AMHERST — The time was ticking for the UMass coaching staff as soon as they accepted the job.
Matt McCall fired his three assistants shortly after the Atlantic 10 Tournament in March and his new staff was faced with a daunting task. In three short months, the Minutemen had to replenish a roster thinned out by transfers while also starting to build a list for the 2020 class. After Thursday’s announcement that Javohn Garcia and Cairo McCrory signed their letters of intent with UMass, the current staff has recruited and signed seven players in less than seven months of being together. And all of them are among the best recruits the Minutemen have signed in the past few years.
“I don’t want to say it’s different, the previous guys here did their jobs,” said current assistant coach Lucious Jordan, who was the director of basketball operations the previous two seasons. “The previous guys did their jobs and they were good at what they did, but we wanted to take it up a notch and we wanted to raise the bar not only for ourselves but for this program. We’re all super focused on that and we’re trying to bring in the right kids, great kids, high-character kids but also very talented kids and we can get that at UMass. We have all the infrastructure to hone some of these kids in and a lot of kids are starting to get interested in UMass basketball again.”
The mandate started with McCall, who wanted to get more aggressive in recruiting with his fresh start at UMass. The staff and roster upheaval was a perfect reset button for McCall entering his third season as the Minutemen’s coach, and he went about trying to build the program more in his image. That meant going after better players and facing stiffer competition on the recruiting trail.
“He talked about we wanted to get a couple of top-100 kids if we can, that was very important to be very frank,” assistant coach Tyson Wheeler said. “We’ve got to get guys who can help us win games right away. The Atlantic 10 is a tough league and other schools are getting those types of players, so it’s only going to help us. We want to get back to yesteryear, so we need to get those types of players coming in.”
The biggest challenge McCall and his staff face is trying to connect with the current crop of players about the history of the UMass program. Wheeler pointed out that many of the recruits who do understand how dominant UMass once was, learned about that from their coaches or parents who have memories of John Calipari’s tenure in Amherst.
But Wheeler, a two-time All-A10 first-team pick at Rhode Island, said he has all the tools to help recruits understand how special UMass can be as a program and how the Atlantic 10 can set up players for a future in basketball.
“For me, it’s a little bit easier because I played against UMass when they were really good, so I can sell that,” Wheeler said. “Talk about the history and being a part of it going against UMass then building my own culture and history at URI, I can sell the Atlantic 10. I know how competitive it is, I know for guys who want to be pros, you can make it out of the Atlantic 10 just from my own experience.”
The message has landed so far with high-level recruits, including current freshman Tre Mitchell, who was rated in the top 100 for the 2019 class. Neither Garcia nor McCrory are currently ranked in the top 100 for the 2020 class, but both have received effusive praise from recruiting sites over the summer. That is especially true for Garcia, who was seen by many recruiting experts as an underrated player who performed at or above the level of many top-100 recruits over the summer.
Although the type of players UMass is recruiting in the 2020 class and beyond is not different from the 2019 class, the motive is very different. McCall was honest about the fact he needed to bring in a foundation for the culture he wanted to set within the program this year. Then he can turn his sights on leading the Minutemen back to the top of the A10 and into the postseason for the first time since 2014.
“All three of them are doing a tremendous job, and give them all three a lot of credit, our recruiting has taken off,” McCall said last month at Atlantic 10 media day in New York. “They’re putting us in position with a lot of really good players. For us, this class was about changing the culture and this next one is about winning a championship. Let’s call it like it is.”
TESTING DEPTH — What everyone feared Saturday turned into reality Tuesday as McCall confirmed that freshman guard John Buggs III tore his ACL and will be sidelined for the rest of the season. He is the second freshman guard to go down with an injury since the season began two weeks ago.
The other injured player is Kolten Mitchell, who McCall said will undergo surgery on his fractured hand Wednesday after rest and rehab did not sufficiently heal the injury. The coach said he isn’t sure on the timeline for Mitchell’s injury, saying it will be based on how quickly the guard recovers from the procedure.
Those two injuries plus Sy Chatman’s indefinite leave of absence leaves UMass (4-0) with just nine healthy and eligible scholarship players for Wednesday’s 7 p.m. game against Rider (2-1) at the Mullins Center. The contest is the second of two on-campus games for the Minutemen as part of the 2019 Air Force Reserve Basketball Hall of Fame Tip-Off.