This article is the ninth in a series previewing each team in the Ohio Valley Conference.
Now in his third season at the helm of Morehead State basketball, Jonathan Mattox continues to find players willing and ready to play for him and by him heading into this year.
“It’s the player’s ability to buy into it,” Mattox said. “We always talk about winning plays. What is that? That’s a 50-50 ball that you have to grab with two hands or dive on the floor for. That’s a wall you’ve got to make in the paint to get a defensive stop. That’s a contest. You’ve got to go find another team’s best shooter and contest on a three, so they’ve really bought into that. We talked earlier this year about how offense sells tickets, defense wins games and rebounding wins championships. If we can be at the top of our league in terms of rebounding, which we normally are in terms of defensively, then we feel like we have a chance to compete and compete favorably within our conference.”
Despite having such a focus on defense, Mattox’s teams have put together some of the most efficient offenses in the conference, finishing second in the OVC in offensive efficiency last season and first in 2-point percentage (52.3%) behind a deep 10-man lineup.
“Our No. 1 goal is depth,” Mattox said. “If you look at our stats last year, we played 10 guys in double figure minutes. George Marshall was the only player on our team who played more than 30 minutes per game, and he literally averaged 30.1 minutes per game. When you look at our success, our ability to win late in games, and our ability to win games in late season, I think our depth had a lot to do with that, so that’s one thing we look for when we’re recruiting is quality depth at every position – guys who are interchangeable.”
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The Eagles have an even split in the roster in terms of transfers and returners, with six returners in the lineup and seven transfers. Freshman Malik Gillespie stands out as the only freshman. Leading the team, though, as one of the biggest returners of the offseason is guard Chase Dawson, who stands out as the only starter to come back to the team following a season where MSU finished second in the regular season and conference tournament.
“I tell Chase a Kelvin Sampson-ism: ‘There’s three people in our program that cannot have a bad day: the head coach, the point guard, and the best player,’” Mattox said. and “I don’t know how this thing will shake out, but right now Chase Dawson is two of the three. I’m the head coach. He’s our point guard, and he’s our best player, so Chase and I, we can’t have bad days. That’s not in terms of making shots. That’s in terms of our leadership, our energy, our intangibles. We cannot have bad days.”
Dawson was thrust into a leadership role with a team that has some key similarities to last year’s squad. Namely, the Eagles have an important replacement for Anouar Mellouk in Dalman Alexander, a 6-foot-8 forward out of DII California (PA). Additionally, Mattox has some key transfer guards who could fit into the mold of the Marshall-Davion Cunningham duo from last season as well such as Justin Payne (Young Harris), Kyrell Shaw (Hutchison CC), Izaiah Day (Taylor) and Kenyata Carbon (Lindsey Wilson), with Vince Dawson III returning from last year’s lineup to make his way into the rotation.
“No matter what you sign, you’re always going to give up something, and we’re giving up a couple inches there,” Mattox said. “Justin makes up for it with his shooting ability. Kenyata makes up for it with his length and athleticism. Chase makes up for it with his heart, and then you have some longer guys that can play some taller, bigger guards in Kyrell, in Izaiah Day, and in Vince Dawson. We don’t always have to have two small guards on the court. We can mix and match depending on the team that we’re playing.”
Finally, Mattox has his “junkyard dog.” With the loss of Jon Carroll to Drake in the portal, the third-year head coach went after two players to replace the 6-foot-7 swingman.
“We wanted to go back with an undersized junkyard-dog type of guy, and that’s what Lonnie Bass and Tayvion Tangiora are,” Mattox said. “Tayvion is actually a DII JUCO guy like John was. Lonnie averaged nearly a double-double. Tayvion averaged 14 and seven as a freshman. They’re big. They’re strong. They’re physical. They can score inside on the post. They can rebound the ball, and we’re working on some different things with them defensively as well. We need them to have a physical presence for us, both on the block and on the glass.”