Philly Gym Rat (The Perry “QM” McMullin Story)

[PointGuard]

The other passengers on the plane are going to be mighty ticked off when you sit on the pot the entire flight.

[PointGuard]

My present coaching ratings are now: Offense, 74 (+5), Defense-73 (+5), Recruiting, 36 (no change), Scouting, 32 (+1), Player Development, 78 (+5), Reputation, 33 (+3), Job Security, 100. My head coaching record now is 201-104 (.659). In 10 years as head coach, my teams have made it to the NCAA Tournament 6 times, never getting beyond the 2nd round. I have had 17 All-conference players, 5 All-American players, and 6 players drafted by the NBA, and I’ve been conference coach of the year twice.

Washington State gave me a 2-year contract for $173,000/year. The shortness of that contract means they aren’t too sure they hired correctly. While this is likely the lowest salary for any coach in the Pac-12, it does represent a $73,000 increase over what I was being paid by New Hampshire.

The extra money will come in handy since the health of my father, Pat McMullin, has taken a turn for the worse due to the asbestosis he contracted after working as a mechanic in the City of Philadelphia’s bus department for many years. That has caused financial hardships for him and my mother Anne. It will be good to be able to help them out more with the extra money I will be making.

[PointGuard]

Starting PG Scott Robinson will be a JR this coming year. He scored 9.3 ppg, pulled down 1.9 rpg, and dished out 2.5 apg. Matt Jones who will be a SR was a backup who scored 2.1 ppg with 0.7 rpg and 1.2 apg.

Shane Dix, who was last season’s starting SG, will be returning as a JR. He scored 4.9 ppg, grabbed 2.6 rpg and had 1.3 apg. SO-to-be Corey Malone (5.3 ppg, 2.1 rpg, and 1.0 apg) and SR-to-be Nick Blanchard (2.8 ppg, 0.7 rpg, and 0.8 apg) were his backups.

Last season’s starting SF, Darius Bond, will be a SR. He scored 5.6 ppg and had 3.0 rpg and 3.5 apg. Both of his backups will be returning: SR-to-be Dion Lofton (2.3 pgg, 1.8 rpg, and 0.8 apg) and JR-to-be Torrey Fleming (0.8 ppg, 0.7 rpg, and 0.3 apg).

Starting PF D.J. Asbury (11.7 ppg, 4.3 rpg, 0.9 apg) will return as a SR. His backup Troy Thomas (2.9 ppg, 1.6 rpg, 0.3 apg) will be back as a SO. Another PF, Nigel Seabrooks, sat out the year as a transfer from St. Louis, and will be a sophomore this coming year.

Michael Robinson is the only true C returning. He was a red-shirt freshman this past season.

The previous coaching staff filled all available scholarhips this year. Incoming recruits include:

PG Derrick Virgil, San Marino, CA. HS stats: 11.0 ppg, 5.7 apg, 3.5 rpg, 2.2 spg, 1.9 bpg. Excellent passer and ball handler, very good outside shooter, strong athleticism, weak rebounder and defender, rarely missed practice. He was ranked as the 443rd best recruit in the country. Overall rating: C.

C Rasual Smith, Kent, WA. HS stats: 13.7 ppg, 3.9 apg, 10.0 rpg, 1.6 spg, 3.6 bpg. Good shot blocker, average scorer and inside shooter, average rebounder, poor defender, weak athleticism. He was ranked as the 761st best recruit in the nation. Overall rating: C.

SG Ronnie Randle, Milwaukie, OR. HS stats: 17.0 ppg, 4.6 apg, 5.9 rpg, 2.8 spg, 2.4 bpg. Good scorer and outside shooter, good passer, good defensively, good athleticism. He was ranked as the 1468th best recruit in the country. Overall rating: C.

C Garen Lewis, Monroe, WA. HS stats: 14.3 ppg, 2.0 apg, 5.9 rpg, 1.6 apg, 1.8 bpg. Good scorer and strong inside shooter, average rebounder and defender, good athleticism. He was ranked as the 1701st best recruit in the nation. Overall rating: C.

Therefore in summary: while we have 4 returning starters, the overall talent level appears not to be very impressive and none of the incoming recruits would appear to be able to step in and be a star.

All 3 of the returning SG’s are walk-ons. With 3 graduating seniors who were on scholarship and 4 incoming scholarship recruits, I need to cut one of the walk-ons. I decide that will be Nick Blanchard. One of my first tasks is to give him the bad news. I also immediately get 3 players together with tutors to try to reduce the possibility that they become academically ineligible.

[PointGuard]

1st Asst: Dana Warfield, age 50, $60,000/yr for 5 years, ambition (high), academics (high), discipline (low), temper (very low), O (22), D (21), R (22), S (64), PD (22), Reputation (10) (was 2nd assistant at Pacific).

2nd Asst: Erik Rolle, age 64, $35,000/yr for 5 years, ambition (very low), academics (very high), discipline (low), temper (average), O (24), D (21), R (22), S (21), PD (66), Reputation (10) (was 2nd assistant at Army).

3rd Asst: Alex Grannum, age 52, $25,000/yr for 5 years, ambition (low), academics (average), discipline (low), temper (high), O (20), D (23), R (63), S (21), PD (20), Reputation (9) (was 2nd assistant for Troy).

Given our budget, I’m happy with whom I was able to hire, getting some strong specialists to handle recruiting, player development and scouting.

[PointGuard]

Here’s how players I recruited and coached at CSU Bakersfield (several years ago now) did during the 2020-2021 season in the DBL:

SG Jerell Brown, Austin Toros, started all 48 games, averaging 35.3 mpg, 13.4 ppg, 5.4 rpg, 2.7 apg, 1.4 spg, 1.4 A/TO, hit 45% of his FG’s, 26% of his 3’s, 80% of his FT’s, 81% of his inside FG’s, and 46% of his FG jump shots. STP% was .887 and EFF was 13.9. Austin finished the season with a 24-24 record and 3rd place in the Southwest Division. Jerell has a tremendous amount of talent. If he just had a work ethic beyond that of a sloth, he might be able improve his horrible 3-point shooting enough to get picked up by an NBA team. But I tried to get him to work harder for 4 years and it never helped. Natural talent sometimes can be a curse.

PG Randy Durham, Springfield Armor, played in 17 games with no starts, averaging 13.9 mpg, 5.7 ppg, 1.4 rpg, 1.5 apg, and 1.6 A/TO, hit 55% of his FG’s, 42% of his 3’s, 91% of his FT’s, 90% of his Inside FG’s, and 58% of his FG jump shots. STP% was .214 and EFF was 6.1. Springfield finished the DBL season with a 26-22 record and 2nd place in the West Division.

C Jeff Gilbert, Bakersfield Drillers, picked up at the end of the year, got into 1 game playing 12 min and scoring 4 points and pulling down 3 rebounds. Bakersfield finished the DBL season with a 20-28 record and 4th place in the West Division.

[PointGuard]

I get the news that my last minute tutoring of one of our players was too little, too late. C Michael Robertson, who had been a freshman redshirt last year, achieved a glorious 1.8 GPA in the spring semester, so will miss at least the first half of the year for us. I’m tempted to cut him, but talk with him instead, telling him to hit the books and get his grades up so he can play for us the last half of this season...or he’s history.

I kick tutoring into high gear for several players who could possibly be in jeopardy without it.

[PointGuard]

We have 4 graduating seniors, so will have 4 scholarships to fill this year. We have $73,250 in our recruiting budget. I spend $15,000 of that by purchasing the National Report and the Western Report. We will travel to the Las Vegas Revue. That leaves us with $54,550 as we head into the recruiting season.

[PointGuard]

We have no room on our roster so won’t go after any transfer players.

High-scoring SG Mike Woollum is tranferring from UMBC. He should have been a sure pickup for some Division 1 team, but no team went after him.

[PointGuard]

No players from Washington State, New Hampshire, or CSU Bakersfield were selected, so no reason to report the details.

[PointGuard]

Early we shoot high for some highly rated high school seniors but come away empty handed (the worst part of it was that we lost TWO of these highly rated guys to another school in the Pac-12...Oregon). But in mid-September we land our first recruit:

SF Michael Oates, 6-8 HS Sr, Kettle Falls, WA, 2.8 GPA. Stats as a Junior: 18.8 ppg, 2.0 apg, 2.7 rpg, 1.7 spg, 0.9 bpg. Excellent scorer with very good outside shooting skills, weak rebounder and ball handler, strong athleticism. Ranked #79 in the nation. Overall rating: B.

In mid-October we get our second commitment:

PF Stephen Lloyd, 6-7 HS Sr, Tacoma, WA, 2.8 GPA. Stats as a Junior: 14.4 ppg, 1.5 apg, 5.2 rpg, 1.5 spg, 1.8 bpg. Very good scorer with strong inside shooting skills, good passer but poor ball handler, average rebounder and defender, very good athleticism, his mother went to WSU so I think that factored into his decision. Ranked #85 in the country. Overall rating: B.

We don’t get commitments from any other recruits during the fall, but we have one offer to another high school senior on the table, and he has shown a high level of interest. I don’t expect him to commit (to us or anyone else) until spring though. We’ll keep recruiting through the basketball season but hold the remaining scholarship offer in our pocket until spring.