Evansville’s McCarty – Assembly Required

Part Two – Putting the Pieces Together

(St. Louis, MO) – There is a fresh energy surrounding Evansville Purple Aces’ basketball. Despite having to rebuild a decimated roster and retool a coaching staff McCarty and the region’s basketball fans are ecstatic.

Since the McCarty signing the Evansville marketing department has sold more than 1.000 season tickets and there is a reworked radio network poised to carry the Aces’ games. Momentum is on their side.

But how will McCarty go about filling those gaping holes in the roster and what does his coaching staff look like? He has had ample time as an important assistant both in the college and pro games, but can he be the head coach needed at this Missouri Valley Conference program?

The Staff

McCarty’s hirings have been shockingly good. Two former Division 1 head coaches are a part of the staff. Their experience, particularly in the college game will shorten the former Kentucky Wildcat’s learning curve.

Todd Lickliter and the Matthew Graves have both experienced the highs and lows of college coaching and know what it is like to run a program. Lickliter, an Indiana native, had great success at Butler, but struggled at Iowa. Graves led a middle of the pack South Alabama team but has ties with both Lickliter and McCarty through current Boston Celtic (and former Butler) head coach Brad Stevens. Their combined 234 D1 coaching victories are lessons learned that will be a huge benefit for McCarty.

He says he hit a homerun with those coaching hires.

 

 

Even video coordinator Logan Baumann  has ties to McCarty due to his time at Louisville working for McCarty’s former mentor Rick Pitino. Terrence Commodore (formerly of both Kentucky and Eastern Kentucky universities) is an assistant with the team. McCarty told me trust and common roots and relationships were very important in the selection of his staff members. He believes Baumann will be a star in the coaching business.

The Players

McCarty doesn’t have a wealth of knowledge about his current team members and there aren’t many of them! Due to graduation and transfers there are just six players on the current roster. Transferring are the Valley’s leading scorer Ryan Taylor and a player that was thought to be a rising MVC star, Dru Smith. Those are cavernous holes in McCarty’s roster.

There are some proven commodities like K.J. Riley and Dainius Chatkevcius. Those two showed more than just glimpses of ability last season. Riley is the team’s returning scoring leader at 6.8 points per game, while Chatkevicius is the returning rebounding leader at 5.4 per game.

What McCarty likes about the players on the current roster is that they are ‘gym rats’  and they are willing to learn.

 

 

Recruiting

Obviously, re-stocking the roster is priority number one. I asked McCarty if his experiences as a high level college player and a lengthy NBA career could work to his advantage while recruiting young athletes.

 

 

McCarty is looking for players that are talented enough and prepared to play the kind of basketball he wants to play at Evansville.

The Indiana native says he wants his teams to play fast and utilize some NBA-type offensive sets, so the players he recruits must have certain abilities and the right kind of mind-set to perform in the Valley and at Evansville.

 

 

So how has the reception been for the first year coach? He says recruits and their families have been very receptive. Selling the University, the Ford Center and a vision of the future has made positive impressions on potential recruits.

McCarty says he’s hoping to land those players that might have by-passed Evansville in the past. Like a lot of the MVC coaches, he is also trying to capitalize on the recent NCAA Tournament success of the Loyola Ramblers. Players and families have become more aware of the entire Valley conference because of the Ramblers’ success.

 

 

Since our interview, Evansville has received commitments from the highly rated DeAndre Williams, a three-star power forward out of Houston and Jawaun Newton, a 6’3 guard from El Paso, Texas.

UE Traditions

As McCarty told us in Part One – From the NBA to Evansville, one of the reasons he ‘came home’ to coach the Aces is his love for the history of the program. So I had to ask about bringing back the short sleeve uniforms.

 

 

There are three new head coaches in the Valley. Dana Ford takes over for Paul Lusk at Missouri State and Darian DeVries is the new leader at Drake. All three of these coaches bring something unique to their current positions, but all three have a sense of coming home and back to something they love.

Ford and DeVries played in the Valley and coached in the MVC. McCarty grew up watching the Aces play and was a star at nearby Harrison High School.

There will be significant change in the Valley this season because of these new assignments. How they recruit, particularly at UE and at Drake will go a long way toward first year success or failure for these fresh start programs.

Do Good