For a first-time head coach, Rick Ray speaks like a seasoned veteran.
His Midwestern accent may require some adjusting to the Southern drawl, but there is one word that probably won’t be found in his vocabulary — “rebuild.”
And it’s not to say Ray forbids the word, he just chooses not to use it.
“No one can predict how things are going to turn out,” he said Tuesday night before the Mississippi State Alumni Association’s Southwest Mississippi chapter dinner at Southwest Mississippi Community College. “At the end of the day, I’ve never talked about rebuilding or going through a couple losing seasons before we get things rolling or anything like that.”
That may be tough, considering Ray inherits a Mississippi State team that resembles nothing like the 2011-12 squad led by former coach Rick Stansbury, who retired in March. Gone are four key contributors — Dee Bost to graduation, Renardo Sidney and Arnett Moultrie to the NBA Draft and Rodney Hood via transfer. MSU also lost Deville Smith, a freshman guard, who transferred to Southwest Mississippi Community College.
Sidney and Moultrie were gone before Ray, a former assistant at Purdue and Clemson, took the job in April.
Even then, Hood had already thought about transferring and asked for his release exactly one week after Ray was hired. He is expected to choose between Duke and Ohio State.
Ray was put in a tough position and before he could hit the recruiting trail, he stepped back to see what pieces were left from Stanbury’s puzzle.
“I wasn’t given a lot,” he said. “There are only five guys returning in the program; there’s only two guys that have actually played.”
Those two are forward Wendell Lewis and 3-point specialist Jalen Steele, who was the Bulldogs’ fifth leading scorer with 8.7 points per game. Lewis averaged 21 minutes per game last season but was never really a scoring threat. As he enters his senior year, Ray may need to rely on him more than ever.
Ray said he has been so impressed with Lewis’ work ethic that he specifically wants to have a successful season to send Lewis and the other seniors out on a positive note.
“We have to go out and work,” Ray said. “The guys that are upperclassmen in this program deserve your efforts.”
Ray acted swiftly on the recruiting circuit to reload Mississippi State’s talent.
In a few short months, Ray landed four prospects for a total of seven for the recruiting class (Stanbury signed three, including a pair of four-star prospects in Craig Sword and Gavin Ware).
“You are dealing with trying to recruit in a short amount of time,” Ray said. “My big thing is go out and get high-character guys. The basketball part will take care of itself, but the character will not.”
Ray found high character in Andre Applewhite, a 6-foot-4 small forward from Memphis, Trivante Bloodman, a 6-0 point guard from Illinois, Jacoby Davis, a 6-1 point guard from Wisconsin and highly coveted junior college transfer Colin Borchert, a 6-8 forward from East Mississippi Community College.
Not bad for a short-term haul, but Mississippi State supporters should see Ray’s recruiting prowess for the 2013 class, when he has a full year.
While at Purdue and Clemson, Ray helped spearhead strong recruiting classes. Now, Ray will be counted on to keep Mississippi’s in-state stars in Starkville and away from Ole Miss.
His ties to Florida, Georgia and North Carolina from his short tenure at Clemson should add to the talent pool.
“I did a lot of recruiting in Florida, and I think we’ll continue to do that at Mississippi State,” he said. “Beside that, obviously the most important thing for us to recruit is the state of Mississippi.
“To me, the most important part of recruiting is throwing up a gate around your border. We want to make sure that anybody that is good enough to play in the SEC in the state of Mississippi, we want them to be a Bulldog.”
State doesn’t officially begin practice until October but Ray has kept busy since taking over. A new NCAA rule change allows coaches to practice for two hours a week during the summer. Ray and his coaching staff hold three 40-minute sessions each week and focus more on individualized drills than team-oriented practices.
“In basketball there is no offseason, and more so than anything it’s the only sport that goes across two semesters, so it’s always time consuming,” Ray said.
