McKay receives conference honors in first season back at helm
Despite featuring one of the youngest rosters in NCAA Division I basketball, Liberty University’s men’s team experienced a revival under Ritchie McKay, who was named Big South Conference (BSC) Coach of the Year by the league’s head coaches and a media panel.
The Flames were predicted to place 11th in the Big South Preseason Poll, but McKay led the team to a fifth seed and first-round bye for the BSC Championships with a 10-8 conference record, its most Big South wins in five seasons.
Liberty won nine of 11 games from Jan. 6 at Coastal Carolina (where it celebrated its first road triumph since Feb. 22, 2014) to Feb. 13 at Longwood. During that midseason stretch, the Flames recorded a seven-game conference winning streak — their fourth longest in program history — and upset the conference’s top three teams: No. 1-seeded High Point (at home and away), No. 2 Winthrop, and No. 3 Coastal.
McKay implemented the pack-line defense he learned during his six seasons as Tony Bennett’s associate head coach at the University of Virginia, and the Flames used it to rank second in the Big South in scoring defense, holding opponents to 68.0 points per game. They also ranked 60th in the nation in three-point field goal attempts (774), making 36.6 percent.
“We’ve kind of established a way we’re going to play — an identity, if you will,” McKay said. “There’s an expectation that our guys have of themselves and one another that is really beneficial for our program’s advancement.”
After inheriting just four returning lettermen and no starters from the 2014-15 team, McKay has high aspirations for a 2016-17 squad that will again be one of the youngest in the nation, with no seniors and eight new players on the roster. He will look to redshirt sophomore guard John Dawson for leadership (Dawson earned All-Big South Conference honorable mention recognition despite sitting out the first 11 games of the season due to the NCAA transfer rule), along with rising junior guards/forwards Ryan Kemrite and A.C. Reid, redshirt sophomore forward Ezra Talbert, sophomore guard Lovell Cabbil, and sophomore forward Caleb Homesley.
He is equally excited about an incoming class of recruits that includes 6-foot-4-inch forward Myo Baxter-Bell, 6-foot-7-inch forward Josiah Talbert (Ezra’s younger brother), 7-foot center Hayden Koval, 6-foot-7-inch guard/forward Brock Gardner, and 6-foot-1-inch guard Xzavier Barmore.
“We’re going to add some depth on the post, and that’s going to help, but we also have some better players on the perimeter,” McKay said. “We’ll be a lot deeper next year, and there will be a great fight — it’ll be really competitive in practice — for minutes.
“I’m anxiously awaiting the start (of the 2016-17 season on Nov. 11),” he added. “It can’t come soon enough for me.”
