When Morgan State men?s basketball coach Todd Bozeman took over the program in May 2006, he said the program was a sleeping giant. This season, the Bears appear ready to wake up.
Morgan is predicted to finish fourth out of 11 teams in the preseason Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference poll conducted by the league?s coaches and sports information directors. The lofty expectations come after Bozeman, a 43-year-old native of Prince George?s County, led Morgan State to a third-place finish in the MEAC last year after going 10-8 in league play and 13-18 overall in his first season.
The Bears showed tremendous improvement under Bozeman, who transformed a team that went 4-26 the previous season into one of the better teams in the MEAC. Last season, Bozeman?s recruiting was hindered because he was hired just a few months before the season began, forcing him to rely on returning players to blend with a few transfers.
However, the Bears? success also marked an impressive turnaround for Bozeman, who returned to the bench humble and grateful for a second chance after serving an eight-year ban for paying a recruit?s family $30,000 while he was the head coach at California.
During his time away from coaching, Bozeman worked as a professional scout, a broadcast analyst and a sales representative for Pfizer.
“Freshmen have to learn what it?s like to play in college and junior college players have to adjust to playing at a four-year school,” Bozeman said. “Just like them, I had to remember what it was like to be on the bench again.”
Bozeman promised from the moment he took the job he would make recruiting Baltimore-area players a priority. So far, he?s lived up to his word, as he has seven players from the Baltimore area and two other Marylanders on his 15-man roster. Among those players is former St. Frances guard Reggie Holmes, who averaged 9 points, 2.4 rebounds and led the Bears with 33 steals last season.
However, the team is expected to be led by players Bozeman convinced to attend a school hundreds of miles from their homes.
Jamar Smith, a senior guard who transferred from San Bernadino Junior College, averaged nearly 13 points and 5 rebounds and shot 35 percent from three-point range last season. Coly, a senior forward, averaged 8.2 points and 7.7 rebounds after transferring from Xavier and missing most of the previous three years with injuries.
They?ll need to be at their best this season, as the Bears open their season on Nov. 7 at UConn and also have nonconference games at Miami (Nov. 24), Maryland (Dec. 6) and against defending Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference tournament champion Niagara in San Francisco on Dec. 28.
“The main point I want players in the area to know is they have options,” Bozeman said. “There are some players that just want to go away for school, and there is nothing you can do about that. But there are a lot of talented players in the area who want the chance to develop as players, get a good education and have their families be able to watch them play.”
