More Than Good

The Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders men’s basketball team is soon beginning their sixth season of the Nick McDevitt era. The first five have produced mixed results, starting with three somewhere between rebuilding, a trainwreck, and maybe even rebuilding a trainwreck. The fourth was more than just a pleasant surprise: a 26-11 CBI finalist team that gave fans hope and optimism that the program was returning to the form that former head coach Kermit Davis built it to before he was hired by Ole Miss in 2018.

Last season's 19-14 outcome was somewhere in the middle, albeit the better side of the middle. But regardless, college basketball is a sport where the middle between bad and good is usually classified as not good enough, especially to fans that have tasted greatness in the last 10 years and are hungry for more.

And let’s be clear: 19-14 (.576) seasons happen for nearly every D1 program in the country. In Kermit Davis’ first nine seasons in Murfreesboro, seven produced a season’s winning percentage at or below .576. Sandwiched between Middle’s two most successful three-year stretches (2012-2014 & 2016-2018) was the 2015 season in which the Blue Raider men finished 19-17.

Last year’s team was picked to finish 4th in the Conference USA preseason poll and ended up finishing 4th. The season still produced some extraordinary highs, which included beating FAU in the Murphy Center for their first win against a ranked team in program history. The Blue Raiders also took the eventual Final Four juggernaut down to the wire in the C-USA tournament semifinal, ending in a 3-point loss. This was eerily similar to the 2022 semifinal in which they fell short in a triple-overtime thriller to the eventual auto-bid earner UAB.

Finishing with 19 wins and 4th out of 11 shouldn’t have anyone infuriated, but no one should be satisfied either. Almost beating the UAB or FAU team that eventually wins the C-USA championship is good, but the goal is always to be more than good, especially considering Middle’s prosperous run in the 2010s and how it has raised the bar of expectations.

The 2022 season was a sign of good progress but given the slight disappointment of last year and the significant reconstruction Conference USA has experienced the last two years, the expectation will be to take the next step.

FAU, UAB, North Texas, Rice, Charlotte, and UTSA migrated to the AAC over the offseason. That leaves Middle Tennessee as the only active Conference USA member that finished in the top 5 of the standings last season. Also consider the move of Marshall, Old Dominion, and Southern Miss to the Sun Belt in 2022, and Middle Tennessee is the only active member with a C-USA tournament championship, dating back to the conference’s origin in 1995.

That’s not said to slight any of the C-USA newcomers. Liberty has enjoyed a plethora of success the last five years in the Atlantic Sun, winning nearly 80% of their games and making two tournament appearances (one with a win against Mississippi State in 2019). New Mexico State (despite having to clean house in an ugly situation from last season) has a very strong college basketball brand at the mid-major level, with 10 tournament appearances since 2007, and even a Final Four in 1970. Sam Houston State is no slouch either, coming off a year finishing inside the top 75 in KenPom and winning a game in the NIT.

Middle Tennessee tied Liberty for 1st in the C-USA preseason coaches' poll. The conference is as small as it has ever been with only nine active members.

The Blue Raiders have a continuity advantage with their returning players and coaches as well as their general familiarity within the conference. They have depth at every position. They have size. They have shooting. They have talent and experience. The league feels as winnable as ever during Nick McDevitt’s soon-to-be six-year tenure in Murfreesboro. Pressure mounts as there is a clear opportunity for the program to establish themselves as the leader of conference's new era and to return to March Madness' premier event for the first time in since 2017.