Ball State Rebuilding in the Portal
Ball State has been hitting the portal hard, picking up two power 5 transfers and another top mid-major player.
Ball State finished last season at 15-16 overall and 7-11 in conference, which placed them 9th in the MAC. It was a pretty unremarkable season to add to a stretch of unsuccessful seasons. The Cardinals haven’t been to the NCAA Tournament since 2000, and have just four 20+ win seasons since. Their best season since came in 2002, where they were ranked as high as 15 in the AP Poll, but stumbled in the conference tournament and failed to secure an at-large bid.
Needless to say, for Cardinals fans, it’s been a boring two decades. However, Michael Lewis looks like he might be able to right the ship in year 3. Michael Lewis took over as head coach in 2022 and immediately finished 20-12 on the season. That was their best record since 2016-2017. With a step back this year, he’s stocking back up for what could be a dark-horse team in the MAC. Here’s who Lewis has picked up in the portal thus far:
Payton Sparks (Junior) - Indiana
2.1 points, 1.8 rebounds per game (24 games, 7.4 minutes per game)
Joey Hart (Freshman) - Kentucky
0.4 points per game (7 games, 1.4 minutes per game)
Jeremiah Hernandez (Junior) - Southern Indiana
17.2 points, 3.3 rebounds, 1.8 assists, 1.5 steals per game (31 games)
Lewis also picked up a commitment from JUCO Jermahri Hill out of South Plains College.
The following players transferred out of Muncie:
Jack Futa (Sophomore - Walk-on) - TBD
0.7 points, 0.7 rebounds per game (3 games)
Davion Bailey (Junior) - TBD
12.6 points, 3.7 rebounds, 1.5 assists, 1 steal per game (26 games)
Basheer Jihad (Junior) - Arizona State
18.6 points, 8 rebounds, 1.8 assists, 1.1 steals , 1.1 blocks per game (30 games)
Joey Brown (Freshman) - TBD
1.4 points, 1.3 rebounds, 0.5 assists per game (13 games)
Jalin Anderson (Junior) - Incarnate Word
15.8 points, 4.6 rebounds, 4.5 assists, 1.5 steals per game (31 games)
Quincy Adams (Freshman) - Western New Mexico (DII)
1 point, 1 rebound per game (4 games)
Micah Bell (Freshman) - TBD
1.5 points, 0.7 rebounds, 0.2 assists per game (13 games)
Trent Middleton Jr (Freshman) - TBD
6.2 points, 2.6 rebounds, 1.9 assists per game (29 games)
That’s a lot in the portal, however, 4 out of eight averaged less than two points per game, so let’s take those out and focus on the four material pieces to their rotations they lost.
Losing Basheer Jihad is heartbreaking, but it was also expected. If you show talent on a mid-major team, there is a significant chance that you will be poached by a larger school with a larger NIL fund. In this case, Arizona State managed to come in and scoop him up.
For Jalin Anderson, the move to Incarnate Word was a little bit of a head scratcher, considering the Southland conference is one of the smallest in the country. Anderson was born in Jackson, TN, so moving closer to home wasn’t necessarily a factor in the move given that Incarnate Word is in San Antonio, TX. The Cardinals have finished above .500 just three times since transitioning to D1 in 2013. However, with that being said Shane Heirman is getting UIW on the right path. With his connections to the MAC where he served as the Associate Head Coach at Central Michigan for two years prior to this position and his connections to Indiana where he was the head coach at La Lumiere School in LaPorte, there is no doubt there were some personal connections there. Incredible pickup for Heirman.
Moving back to Ball State, losing both Jihad and Anderson hurt, however, both have potentially already been replaced. Jeremiah Hernandez had a breakout year at Southern Indiana this season. In his previous three seasons (two at Kent State and one at USI), he never averaged more than 4.9 points and 15.9 minutes per game. This breakout made him one of the hottest mid-major names to enter the transfer portal. Some of the other schools interested included, FAU, James Madison, TCU, and Grand Canyon. However Ball State was able to win him over where Hernandez will add a key piece to the puzzle next season.
Joey Hart won’t excite you looking at his statistics, but his potential is what makes this an exciting pickup for the Cardinals. He practically didn’t play at Kentucky, appearing in just 7 games and just 10 total minutes on the season. Hart was a high school standout out of Linton, Indiana, where many mid-majors were vying for him. He held offers from UCF, Illinois State, Ball State, Wichita State, Northwestern, Drake, New Orleans, Indiana State, Western Kentucky, Bowling Green, George Washington, Toledo, Missouri State, Miami Ohio, Southern Illinois, Wright State, Purdue FW, and Evansville. He narrowed down his top 4 to Toledo, Ball State, UCF, and Evansville during his initial recruitment. He ended up committing to UCF at first, then later decommitted and then signed with Kentucky. It seemed to be a head scratching move at the time for those of us that were following his recruitment because he was destined to not play at Kentucky as a freshman. Rumor had it NIL money was there for him, which most likely swayed his decision. Now, just a year later, he is headed to Ball State, who was in the running for his initial commitment. The Cardinals were able to beat out St. Louis, Ole Miss, UCF, FAU, Dayton, West Virginia, Evansville, Indiana State, St Mary’s, Illinois State, and Marshall. The former #7 player in Indiana is going to be a key contributor on a rebuilding Ball State team.
Payton Sparks is back in Muncie! I don’t have to dive into much here for Cardinal fans to know what they are going to get out of Sparks. The Junior spent his first two seasons at Ball State, averaging 13.5 points, 8.5 rebounds, 1.2 assists as a Freshman and 13.3 points, 8.7 rebounds, 1.9 assists as a Sophomore. Sparks ended up transferring to IU where he averaged just 7.4 minutes per game in 24 games. However, in those 7 minutes, he did averaged 2.1 points, 1.8 points which is rather impressive in that small of a time. His two best performances of the season came against Kennesaw State and Louisville where he posted 10 points, 8 rebounds, 2 assists and 4 blocks against the Owls and 9 points, 3 rebounds against the Cardinals. This is a great get for Michael Lewis as Sparks will immediately be one of the top players on the team.
With these three added pieces, and players like Mickey Pearson Jr (12.2 points, 5.1 rebounds per game) who appears to have one more year of eligibility, Ball State is going to be a legitimate contender in what is always a tough MAC conference.
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