Incarnate Word Rising in the Southland
Incarnate Word hasn't finished above .500 in seven years, but second-year head coach Shane Heirman is building a strong team through the transfer portal.
Incarnate Word hasn’t finished above .500 on the season since 2016. In those seven years, six saw less than ten wins overall and they’ve yet to finish with double-digit wins in the Southland during this stretch. It hasn’t always been doom and gloom for the Cardinals.
Incarnate Word transitioned to Division I from Division II in 2013 and the Cardinals immediately saw success. Under head coach Ken Burmeister the Cardinals went 21-6 overall in their first season in Division I and 9-5 in the Southland in 2013-2014. It was an odd period of time where they only played one Division I school during the non-conference. In the following two years, they picked up a legitimate Division I schedule where they finished 18-11 and 17-12 overall.
For a school that started off their new era in Division I with success, which translated into 7 long seasons of disappointment, it looks like the light is at the end of the tunnel for the Cardinals. Incarnate Word hired Shane Heirman who was previously serving as the Associate Head Coach at Central Michigan to start the 2023-2024 season, making him one of the youngest head coaches in college basketball. Heirman immediately brought in former NBA player, Jaren Jackson as an assistant coach, in which Heirman had coached his son, Jaren Jackson Jr (now plays for the Memphis Grizzlies) in high school.
Needless to say, this was quite the hire for a school like Incarnate Word and it’s already starting to pay off. Heirman has been able to bring in some high-tier Mid-Major transfers in the portal thus far. Here’s who will be joining him next season:
Jalin Anderson (Junior) - Ball State
15.8 points, 4.6 rebounds, 4.5 assists, 1.5 steals per game
Davion Bailey (Junior) - Ball State
12.6 points, 3.7 rebounds, 1.5 assists, and 1 steal per game
Mintautas Mockus (Freshman) - UCF
0.9 points, 0.8 rebounds, 0.1 assists per game
Jordan Pyke (Freshman) - Union (DII)
13.8 points, 5.8 rebounds, 2.2 assists per game
In summary, Heirman has picked up two excellent recruits out of Ball State who were both being looked at high-tier Mid-Majors. Already a great start, but you then bring in Jordan Pyke. If you don’t follow the recruiting world closely, it might seem like a DII player might not be exciting, but here is a list of just a small selection of the schools that were talking to Pyke: Wisconsin, Grand Canyon, Colorado State, Samford, College of Charleston, Wofford, and more. Virtually every Mid-Major program that’s been working towards becoming a household name reached out to him. For Heirman, this may be the best pickup out of these four. For Mintautas Mockus, this is a little bit more of a taking a flier on a player. He was a successful product of the NBA Academy out of Lithuania and had several power conference schools reaching out to him.
Looking at this list of players, it’s important to remember that Ball State plays in the MAC, Jordan Pyke was getting looked at by nearly every school in the country, and Mockus was being looked at by power conferences and is coming from the Big 12. For comparison, the Southland Conference ranked 28th out of 32 conferences last season. That was mainly propped up due to McNeese’s 30-4 record as well. This places the conference in the lower tier of small conferences in college basketball.
Heirman is bringing in highly skilled players to a lesser conference where they are going to thrive. This isn’t going to be all McNeese next year in the Southland, Incarnate Word will be right there with them. While yes, McNeese is bringing in highly skilled players again (Will Wade has already brought in two former 4-star recruits), this is a great sign for a growing conference like the Southland. Having multiple successful teams, especially a team that could go from 8-23 last season, to one of the best teams in the conference, is impressive.
Keep an eye next season on Heirman’s Cardinals, they are going to be a fun team to watch.
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