STARKVILLE — Gavin Ware can’t wait for the 2015-16 season to start.
Buoyed by the arrival of veteran head coach Ben Howland and the addition of a talented freshman class that includes McDonald’s All-American and two-time Mississippi Mr. Basketball Malik Newman, Ware believes his senior year with the Mississippi State men’s basketball team has the potential to be his best.
After winning 10, 14, and 13 games in his first three seasons, Ware gushed with anticipation Wednesday when asked about his feelings for the season, which will begin at 7 p.m. Friday with an exhibition game against Fort Valley State at Humphrey Coliseum.
“I have full belief in this team,” said Ware, a former standout at Starkville High School. “I do everything I have to do to provide for my teammates, and I know they do the same thing as well throughout the year.”
While Ware is looking forward to experiencing new results on the floor, he also is pretty confident he won’t see anything new from Howland. In the six-plus months Howland has been in Starkville, there is no denying the former Northern Arizona, Pittsburgh, and UCLA coach has created a new vibe on campus.
Judging from a victory against Alabama-Birmingham in a closed scrimmage Saturday, there also is a new expectation and a new sense of intensity on defense. Both of those elements were on display in the scrimmage, Ware said. But he also said he didn’t see anything that he already hasn’t seen from Howland in practice.
“He is the same coach Howland,” Ware said. “He was still instructing and stopping on plays, trying to get us right. I think it was the same coach Howland.”
When asked if he anticipates seeing any new “quirks” from Howland on Friday night, Ware said, “He stomps, yells, claps. Just the whole nine yards. You will see.”
Howland didn’t display any of that intensity Wednesday when he spoke to the media. In fact, Howland barely flashed a smile when he was asked to comment about the program’s recent recruiting success. His comments came on the heels of media reports that four-star Prestonwood Christian (Texas) 6-foot-10, 260-pound center Schnider Herard had given a verbal commitment to MSU earlier in the day. Herard, who is from Haiti, reportedly chose MSU over offers from Kansas, Purdue, and Texas Tech.
Herard figures to join an impressive recruiting class that also includes Starkville High senior Tyson Carter, a 6-4 guard, who is No. 62, per Rivals, point guard Lamar Peters (No. 78), and guard Eli Carter (No. 94).
But Howland can’t comment on recruits until they sign National Letters of Intent, so he was left to talk Wednesday about another season opener and how his team is working back to 100 percent health.
“I’m really excited,” Howland said. “It was really fun for me on Saturday (against UAB). It was a big deal for me since it was my first game coaching since my last game against University of Minnesota in the NCAA tournament a couple years ago. It was exciting because we approached it like a game and it gave us the exercise to see how you prepare for an opponent and how we will take film and study them. Our guys did that really well for a first time this season. I will just be so relieved to be healthy with 10 guys.”
Howland said the Bulldogs played well against an experienced opponent that made the NCAA tournament last season. He said he was most impressed by the team’s energy and effort on defense.
“Our seniors in particular played well,” Howland said. “Chicken (Craig Sword), Fred (Thomas), Gavin (Ware), and Travis (Daniels) all in particular had a really great game. Our defense played really well. Travis and Fred were very active defensively. Q (Quinndary Weatherspoon) had to play out of position and he was playing point guard the whole time he was in. We had practiced him there some so he had some experience before going in. UAB is a good team and that was a good test for us.”
Ware agreed and said he, too, enjoyed the Bulldogs’ defensive intensity. He hopes that work rate carries over to the season and that everyone, including 6-10 sophomore center Fallou Ndoye, can play with that intensity. He said Ndoye looked “very different” from last season when he had 63 points, 55 rebounds, six steals, and seven blocked shots in 30 games (six starts).
“He is not spinning around now, he knows what is going on,” Ware said. “That is a very good thing. I noticed that when we were playing UAB he knew what he was supposed to be doing. I know he will keep working at that and get better.”
Ware knows MSU will continue to come together now that Howland has given the team a playbook. He knows the Bulldogs will have plenty of studying to do between Friday and their season opener at 8 p.m. Friday, Nov. 13, against Eastern Washington. But Ware feels a little more confident after what he saw against UAB.
“Our overall intensity, I believe, was much better than the other three years and that kind of correlates to how the game turned out,” Ware said. “You know the last three years we, to my belief, didn’t win. But this year, we kept scoring. We came out on top. That came from our defensive enthusiasm and how well we executed plays, and everything kept falling our way. Defensively, we had a lot of excitement, coaches yelling, the bench yelling, and the five players on the court were talking loud and communicating with each other.”
n In related news, Howland said point guard I.J. Ready was cleared Wednesday to return to full-contact practice. His return gave the Bulldogs eight healthy players. Newman missed the UAB scrimmage with turf toe. Howland said Newman will be out until Nov. 11, when he will have the cast and toe cleat removed. He said he hopes the ligament in Newman’s toe will have healed by then. He also said Newman will have an MRI on his toe to gauge the extent of the healing process.
n Ole Miss men’s basketball team will play Clayton State in exhibition game: At Oxford, the Ole Miss men’s basketball team will play Clayton State at 6 tonight in an exhibition game at Tad Smith Coliseum.
Ole Miss returns three starters — Stefan Moody, Sebastian Saiz, and Martavious Newby — from a team that went 21-13 last season and earned its second NCAA tournament bid in the last three seasons.
Moody earned preseason All-Southeastern Conference first-team honors from the league media after leading the league in scoring in conference games at 18.6 points per game last season.
n MSU women’s basketball team adds two more preseason rankings: At Starkville, SLAM Magazine ranked the MSU women’ basketball team No. 9 in its preseason top 10, while espnW tabbed MSU No. 12 in its preseason top 25.
The rankings come a day after MSU was slotted at No. 11 in The Associated Press preseason poll. It also is ranked No. 13 by USA Today, No. 6 by Athlon Sports, and No. 8 by Lindy’s Sports.
MSU will play host to Mississippi College at 7 p.m. Tuesday in an exhibition at Humphrey Coliseum. It will take on Samford at 5:15 p.m. Friday, Nov. 13 at tip at the Hump.
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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