CUSA has had a team win in the tournament for four straight years, if memory serves, and USM basketball is slowly hinting at coming back to life. With USM (and CUSA) football mostly shitting the bed this year, and real basketballs that count flying through the air this weekend, it's time to take a look at the hoop game... even if you "have never in your entire adult life used the phrase 'game face.'"
Cortez Edwards' final year is a big story, according to these people, who picked USM 6th in CUSA but left the door open for better things:
"Sadler will need banner years from his backcourt triumvirate of Cortez Edwards, Tyree Griffin and Dominic Magee. Edwards now enters his senior year after suffering through the dark days of the post Donnie Tyndall era. He’s the consummate team-first guy and has been a workhorse for two straight seasons (Edwards set a school record for minutes played last year). His unselfishness and commitment to winning was exemplified by his willingness to slide off-the-ball to make room for the highly-talented Griffin at the point. Like Edwards, Griffin rarely came off the floor last year. Sadler needed both Griffin and Edwards to carry the offense, all while wreaking havoc in the backcourt defensively to cover up the glaring lack of size behind them." (https://www.three-man-weave.com/3mw/con … eview-2019)
Ladarius Marshall is a good signee who had much better offers (https://247sports.com/Player/LaDarius-M … ge-226917/). How much he contributes as a freshman will be an interesting story.
6'9" Boban Jacdomni, a guy I remember asking about late last year, will be eligible, per Sadler: "Boban, he will be an athletic body who can rebound and defend. Anything he does scoring-wise is a bonus. And he probably scores it a little better than I thought he did.” (https://www.hattiesburgamerican.com/sto … 502458002/)
These people have us 7th in conference: https://www.midmajormadness.com/2018/10 … conference
My take: Jacdomni has a lot of upside. If there's a way to make things run decently with him and Rowe on the court together, that will give USM real size for the first time in years. Edwards was a borderline star last year and if he outperforms expectations even slightly the team should be pretty competitive.
Reasonable goals are probably .500 in conference and maybe 16 wins over legit D-I teams. If that's what happens, we're left with the conclusion that Doc has done his job, and built things "the right way." That doesn't really translate to all that much, but at this point anything other than an embarrassment in any sport that isn't baseball is all we can expect.
The question then is, "what is next?"
If Marshall pans out, there's your answer. It's all fraught with "if" and "maybe," but it's all we've got and it's more than we've had to watch since Tyndall slid out of town.