Even in a disappointing first half of the season, there were segments in nearly every game that showed that the team's moment-to-moment ceiling was still high. MTSU had double-digit leads over UAB, Southern Utah and Murray State and held a nine-point lead over Wofford. All four of those games resulted in losses.
Conversely, MTSU was unable to recover from early game runs at St. Mary's or in the Bahamas against UIC and Ohio. Handling both success and adversity, McDevitt said, has been a point of emphasis.
"That's an area this team has to grow a lot in," McDevitt said. "There's been times where we get off to a good lead and we start trying things because we've got an 8, 9, 10-point lead early in the game. 'It's our night! We're hot!' You tend to hit those dry spells.
"The opposite has happened," he continued. "When you're playing on the road against good teams, they're going to make plays. You're facing some adversity, but you've got to handle that well. Just being more consistent is something that we've talked about."
MTSU must find ways to stay mentally tough enough to avoid turnovers on offense, particularly non-steal TOs like offensive fouls and errant passes, where KenPom ranks MTSU in the bottom ten teams in the nation. Mental toughness will help the Blue Raiders make more free throws (MTSU sits just outside the bottom 20 in free throw percentage nationally). And it should help the team's occasional defensive lapses, such as getting beat down the court in transition, something that's happened at least once a game after the holiday break.
"Conference play is all about being disciplined and getting better every day," Bufford said. "If we just take the mindset of 'nobody's going to deny us' and just keep being consistent, I believe in conference play, we'll come out pretty good."
Perhaps more important than mental discipline for MTSU, however, is belief in one another that they can turn things around. Confidence, reasonably, might be down after the results of the winter. But, in my opinion, the ability is still there to find a way to win. Does the team still believe that? Jalen Jordan thinks so.
"We need to keep executing and continue to believe in each other, because believing is the biggest thing," Jordan said.
The early CUSA schedule sets up well for MTSU, with no games against WKU or Liberty, who look to be the two top teams in the CUSA this year after the Hilltoppers 70-68 win over the Flames on Saturday, until February. Outside of Thursday's game against LA Tech, who sits just inside the KenPom Top 100, the highest KenPom ranking MTSU will play in January is No. 161, Jacksonville State. Four of MTSU's six games in January will be at home.
The opportunity is there to change the arc of the season for the Blue Raiders. It won't be easy by any means. If even one of the myriad issues I discussed today doesn't improve, the margin for error is so small, that one issue might still end up being the difference between wins and losses. But I think they've got a chance. And I know I'll be watching, with eagerness, the rest of the way, to see if they can take it.
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/ Men's BasketballFacility tour – Stephen and Denise Smith Student-Athlete Performance Center
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2025 Blue Raider Blitz Media Panel
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MTSU Men's Basketball Coach Nick McDevitt interview at 2025 Blue Raider Blitz
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MTSU Men's Basketball Post Game Press Conference vs Chattanooga NIT 3/18/25
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