Featured photo by Erin Douglas
Story by Calvin White
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MURFREESBORO, TN- After a 96-90 double-overtime win over UTEP, Middle Tennessee is 5-2 in its last seven games, including three wins in a row to put itself in a three-way tie for fourth place in Conference USA. After an abysmal first half of the season, MTSU appears as if it’s picking itself up off the pavement at the right time.
When MTSU lost 73-62 to New Mexico State on the road on Jan. 20, the Blue Raiders got on the plane back to Tennessee with an 0-4 record in conference play, the worst in the conference at the time. Most, if not all, people lost all hope before the midway mark of conference play. A team that was picked to win CUSA in the preseason had fallen to rock bottom.
Since then, MTSU has wins over Jacksonville State, FIU twice, New Mexico State and UTEP with two losses to Western Kentucky and Liberty sandwiched in the middle.
For most of the season, when MTSU trailed early or made mistakes that were hard to come back from, morale drained from the Blue Raider bench and the pulse slowly faded. Now, just in its last three games, Nick McDevitt’s Blue Raiders have a road win over FIU and two home wins over New Mexico State and UTEP, teams that had beaten them just over a month ago.
After MTSU gutted out a 96-90 double-overtime win over UTEP, McDevitt, Jared Coleman-Jones and Jestin Porter arrived at the postgame press conference just as stoically as they have all season. Porter had just poured in an efficient 41 points on 11-of-16 shooting, including a new CUSA record of eight made 3-pointers without a miss. Coleman-Jones was two assists shy of a triple-double and McDevitt began his opening statement with, “I’m really proud of our team.”
McDevitt has uttered those same words almost religiously after close losses where his team showed some fight, but not enough to walk away with a win. Over the last month, he has been able to say them without his players hanging their heads in press conferences next to him.
“We were shooting the cover off of it in the first half and then with 10 minutes to go, we look up and we’re behind 53-48 and that just didn’t deflate our energy, our effort, our concentration. Our “next-play” attitude was really good.” McDevitt said after the win over UTEP.
At times, the defense looks pedestrian and the offense has a square-peg-in-round-hole look to it but MTSU has found ways to grind out wins over the last month to slowly climb the conference standings. Wins that did not seem imaginable just a short time ago.
McDevitt and the players point out how meticulous the approach to their craft is often. Guys like Elias King and Justin Bufford who spend countless hours in the gym shooting but haven’t seen many shots go in recently. McDevitt says if they’re not making shots, they have to impact the game in other ways.
Before scoring 12 in MTSU’s road win over FIU on Feb. 10, Justin Bufford hadn’t cracked double-digit scoring since the Blue Raiders’ win over Reinhardt, an NAIA school, on Jan. 3. Bufford scored 10 points early in the win over UTEP but only scored two points the rest of the game but he finished with 38 minutes before fouling out late in the first overtime because of his pesky defense. Bufford is the poster child for impacting the game in every way but scoring.
“He doesn’t let shot-making affect the other end and as soon as he is making shots, he is very impactful. You’re going to get effort out of him.” McDevitt said of Bufford after the UTEP win.
On Thursday night, MTSU trailed New Mexico State at home by as much as 17 and by 14 at halftime. McDevitt’s squad blitzed the Aggies in the second half, outscoring New Mexico State 52-31 in the final 20 minutes to win 76-69.
“I just thought it was one of those games where guys that were supposed to be good at something were good at something,” McDevitt said after the win over New Mexico State. “If you’re supposed to be a physical post player, well, you go and get 16 and nine. Justin Bufford, you’ve got a great +/- even though you didn’t score. Jestin Porter, you’re the point guard. You’ve got to score the ball and not turn it over.”
If he wasn’t in the conversation already, Porter has firmly cemented himself in conference player of the year discussions after his 41-point performance against the Miners. Since the start of conference play, Porter is racking up 20 points a night on nearly 50 percent shooting from the field and 43 percent from beyond the arc.
Four of MTSU’s last five regular season games are against teams ahead of them in the conference standings. The Blue Raiders carry a three-game winning streak into Wednesday’s matchup with Jacksonville State, a team MTSU beat 75-67 for its first conference win of the season back on Jan. 24.
If momentum carries over and the Blue Raiders aren’t just a blind squirrel that found its occasional nut, MTSU has the potential to be a dangerous matchup in the CUSA Tournament. A desperate team is a dangerous team and the Blue Raiders are getting hot at the right time.
MTSU might not be the sexiest team to watch, but it sure is entertaining.
Calvin White is the sports editor for MTSU Sidelines. For more news, visit www.mtsusidelines.com, and follow us on Facebook at MTSU Sidelines and on X and Instagram at @mtsusidelines. Also, sign up for our weekly newsletter here.
