CMU Men Tip It Off With High Expectations
11/12/2015 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Game Notes: Central Michigan | Jacksonville State
Andy Sneddon, CMUChippewas.com
MOUNT PLEASANT, Mich. - A lot of hope, high expectations and an eagerness to tip it off.
And all with good reason.
The Central Michigan men's basketball team returns the entire starting lineup plus most of the key reserves from a team that won the Mid-American Conference championship a year ago.
The Chippewas begin the 2015-16 season on Friday at 4:30 p.m. at McGuirk Arena against Jacksonville State, then entertain Division III Alma on Tuesday.
"I think our guys are looking forward to the outside competition and getting the season started," said fourth-year CMU coach Keno Davis, the reigning MAC coach of the year. "As a coaching staff it's our goal to improve so the great thing about those first games is you can evaluate where you are and where you can improve."
Certainly, the Chippewas will find out plenty about themselves against the Gamecocks (12-19 last season). But what Davis and his staff are looking for on Friday has shifted dramatically from what it might have been in openers of the past.
The Chippewas finished 23-9 a year ago, a dramatic improvement from the 10-21 mark they posted the previous year. CMU was picked weeks ago to win the MAC regular-season and tournament titles in the poll of media who cover the league.
CMU's five starters are back, including guard Chris Fowler and forward John Simons, a senior duo that has formed the nucleus since Davis took over the program before the 2012-13 season.
Both have started every game since their freshman season, and both have a deep an understanding of and an appreciation for just how far CMU has come in three years. And an even deeper understanding of what may lie ahead.
"All of our guys are pretty good about that, not putting too much into what people think," said the 6-foot-8 Simons, who was fourth in the nation last season with a .455 3-point field goal shooting percentage. "Last year is a pretty good example. We were picked 11th (in the preseason poll) so looking at that you wouldn't think that we were going to finish first.
"No guarantees. We come in to each and every game, regardless of who it is, with the same preparation and mindset that we have to take care of business, one game at a time."
It's that mentality that helped the Chippewas springboard last season far beyond what most outside of their locker room would have ever dreamed possible. They captured the program's first league championship since 2002-03 and enter the season ranked 10th in the collegeinsider.com mid-major top 25 poll.
Guards Braylon Rayson and Rayshawn Simmons along with 6-11 sophomore center Luke Meyer joined Simons and Fowler to comprise the starting lineup in all 32 games a year ago. And while that figures to be the core of the team this season - along with key reserves Austin Stewart, Josh Kozinski and DaRohn Scott -- nothing, Davis fully knows, is ever set in stone.
"The exciting thing is, which players, even though they're veterans, have improved and can step into a different role to some extent," Davis said. "And those small improvements can mean big things to the team.
"You're looking at on the offensive side, who has improved their consistency from the perimeter, which guys have added different offensive moves to their game that you can take advantage of. Do we have a defensive stopper or a guy or two that we can put on their best player and bother him? And of course, improvement in rebounding."
Simons has led the Chippewas in rebounding for the past three seasons. Last year, he got some much-needed help from Meyer and the 6-9 Scott.
Both Scott and Meyer are noticeably thicker - and more confident on the court -- entering their sophomore seasons, and both will be counted upon to play increasingly important roles in the post.
"You would expect everybody who's back, especially young players, to be able to perform at even a higher level," Davis said. "And we think that those guys' best basketball is definitely in front of them. It's nice addition to have the size and strength that we didn't have prior to last season."
The Chippewas suffered a blow when 6-7 senior forward Blake Hibbitts injured a season-ending knee injury in preseason practice. Hibbitts came off the bench a year ago to hit 34 percent of his 3-point attempts in 15.2 minutes per game.
For the growing-wiser-by-the-minute Fowler, losing Hibbetts is an on-court blow, but also a signal to the Chippewas.
"You don't want to take the game for granted," said Fowler, the runner-up in the MAC player of the year voting last season and CMU's leading scorer in each of the past two seasons. "I don't think this team does and I don't think we ever did. The days are limited. We're going to live a lot longer than we're going to play basketball, hopefully, and we're not going to take that for granted.
"And at the end of the season if we come out of every game saying we did everything we could on every possession, we'll live with the outcome."
And that's an outcome that, today, looks very promising.
