Preseason All-American Conference point guard Nic Moore couldn’t do it by himself. Drawing the full attention of Gonzaga’s defense, Moore struggled, tallying just 10 points, five assists and three rebounds in the 72-56 loss.
What Moore needed was a sidekick. Emmanuel Mudiay and Markus Kennedy helped — unfortunately for SMU, neither player was available.
Mudiay, a consensus top-five national recruit, committed to SMU in August 2013. The 6-foot-5 guard was immediately penciled into the Mustangs’ starting backcourt pairing.
SMU Coach Larry Brown praised Mudiay, who he thought would become a star at the college level.
“He’s the most special point guard I’ve ever seen at that age,” Brown told ESPN this summer. “He plays the right way, and God has given him incredible gifts.”
When Mudiay decided to play the 2014-15 season professionally in China instead of at SMU, Brown was left to reconfigure his team’s gameplan in the middle of summer.
The problem was compounded in October, when SMU announced that preseason All-American Conference forward Markus Kennedy had been ruled academically ineligible and would miss at least the beginning of the season.
Before the season had started, SMU had lost two of its top three players. The Mustangs plummeted in preseason rankings — what was once a top-10 team ?almost fell out of the top 25 entirely.
On Thursday, SMU will bring its depleted squad to Bloomington for a game in which IU Coach Tom Crean will see his roster expand. Sophomore forward Troy Williams, sophomore guard Stanford Robinson and freshman forward Emmitt Holt will return from suspension and be available for the first time this season.
Crean said the Mustangs’ depth will allow them to recover from the offseason losses and still present a difficult matchup.
“There’s no question this is going to be an incredibly challenging game in many areas for us,” Crean said. “They are an extremely talented, in all five positions, team. They have very good depth, the kind of depth that you want ... Their talent is really good.”
SMU’s departures will allow IU to focus on Moore, a 5-foot-9 junior guard. Moore averaged 13.6 points, 2.3 rebounds and 4.9 assists per game last season and has been tabbed as a candidate for American Conference Player of the Year.
“He’s fearless,” Crean said. “He’s got incredible toughness. He can score at the rim, he can score from deep and three. He makes the easy pass. He’s not one of those guys that’s over-dribbling and thinking shot first, shot second and pass third. He’s making the basketball play.”
Crean and his staff began studying tapes of SMU in the summer. What stood out to him, he said, was the Mustangs’ versatility.
“SMU brings a lot of everything,” Crean said. “Not a little of everything, but a lot of everything. They’re going to bring a tremendous physical and attacking style, which is going to be a challenge any night.”
