Recruiting wreaked havoc on men's basketball roster

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Aurora Abraham
A member of the men's basketball team walks to the opposite side of the court, with a look of anger on his face as four players from the opposing team yell and cheer in the background after their teammate scored a basket Feb. 23 in McGuirk Arena.

On April 5, 2021, CMU parted ways with men's head basketball coach Keno Davis after going 142-143 overall and 62-96 in Mid-American Conference games.

His final three seasons at the helm saw CMU finish 44-46 overall and 20-32 in the MAC. His final three seasons came without the help of assistant coaches Kevin Gamble, Kyle Gerdiman and Jeff Smith, who all left the program for new jobs between 2018 and 2019. 

The departure of the three assistants resulted in a shake-up of how Davis recruited, relying more on transfer players from other institutions over players straight from high school. It's a trend that is on the rise within the conference, and Davis was at the forefront of the trend. 

While there is no set way to construct a successful college basketball program, CMU is falling in line with a trend being seen in the MAC with players transferring from both the JUCO level and other collegiate levels.


During the 2015-16 season 24 percent of MAC players consisted of players who initially did not commit to a MAC school. While the percentage stayed even for the 2017-18 season, the rate of transfer players has jumped to 29 percent in 2018-19, 34 percent in 2019-20, and sit at 43 percent for the 2020-21 campaign, a 76 percent increase over the past five seasons.

The Chippewas have increased the amount of transfer players over the past five seasons. While the 2016-17 season featured only the addition of Keene, the Chippewas jumped to 24 percent of their roster consisting of transfer players in 2017-18, 35 percent in 2018-19, and 50 percent the previous two years.

CMU's transfer trend began with the addition of Marcus Keene from Youngstown State, and the Chippewas JUCO transfer trend began with the arrival of Shawn Roundtree Jr. in 2017. Since the 2018-19 season and the departure of Gamble CMU has featured at least five JUCO players on their roster.

As the Chippewas continued to increase their percentage of transfer players above the conference average, their season-ending finish in the MAC has decreased. While finishing fifth in the MAC and increasing their transfer player percentage in 2018-19, the team’s percentage continued to increase as the Chippewas finished ninth in 2019-20 and 11th this season.

Davis said that CMU adding its JUCO players was necessity, but never the long-term plan for the Chippewas.

“You want to have a nice balance of high school or prep school guys, the guys that will be here for four, five years, and try to (bring) in a junior college player here or there when you have voids in your lineup,” Davis said. “I think long-term we’d like to have more balance in recruiting classes, but obviously the four-to-five years guys are the ones that can stabilize your program and can make it successful over the long haul.”

Despite welcoming players for two years instead of the traditional four, new additions have been able to fit into the culture that Davis had previously established.

“(My teammates) and the coaching staff has made it really easy for me to adjust from community college not only from a basketball side but adjusting to being in Mount Pleasant,” said former forward Meikkel Murray, a transfer from Coffeyville Community College. “They make me feel at home, it’s easy to be in this type of atmosphere when we all get along.”

In general, teams that consistently increase their number of transfer players over the conference average will see a drop in their final regular season conference finish. 

Eastern Michigan and Northern Illinois saw a spike in their transfer percentage and a dip in their conference finish. Both teams have spent the last four years with an increasing transfer percentage and remaining above the conference average. The Eagles, Chippewas and Huskies finished 10th, 11th, and 12th in the MAC respectively.

Toledo has not increased above the conference average over the past five seasons and has finished no worse than seventh in the past five seasons. Ohio has managed to stay below the conference average entirely since 2016 and have watched their conference regular season finish increase the past two seasons en route to a 2021 MAC Tournament championship and an automatic berth into the NCAA Tournament.

However, Buffalo bears exception to this theory. The Bulls have had at least 36% of their roster since the 2016-17 season, over the conference average all five years yet have two MAC East division titles, regular season titles, tournament titles and NCAA Tournament appearances and finished no worse than fifth in the conference since 2016. 

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