Navy men’s basketball is the second team to go 17-1 in Patriot League play since the conference shifted to an 18-game league schedule, joining 2022-23 Colgate in accomplishing the feat.
As such, the Midshipmen are the No. 1 seed in the Patriot League tournament that runs from March 3-11. Navy’s first tournament game will come in the quarterfinals against Bucknell in Annapolis on March 5.
The Mids (25-6 overall) outscored opponents by 356 points during the regular season. They’re third in the Patriot League in adjusted offensive efficiency, according to KenPom, a college hoops analytics site, but their bread is truly buttered on the other end of the court. They’re easily tops in the conference in adjusted defensive efficiency, rating as one of the best defensive teams in the country among non-high-majors.
Navy is allowing 63.3 points per game. Opponents are shooting just 40 percent from the field and 29.1 percent from 3-point range. The Mids are outrebounding opponents by more than six per game. All of those marks are by far best in the Patriot League.
The question is … how?
“It’s attention to detail,” said first-year head coach Jon Perry, who was promoted to the position after last season when Ed DeChellis stepped down. “It’s the guys showing up every day being professionals. It’s the staff doing a great job of putting the scout film together. The staff watches a ton of film. They cut it up, and they’re able to help these guys understand tendencies of players and trying to take two or three actions away from each team.”
Perry generally deploys a seven-man rotation: Seniors Austin Benigni, Donovan Draper, Aidan Kehoe and Mike Woods and juniors Cam Cole, Jinwoo Kim and Jordan Pennick. Those seven have played together for three years now, the type of continuity that is now impossible to cultivate outside of the service academies.
That means this group moves like an amoeba defensively. But it also helps to have size and length. Kehoe (6-foot-11, 246 pounds) is the team’s defensive anchor at center. Draper (6-foot-6) and Woods (6-foot-4) serve as connector wings. Cole (6-foot-2) and Kim (6-foot-3) are on the taller side of Patriot League guards. Kehoe and Draper made the Patriot League All-Defensive Team.
Easy looks are difficult to come by against the Mids.
“We just want the other offense to feel uncomfortable,” Kim said. “If you get by one guy, there’s going to be another guy or two right there ready to swipe, help or just be ready to step up. It’s really just a team defense. We’re always rotating. We always practice disadvantage defense in practice, and I think that really translates to the game.”
(Phil Hoffmann/Navy Athletics)
The player who stands out the most is Kehoe, the Patriot League Defensive Player of the Year. He is averaging 11 rebounds per game, tops in the conference. That makes for a lot of one-and-done trips for opponents.
“I think rebounding is activity, and he plays extremely hard,” Perry said. “… His conditioning and his will, he understands that that’s something that is a strength of his. He’s able to do that for our team, and we need him to do that.”
If defense is the first thing that stands out about Navy, then the Mids’ ball movement is probably second. Navy is first in the Patriot League in assists per game (16.3), and it’s easy to see why when watching the Mids. They make quick decisions with the ball, they pass up good looks for great looks and they knock down shots (36 percent from three).
It also helps to have a center who can pass out of the doubles he attracts. Kehoe is averaging 15.4 points per game on 73.6 percent shooting from the field, the latter mark the best in the country … but he has also piled up 73 assists on the season.
“His growth over the four years and over the last two years, he’s down there playing in the post like John Stockton, just picking people apart,” Perry said. “I’m really happy for him. He’s a young guy that works really, really hard. The game’s slowed down a bunch for him, which has allowed him to have that elite vision.”
Teams are free to double-team Kehoe at their own risk. Loyola found that out the hard way in a 78-51 loss to Navy on Feb. 25, when Kehoe had six assists.
“They were doubling pretty hard on me … so I was getting the ball out and credit to these guys, they were hitting shots,” Kehoe said. “That’s really hard to guard. If you’re going to double, you’re going to let threes in and it’s hard to win.”
Kim was one of the beneficiaries against Loyola. He scored 25 points, tying a career high, on 8 of 12 shooting from the field and 5 of 8 shooting from deep.
“Aidan is such a force on the inside that the teams are just all focusing on him,” Kim said. “It’s really hard to go in there and double him. If we’re just making the right reads off of that — one more pass, being unselfish … it’s really hard to guard that.”
Navy will have to win three home games in seven days to earn the Patriot League’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament, with the conference final falling on March 11. The Mids have not earned a trip to the Big Dance since 1997-98 under Don DeVoe. They came close a year ago before losing, 74-52, at American in the league title game.
But this veteran squad hasn’t looked ahead all year and won’t start now — even with the NCAA Tournament seemingly in reach.
“We’ve had the 1-0 mentality since before we secured the [No.] 1 seed. We’ve just got to keep our current mentality,” Kehoe said. “That’s the great part that we’ve had, so we don’t have to change anything. We’ve just got to keep going 1-0. We say it all the time. We set ourselves up for success there.”
Photo Credits: Phil Hoffmann/Navy Athletics