Coach Dan D’Antoni may have lost two of his biggest stars to graduation, but he’s confident the 2019-20 team has the talent to give Marshall fans a show.
It’s mid-September and the basketball floor at the Henderson Center is a blank canvas. The wood surface has been stripped and sanded, soon to have a new coat of paint and a mid-court retro redo. The vintage Marco logo will be front and center with the state of West Virginia as its background. Call it a Dan D’Antoni makeover.
“Retro look for a retro coach,” said D’Antoni with a smile. “It has a little spunk to it and some pizzazz.”
This is where the Herd head coach belies his 72 years. Like his now-famous T-shirt under a sport coat look, D’Antoni is a bit of a paradox. He has an affinity for both the past and the avant-garde. He’s both retro and modern. And, he’s always looking for ways to make things better by calling on his vast experience.
“Jon Elmore asked me one time, ‘Coach, how do you keep doing the same thing? You coach one group of guys, and then you have another group come in and you have to redo the whole thing again,’” said D’Antoni. “I told him I swept the floor when I was head coach at Socastee High School 11,825 times (he kept track) and I always found something to keep me amused each time.”
This year’s team picture will undergo a makeover of its own. Gone are All-Conference USA players Elmore and C.J. Burks, two of the school’s all-time great guards. Also moving on is Rondale Watson, a player that coaches like to call a “glue guy.” Those three players alone accounted for 56% of Marshall’s offense last year, 53% of the 3-point field goals and 51% of Marshall’s assists.
The returning players can no longer be on standby, sometimes content to watch Elmore and Burks go to work. It’s their time now.
“I think we’ll be a lot more balanced,” said junior guard Jarrod West. “We’ll have a lot more people to attack, to make plays for themselves and to create for others. We’ve got a good core group of guys coming back that know the system. I think we’ll play the same way that Coach Dan wants us to play, but a little different in some areas.”
There’s no disputing that the Herd will have a deeper bench and some fierce competition for playing time. Coach D’Antoni said finding minutes for everybody might be the most difficult thing he’ll have to do this year. There are the starters and returnees who played last year — West, Taevion Kinsey, Jannson Williams, Darius George, Mikel Beyers and Iran Bennett.
Then there are the players who sat out last year – 6-foot-5-inch guard Jeremy Dillon and 6-foot-6-inch guard Cam Brooks-Harris. Throw in the newcomers — 6-foot-3-inch guard Andy Taylor, 6-foot-7-inch forward Dajour Rucker, 6-foot-7-inch forward Marko Sarenac and 7-foot center Goran Miladinovic — and you have quite a few bodies to dispatch to the scorer’s table.
The two European players, Sarenac and Miladinovic, got quite the reception at the Henderson Center this summer from the “armchair coaches” as Coach D’Antoni has dubbed them. That’s the group of fans, composed mostly of retirees, who gather to watch and talk basketball. Some people go to McDonald’s for morning coffee. These guys go to the Henderson Center to watch basketball.
“I like everything here, I like the gym a lot,” said Miladinovic, a bit surprised to see a crowd for practice. “I like spending time here. Of course, I love playing with Marko.” (Sarenac and Miladinovic played prep school together.) “He’s one of the best passers and that will help us a lot this year because we know how to work with each other. Our pick-and-roll is really good. We did that a lot.”
One of the rising stars for this upcoming season — no pun intended — is the high-flying sophomore Kinsey. He’s become something of a YouTube sensation with his acrobatic dunks, at times looking like he’s pledging to become an honorary member of Phi Slama Jama. But he wants his game to be more refined than just dunk reels.
“We’re a team and I don’t see myself as the main guy,” said Kinsey. “We’re all out here as one unit. Opponents will know me this year so it might be a bit harder to do some of the things I did last year. But I’ve been working on a lot of things other than just dunking the ball and grabbing rebounds. It’ll be interesting.”
D’Antoni doesn’t disguise what he thinks of Kinsey’s potential.
“Taevion’s a star athlete and a star in the classroom,” said D’Antoni. “He showed last year he can take his game to another level.”
D’Antoni always looks forward, keeps his gaze up, not down. After five seasons, he’s four games shy of his 100th win. He’s won a Conference USA tournament championship and taken his school to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since the days when MTV actually showed music videos. That team advanced to the round of 32, winning an NCAA tournament game for the first time in school history. And last year his team won the College Insiders Tournament with a 90-70 win over Green Bay. Sure, he could coast, rest on his laurels, and coach his way into retirement. He’s just not wired that way. There’s another class to teach.
“I want them to be themselves,” said D’Antoni. “Leaders will evolve and become as important as Jon and C.J. — maybe in the same way, maybe in a different way. I don’t know. What I do know is we have the talent to give the fans a show.”
When he took over the program five years ago, it was a bit of a fixer-upper. But D’Antoni turned things around with a style that is a mix of old-school and old-cool. Now, with the newly sanded court, a fresh coat of paint and a few championship banners hanging in the rafters, things are looking up around here. He’ll be glad to show you around the place this season.
Keith Morehouse is the sports director for WSAZ NewsChannel 3 in Huntington. A 1983 graduate of the Marshall University School of Journalism, he is a regular contributor to Marshall Magazine.
Photos (from top):
From left, Thundering Herd basketball players: Jarrod West, Mikel Beyers, Darius George, Jannson Williams, Iran Bennett and Taevion Kinsey.
Jarrod West
Darius George
Iran Bennett
Taevion Kinsey
Jannson Williams