Asked if he’s heard from any big names the last 24 hours since his Thomas More men were named the No. 1 team in the nation in the NAIA Coaches Poll, Justin Ray thought for a moment before answering.
“The biggest celebrity? Jeff Hans,” the TMU men’s coach said of the TMU women’s coach with three national championships, “he’s been doing it for a decade.”
Indeed. With both Saints teams named No. 1 in the latest NAIA Coaches Poll and earning all 42 first-place votes Wednesday, there was plenty of praise to pass around the Saints’ doubleheader wins over Mid-South Conference opponent Tennessee Southern that had fans coming early, staying late and cheering loud.
“It’s crazy,” TMU Athletic Director Terry Connor said of the impact of the rarest of honors for Saints basketball. And yet, he acknowledges that if you show up for a TMU football game, there will be “celebrity” Jeff Hans directing your car to a parking place.
“We like to keep him humble,” Connor said with a big grin.
“It’s who we are,” Hans said after his 9-0 team’s 87-48 romp over UT-Southern while overseeing a postgame national championship poster signing party that has grade-school girls basketball players getting their favorite Saints to sign their photos.
A good number of them came to Hans’ summer camp. “You get a guy who’s won multiple national championships and he’s out there sweeping the floor,” said TMU President Joseph Chillo.
It helps explain what’s happening here because, as that line from sci-fi movies to The Simpsons proclaimed, “This does not compute.”
No it doesn’t. Chillo laughed at the call he got “from a colleague in Boston who wanted to know about what kind of basketball factory I’m running.”
But when you check them out, the Saints – and their Crestview Hills campus — look nothing like a basketball factory. Local players. Good students.
“They’re not very intimidating,” Connor said as the Saints women finish their warmups. That’s before the tipoff. After is a different story.
And yes, it doesn’t compute. “We don’t have everything,” Hans said, when it comes to budgets and facilities. And they don’t have superstars.
“We don’t pass that part of the eye test,” Hans said, but they have lots of kids who can play as Hans names three of his second-teamers who could go elsewhere and start, but they stay to be a part of this.
“That’s why it’s hard to scout us,” Hans said of his team that had 10 different scorers Thursday.
“It starts with the right coaches and the culture of the program,” Chillo said. TMU has that.
And they may have a superstar on the men’s team to replace All-American Ryan Batte from a year ago in six-foot-five junior Reid Jolly, the former Campbell County star who recorded another double-double and made his 24 points and 10 rebounds look easy.
Jolly is playing at 210 pounds having added lean muscle in a summer where he was “injury-free for the first time and able to play every day,” Ray says of his leader, “he’s earned the right to take over the Batte role.”
Point guard Jacob Jones, who followed Jolly with 21 points and seven rebounds, takes it a bit further.
“Reid’s going to be a player-of-the-year candidate and an All-American,” said the 5-10 Jacobs, who brought the crowd to its feet with a two-hand slam dunk after catching an over-the-top football pass against the press in the final minute.
In its first game as No. 1, Ray said TMU basketball has gone “from the dark days in the wavy waters” to a team “with a target on our back.” A Tennessee Southern team coming in at 6-2 off a win over Div. I Samford didn’t make it easy.
The fifth-year coach Ray said the ranking made him think back “to the players from those first dark days in the wavy waters when no one thought anything about us . . . and now we have a target on our back.”
As to whether dual No. 1 rankings do not compute at TMU, “I would probably agree with you,” said Ray, whose recruiting budget – and that of Hans’ – would probably be eclipsed by one John Calipari cross-country flight.
Something no TMU coach is ever likely to do. “Not out of my budget,” Connor said. Both teams’ rosters are from places close enough that their families can drive in for the games.
And they may play with a chip on their shoulders for having been overlooked. “We have a sign in our locker room, Ray said: “Thomas More vs. everybody.”
But now “people know who we are after a trip to the (NAIA) semifinals last year,” he said.
“The fans in Montana loved how we play,” Hans said of their early season trip there.
As do the fans here. The football team did a mock rush of the floor at game’s end and with their two No. 1 teams a combined 16-0, fans were pinching themselves at the cognitive dissonance that Thomas More basketball has become.
“I never thought the boys would (reach No. 1),” said longtime high school basketball official and former TMU player Joe Roesel.
And yet here they are with a couple of terrific players in Jones and Jolly, who credits his father for focusing on the mid-range game where he often scores off a quick dribble when he goes airborne on the bounce.
Ray said a big part of it is Jolly’s judgment on what’s a good shot. Jolly credits his improved strength that allows him ”to just flick it.”
And then there’s this. For the second straight game, Jolly played all 40 minutes and didn’t look a bit tired afterward. “Naww,” he said.
Same answer for the impact of the No. 1 ranking. “No, it feels the same as when we were No. 2,” Jolly said. “Nothing really changes . . . but it’s cool for our program.”
THOMAS MORE WOMEN’S BOX SCORE
UTS 9 6 15 18 48
TMU 23 29 25 10 87
UTS: Long 0-0-0-0, Goff 5-1-0-11, Moore 1-0-2-4, Lester, 1-0-0-2, Baker 3-0-2-8, Cooper 2-0-0-2, Riley 5-0-3-13, Jones 0-0-0-0, Mackie 2-2-0-6, Newman 0-0-0-0, Gallian 0-0-0-0, TOTALS: 19-3-7-48.
TMU: Turner 3-0-2-8, Hurst 4-0-0-8, Barth 4-0-2-10, Simon 4-1-4-13, Martin 1-0-0-2, Jones 3-3-2-11, Smith 6-4-0-16, Branner 0-0-0-0, Lillard 0-0-1-1, Vickers 1-1-0-3, Whiteman 5-0-2-12, Noel 1-1-0-3, Morgan 0-0-0-0, Hunt 0-0-0-0, TOTALS: 32-10-13-87.
THOMAS MORE MEN’S BOX SCORE
UTS 27 36 63
TMU 29 43 72
UTS: Hudson 5-0-5-15, Brown 8-2-3-21, Sivley 5-0-2-12, Welch 0-0-0-0, Hancock 5-0-1-11, Greer 0-0-0-0, Ramirez 1-0-0-2, Wright 1-0-0-2, Tyson 0-0-0-0, TOTALS: 25-5-8-63.
TMU: Jolly 10-1-3-24, Pack 4-0-1-9, Vieth 3-2-0-8, Jones 6-2-7-21, George 1-0-2-4, Eddings 1-0-2-4, Smith 1-0-0-2, TOTALS 26-5-15-72.