Murray State Basketball is turning the stigma of a stepping-stone program into a positive as a building block program.
For any program outside of a power-five conference, the term stepping stone can be a bit of a stigma and have a bit of a negative connotation attached to it, depending on who you talk to. If your program is considered by people to be a stepping-stone program, that means people think it is the type of place people go for a short period of time with the goal of furthering their career before moving on to a bigger school.
While most schools hope to be the job that coaches aspire to land instead of being just another wrung on the occupational ladder, there is one program that has taken that attribute and turned a stepping-stone program and turned into more of a building block program, and not just for coaches but their players as well.
In the basketball-crazed state of Kentucky, the town of Murray, home to Murray State Basketball, is a three to four-hour drive from Lexington and Louisville, but in their corner of the Bluegrass State over the last 25 years or so they have gone from a stepping stone basketball program to one that should be seen more like a program that can help build the careers of the coaches and players that grace their floors.
Over the last quarter century, this little school has churned out coaches, and in more recent years, players that have continually gone on to bigger things, here is a look at the coaches and players that have turned Murray State from stepping stone to building block.