SMU Basketball: Deep tournament run was in store before postseason ban

If it wasn’t for a postseason ban, SMU basketball could have made a long run in the Big Dance.

With under three minutes to play and a convincing win against bubble team UConn all but secured, Larry Brown subbed out seniors Nic Moore, Markus Kennedy, and Jordan Tolbert to a standing ovation from a sold out Dallas crowd. As Moore surveyed the Moody Coliseum hardwood for one last time, there were certainly a myriad of thoughts and emotions running through his head.

One thought undoubtedly was a question many college basketball fans have been asking themselves all season long: how far could this experience laden club have gone in the NCAA tournament?

Since Hall of Famer Larry Brown started as the SMU head coach in 2012, he has been rapidly cultivating a hot bed of talented players and coaches, immediately changing the culture of Southern Methodist basketball.

With the hire, Illinois State head coach Tim Jankovich was also brought over to be Brown’s coach in waiting for when the 75 year old decides to call it quits. Along with Jankovich came 5’9” point guard Nic Moore who just finished off a solid freshman year at Illinois State and wanted to test his talents at a BCS level program.

Markus Kennedy also came over from Villanova after having a bench role in his freshman year. As the duo sat out the 2012-2013 season, they watched recruiters score talented prospects that would become the nucleus of SMU for the next three years.

The highest touted of the 2013 recruiting class was McDonald’s All American Keith Frazier. Frazier, a 6’5”shooting guard from local Kimball High School in Dallas spurned offers from Texas A&M and Texas Tech to play for Brown at SMU. However, Frazier needed to pass an online course in the summer before his freshman year in order to become academically eligible.

This is when an administrative assistant stepped in and completed the course for him in just three weeks. An NCAA investigation into the matter, concluded in September 2015, led to a nine game suspension for Larry Brown and a crippling postseason ban for the Mustangs.

The experience SMU has and the adversity they’ve had to overcome is the main strength this team boasts. The core group has been in plenty of close games on big stages, which would make them very dangerous well past the first weekend in March.

The last 2 seasons have ended in heartbreak for SMU. After being robbed of a tournament berth, they lost the 2014 NIT championship by two to a very good Minnesota team. The current SMU team still has three starters from that team.

Last year, they entered the tournament field as a six seed and lost to UCLA on one of the worst calls in March Madness history. With 10 seconds left and SMU up two, Bryce Alford heaved a desperation three that sailed well right of the rim. Senior Yanick Moreira skied for the rebound and pulled it down at the level of the rim. Despite the shot having no chance of going in, the refs called goaltending on Moreira, giving the Bruins a one point win. Other than losing Moreira and guard Ryan Manuel, all main contributors from last year’s team remain on this current team.

The SMU backcourt is headed by aforementioned 5’9” senior guard Moore. Moore averages 16 points per game and is a great distributor, leading the AAC with over five assists per game. He is also lights out from behind the arc, shooting 43% from 3.

Mar 3, 2016; Dallas, TX, USA; Southern Methodist Mustangs forward Jordan Tolbert (23) and guard Nic Moore (11) and forward Markus Kennedy (5) watch the game in the second half against the Connecticut Huskies at Moody Coliseum. SMU won 80-54. Mandatory Credit: Tim Heitman-USA TODAY Sports /

Shake Milton, Moore’s eventual replacement, is a 6’5” freshman. Milton was the highest rated high school recruit in the state of Oklahoma last year and denied offers from Indiana, Illinois, and Oklahoma to go to SMU. He is also a great three point shooter, hitting at a 43% clip. 6’6” junior Sterling Brown rounds out this talented backcourt.

Guard Keith Frazier started the season with the team and was the third leading scorer. Feeling blamed for the postseason ban, he dropped out in January and has since transferred to North Texas. Friday morning, only a few hours after his former team’s win against UConn, Frazier was arrested for causing a disturbance at a bar in Denton, Texas.

The Mustang frontcourt got a new addition this year in 6’7” senior forward Jordan Tolbert. Tolbert transferred from Texas Tech and was forced to sit out last year.

6’8” junior Ben Moore and 6’9” senior Markus Kennedy also man the middle for SMU. They are one of the premier rebounding teams in the country, ranking 5th in rebounding margin, 24th in offensive rebounds per game, and 44th in total rebounds per game. Defensively, they have demonstrated the ability to contain talented big men in Kyle Wiltjer of Gonzaga, Brandon Sherrod of Yale, and Amida Brimah of UConn.

The only major criticism one could levy on this SMU team is that they didn’t play the toughest out of conference schedule. They won a neutral site match against a tournament quality Colorado team, beat eventual Ivy league champion Yale, killed Michigan by 24, and defeated current bubble team Gonzaga. SMU’s 4 losses all came against American Athletic Conference foes, falling to Tulsa, Temple, Houston, and UConn.

As you can see, this SMU team has all the pieces to make a very deep run in March. A balanced team with an experienced and clutch point guard is the prototypical recipe for a team to make the final four.

Moore is an unselfish guard with great leadership skills and a deadly long range shot. Their frontcourt is extremely experienced and gives the team the scoring balance needed to grind out tough NCAA Tournament games. If SMU wasn’t been banned from the tournament, they could have at least made the Elite 8 with a real chance of making a run at the national championship.

After Thursday’s senior night win against UConn, Moore, Kennedy, and Tolbert gave teary-eyed farewells to a packed house including former President and First Lady and George W. and Laura Bush. Kennedy addressed head coach Larry Brown personally stating, “I never had a man to look up to in my life. [Now] that’s you. I love you.”

Brown also addressed the crowd. The hall of fame coach was very candid in saying, “We’re coming back next year and we’ll make fun of some the people that took something special away from these guys.”

Brown couldn’t be more right in this wording, saying that the chance of making memories in this year’s NCAA tournament was taken away from these seniors. Once again, the NCAA punished innocent student-athletes for the actions of others. It is time for the NCAA to do away with their policy of issuing post-season bans and move to levying heavy fines to schools as a whole and to those coaches and employees directly involved with the violation.

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Doing so will not only be more fair to the student-athletes but also allow fans to enjoy watching quality teams like SMU compete in the most exciting tournament in sports.