money Dolphin dreams: JU basketball teams looking to build on last season for greater success
Jacksonville University men’s basketball coach Jordan Mincy had to establish a new culture last season.
JU women’s coach Darnell Haney had to remind his players of what they once were after a disastrous 2020-21.
Both have a solid nucleus of returning players to build on winning seasons as the Dolphins face their opening games of the 2022-23 season in just over a week.
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The JU men’s team (21-10, 11-5 in the ASUN last season) will play its first-ever game at Duke on Nov. 7 (7 p.m., ACC Network) and will be the first team to face the Blue Devils without coach Mike Krzyzewski in 42 years.
Krzyzewski retired following last season with five national championships, 13 Final Four appearances and 15 ACC titles to his credit, with former player Jon Schreyer replacing him.
The JU women’s team (16-13, 8-8) opens at home the same day against Johnson University of Kissimmee at 11 a.m.
Mincy has six players back from the team that posted the Dolphins’ first 20-win season in 11 years and reached the ASUN championship game before falling to Bellarmine 77-72. JU was fourth in the nation in scoring defense, allowing only 59.3 points per game, and enters the season on a 15-game home winning streak.
Among the returning players are senior point guard Kevion Nolan (13.9 points, 4.0 assists per game) and a parade of beefy post players in senior Osayi Osifo (6 feet 8, 235 pounds, 7.9 points, 5.9 rebounds per game), senior Bryce Workman (6-7, 9.8, 5.6) junior Mike Marsh (6-10, 250, 8.7 and 5.4) and transfer Omar Payne (6-10, 240).
“If we stay laser-focused … everything will play out the way it’s supposed to,” Mincy said on Tuesday during JU’s basketball media day. “Hold them accountable in every aspect of your life and that’s how you guard against complacency.”
Haney welcomes back senior guard DeShari Graham (9.9, 3.6 rebounds), senior forward Shynia Jackson (9.1, 5.4), sophomore guard/forward KayKay Hayes (6.5, 5.3) and sophomore guard Jalisa Dunlap (6.1 points).
The Dolphins were 4-17 overall the year before and 1-13 in the ASUN. They were so beat up with injuries that for a time in December of 2020, they had to practice with volunteer players from the JU volleyball, softball and crew teams, and players were in and out of the conference COVID protocols.
It was their worst record since 2001-02 but Haney mined the transfer portal and kept the players who wanted to turn the season around, such as Graham, Hayes and Makayla Edwards.
“The group came together and showed a lot of grit and fight,” Haney said. “They were relentless. We got knocked down the season before with injuries, it was the COVID year and we came back with a vengeance.”
JU men: Better on the perimeter
The Dolphins could score inside last season. Osifo shot .662, tying for the fourth-highest season field-goal percentage in ASUN history. Workman made .534 of his shots and Marsh .519.
But when the inside was closed off, Nolan was the only reliable 3-point shooter and he was prone to being streaky.
Mincy believes the Dolphins will be better from the outside, with transfer Jarius Cook from North Dakota State, Dylan O’Hearn from NJIT and freshman Josiah Sabino of Orange Park.
Cook shot the 3-pointer at a .397 clip at NDS, O’Hearn .372 at NJIT and Sabino, the 2021-22 Times-Union player of the year, averaged 20.8 points per game and set the Raiders’ career scoring record with 1,453 points.
Also figuring in the offense from the outside is graduate senior Jordan Davis (8.9). Mincy is also hopeful for more development from sophomore Gyasi Powell, a Bishop Snyder graduate who provided instant offense off the bench.
“We struggled to shoot the ball, especially when teams keyed in on Kevion Nolan,” Mincy said. “We wanted to get some guys who could stretch the floor and I think we did that.”
Mincy said the usual suspects will be in the ASUN mix: defending champion Bellarmine, Liberty, UNF and Lipscomb, to rattle off a few. He said new conference members Austin Peay and Queens won’t make it easier.
But Dolphin players said they aren’t about to take the progress they made last year or granted.
“We changed our mentality as far as expecting to win,” Nolan said. “Being mentally tough … we don’t really fold in crunch time. We changed our whole mindset … being one of those tough, gritty type of teams.”
Osifo followed Mincy to JU from Florida and knew the Dolphins would be better.
He admitted to being stunned to see how quickly Mincy turned the program’s fortunes around.
“I know coach Mincy and I was willing to bet on what it would be in the future,” he said. “I was kind of shocked to see how fast the culture changed and we began winning.”
JU women: Relentless again
It all came back to re-inserting a key word in the Dolphins vocabulary last season. And even the new players get it.
“It’s relentless,” said graduate guard Seraphine Bastin, a transfer from Wichita State. “It’s a special program with a lot of good people, good coaches, a good atmosphere to grow.”
Jackson said the team learned early in the preseason in 2021 that they weren’t going to reverse a .191 winning percentage overnight.
“We rebuilt our confidence by focusing on the details and trusting the process,” she said. “We really locked in, kept trying to get better despite all the adversity they had the year before. We competed.”
And then came the opening game of the season, when the Dolphins stunned Minnesota on the road 69-66, their first victory over a Big Ten team and their first over a Power Five conference team since beating Florida in 2007.
“We made a statement and we stood on it,” Jackson said.
Haney will have his usual scrappy bunch of defenders who will contest every pass and every inch of the floor. The Dolphins led the ASUN and were 30th in the nation in steals per game with 10.1 and has four of the top-five players on the team in steals returning, led by Graham with 48 and Hayes with 38.
The main weakness was perimeter shooting. JU shot .265 from beyond the arc but Haney said Dunlap said Dunlap has been “shooting the cover off the ball,” and said three key newcomers will help from the outside, Bastin and freshmen Kyshonna Brown of Augusta, Ga., and Jules Royale of Spain.
But the identity of the team will continue to be defense and transition offense. It’s what fueled three 20-win seasons in a row from 2016-2018 and Haney’s not about to change.
“They know they have to put their hard hats on,” he said. “What we can pack in our suitcase for road games is what we do defensively, and this group us growing and will continue to grow.”
Contact Garry Smits at gsmits@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @GSmitter
This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: JU basketball teams looking to build on last season for greater success
