STARKVILLE — “From Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana and Missouri” are not words used commonly words for the starters of Mississippi State University men’s basketball players.
All of that is about to change and fast following the hiring of Rick Ray as the 19th head coach in school history.
The Midwestern states are now recruiting targets for the Bulldogs program and it has started with the upcoming signing class.
It started with the signing of point guard Jacoby Davis, who turns 20 on May 20, to MSU after spending the past year at St. John’s Northwestern Military Academy in Delafield, Wis., where he averaged 21 points and 5 assists. It has continued with the inking of Olney Central College point guard Trivante Bloodman from a two-year school in Illinois, where he guided the Blue Knights to a 25-8 ledger after averaging 15.4 points, 3.1 assists, 2.6 rebounds and 1.8 steals.
During his introductory press conference on April 2, Ray denied his focus would be primarily on the Midwest but did acknowledge the benefit of having those connections as an assistant at Indiana State University, Northern Illinois University and Purdue University.
“It helps to a degree,” Ray said. “We want to build from the inside-out. We want to recruit Mississippi first. Mississippi is the most important state to our program. Then we want to lock down the border states. We want to put a wall around Mississippi. With this day and age in recruiting, you have an advantage when you can get those (in-state) guys on campus.”
Ray has proven this philosophy will exist with the staff he’s put together in Starkville including the hiring of Chris Hollender with deep Midwest ties from Evansville University and the state of Illinois.
The 35-year-old Hollender came to Mississippi State after spending the past four years in the same capacity at his alma mater, Evansville.
“Chris is a guy that I’ve known for a long time,” Ray said. “He has an outstanding reputation as a worker, a recruiter and more importantly as a great on-the-court basketball coach. He will do an unbelievable job with skills development for our players and helping me teach in the intricacies of the motion offense.”
In the assistant coaches’ first opportunity to speak with the media last week, Hollender the recruiting ties to the center of the country is not an accident. After spending his freshman season at Lake Land (Ill.) College in his hometown of Mattoon, Ill., he transferred to Evansville, where he became an All-Missouri Valley Conference standout.
“I think as a coach you go back to the area you’re strong in and whether that’s recruiting areas or areas of positional coaching,” Hollender said. “What makes this so interesting is all of us are getting together at the same time and trying to make this work on the fly.”
One of the people has ties to the Magnolia state and was kept from the previous staff to keep the home state with strong ties to MSU is assistant coach George Brooks.
Brooks says all he needed was permission for his boss in Ray to put together the signing of 6-foot-8 forward Colin Borchert, who just completed a season at East Mississippi Community College en route to earning third-team National Junior College Athletic Association All-America honors.
Borchert, from another unique territory of Glendale, Ariz., helped lead the Lions to a 23-6 ledger after claiming the NJCAA Region 23 Tournament crown, MACJC North Division title and a berth in the NJCAA Division I Men’s Basketball National Championship.
“When Coach Ray described the type of (power forward) he wanted to have and asked if I knew of any unsigned players like that I smiled,” Brooks said. “I laughed and said ‘yeah there’s one just down the road we can sign and let’s go do that’.”
Whether or not the success of the MSU program can instantly happen on the playing surface in Ray’s first season as a head coach in Division 1 men’s college basketball is debatable. What isn’t worthy of an argument is the roster will break down barriers of what has been known as typical recruiting areas in the past.
“He is extremely well thought of in the coaching profession on every level,” ESPN college basketball analyst Jimmy Dykes said. “He comes from a background under Brad Brownell and Matt Painter which is all you need to know.”
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