Last season, UMBC men’s basketball went 13-19 overall and 5-11 in the America East. After the season, three of the Retrievers’ top four scorers departed. It all forced Jim Ferry to make adjustments ahead of his fifth year as the head coach at UMBC.
Ferry brought in guards Jah’Likai King (then-Division II New Haven) and DJ Armstrong Jr. (Division II Texas Permian Basin) and forwards Caden Diggs (Old Dominion) and Jose Roberto Tanchyn (Division II Florida Beach Atlantic). He retained guard Ace Valentine and forwards Josh Odunowo and Daylon Dickerson.
With a new roster has also come a new style of play. Last year’s Retrievers were a standard-issue Ferry squad, scoring the ball at a high rate and getting up and down the floor at a lightning-quick pace. They were third in the nine-team America East in adjusted offensive efficiency according to KenPom, a college hoops analytics site, and second in tempo. However, they were last in adjusted defensive efficiency, leading to a lot of high-scoring losses.
This year’s UMBC squad is a little bit different. The Retrievers can still score — they’re second in the conference in adjusted offensive efficiency — but they’re in the bottom third nationally in tempo.
A Jim Ferry team … slowing it down? Yep, and it’s working. UMBC is 12-7 overall and 5-1 in the America East heading into its showdown at Vermont on Jan. 29.
“Going into this year, I made a change to my philosophy. You’ve always got to grow as a coach,” Ferry said. “The teams we had in the past, we had to play really fast. We weren’t very big. I wanted to slow us down a little bit, get tighter defensively because we can and we just have so much more depth right now. We’re just kind of playing the right way [in terms of] the people we have in our program.”
Portal additions Diggs (6-foot-9, 195 pounds) and Tanchyn (6-10, 235) and high school recruit Riley Jacobs (6-9, 205) have added size to a team that had precious little of it a year ago, when UMBC had no rim protection and opponents routinely played volleyball on the offensive glass.
The Retrievers are fifth in the America East in adjusted defensive efficiency this year. They’re allowing 67.5 points per game in six conference games, fourth in the league.
“We’re certainly way better defensively than we were last year,” Ferry said. “It’s not even close because of our length, our size and being able to contain the ball one-on-one.”
Ferry said his team wasn’t pleased with how it played defensively in a 79-74 loss at Bryant on Jan. 15 but left that game understanding how it had to win ballgames. His point guard explained how that has materialized on the court.
“Really over the past couple of weeks, we’ve been focusing on paint first,” Valentine said. “We were giving up too many layups. People were playing bully ball against us and backing us down. I think we kind of recognized we’ve got to play inside-out. We’re quick enough and long enough to get back out to shooters and stuff like that, so just honing in on protecting the paint. That’s really what it is.”
It also helps that everyone on the team has bought in, according to Ferry, who pointed to Odunowo, a 6-foot-6, 215-pound graduate forward out of Laurel, as a perfect example of that.
Odunowo started all 30 games a year ago, averaging 27.6 minutes, 11.1 points, 5.2 rebounds and 2.1 assists per game. He has started 14 of 16 games this year, averaging 22.9 minutes, 7.8 points, 5.1 rebounds and 0.9 assists per game.
Ferry explained that Odunowo hasn’t complained about his role changing, a peek into why UMBC has been so successful this season.
“Josh has been fantastic defensively, and he has been sacrificing for the [betterment] of this team. It’s hard to find kids who will do that now,” Ferry said. “… To find guys like Josh that are willing to sacrifice, that aren’t worried about their points and [are] just worried about us as a unit playing well and winning, that’s why we’re playing well and winning.”
Odunowo has been rewarded recently, having scored 12 points on 4 of 8 shooting against NJIT on Jan. 22 and 17 points on 6 of 9 shooting against UMass Lowell on Jan. 24. Six Retrievers scored in double figures against NJIT, while five scored eight points or more against UMass Lowell.
When Ferry’s offense is cooking, everybody eats.
“It’s a fun way to play basketball. I feel like everybody’s involved. It makes everybody want to play harder, especially when you know everybody’s unselfish,” Odunowo said. “It’s great having guys like Daylon, Jose and Riley, guys that are willing to sacrifice, just ready whenever they get their name called. I think it makes it really fun to play with these guys, too.”
Photo Credit: Courtesy of UMBC Athletics