Men's basketball to follow 21-win season with new faces
For Keno Davis and Central Michigan men's basketball, it has been two years since the program had a winning record in Mid-American Conference play.
After finishing last season by winning four of its final five conference games and a trip to the Collegeinsider.com Postseason Tournament, CMU wants to build off of last season's late success.
“By the end of last season we were playing some of our best basketball. I believe this team is better than it was a year ago,” Davis said. “We are still working some things out, but I think fans are going to see we’re a much improved overall team.”
In Davis' seventh season with the program, CMU earned a 21-15 (8-11 MAC) record by the end of the 2017-18 season — the second-highest win total since 2002-03. CMU has also finished .500 or better for the past four seasons which hasn’t been done since 1970.
Despite over 20 wins, the Chippewas were picked to finish last in the MAC West Division and 11th overall in the conference in 2018-19.
New faces
In total, CMU has five new transfers on its roster – Larry Austin Jr., Romelo Burrell, Rob Montgomery, Kevin Hamlet and Dallas Morgan. With senior guard Shawn Roundtree, the Chippewas are tied for the second-most transfers on their squad in the MAC.
As for the returning players, the Chippewas bring back just one senior in Roundtree, juniors Corey Redman, David DiLeo, Kevin McKay, Matty Smith and Austin Ervin and sophomores Innocent Nwoko and Matt Beachler.
Austin, Roundtree, McKay and DiLeo are all expected to start this season. The fifth spot for the other forward position has not yet been decided. Davis listed Montgomery, Burrell, Hamlet and Nwoko as four players who will see time in the rotation at the five position early in the season.
“For most years the lineup I’ve started on day one has started throughout the season,” Davis said. “That might be different this year because of the newcomers and guys gaining experience.”
High expectations
The Chippewas finished last season third in the MAC in scoring offense. Davis expects the team to finish top 20 in the country in scoring offense this season. He also thinks this is the best defense he will have at CMU.
“You will now see we can win some games defensively, when in the past we might have had to win with our offense,” Davis said.
The Chippewas return three of their four top scorers from a season ago – Roundtree (14.8 points per game), DiLeo (12.4) and McKay (12.2). Roundtree also led the team and was sixth in the conference with 4.2 assists per game (151 total).
The offense will run through guards Austin and Roundtree this season, like it did with Braylon Rayson and Marcus Keene in 2016.
“We got a good group of core guys off the court and everyone is going to see it reflect on the court,” Roundtree said.
McKay returns as the team's defensive specialist from a year ago. He had 62 steals last season which was good for fourth in the MAC and added 20 blocks.
“Guys are out there being vocal and slapping the floor in the defensive end, it just has a different vibe from last year,” McKay said. “We have a good amount of shooters still but even with our big guys we are a lot more versatile.”
One of those shooters is the 6-foot-7 forward DiLeo, who led the team with 96 made 3-pointers a year ago. Shooting is always important to Keno Davis’ fast-paced offense.
“We’ve got a lot of guards who can draw defenders in and make my job easy,” DiLeo said. “I just have to knock down the open shots and give our team a boost.”
The Chippewas will open the season with Concordia on Nov. 6 at McGuirk Arena. For now, Davis wants to focus on one game at a time.
“We’ve got a great deal of talent up and down this lineup it’s just about finding consistency with a lot of new guys rotating in,” Davis said. “Eventually we should see it all come together and this team could very well be something special.”
