By Ryan Makuch
When the Eastern Michigan Eagles tipped off their regular season against Wayne State, it was under perhaps the most intense microscope that EMU had ever faced. Emoni Bates, the hometown player who was once hyped as the next LeBron, and is still just 18, and his grand return to Ypsilanti was one of the stories of college basketball this summer, not just the MAC or within EMU.
Bates would sit for the opener, a nine-point victory over Wayne State that wasn't in question for the last 30 minutes of the game, but his showcase was coming. Under the bright lights of Little Caesars Arena against Michigan, Bates would make his debut, and here he would show the city of Detroit, the whole state of Michigan, and the viewing audience of the nationally-televised bout on ESPNU who he is. In a wildly entertaining back-and-forth affair, despite EMU coming up short, Bates would impress in a huge way by scoring 30 points on 12-for-19 shooting, including three threes, one being a step back from the edge of the '313' logo, and a spectacular put-back dunk.
Emoni's big night was joined by the second head of their two-headed monster, Noah Farrakhan. Farrakhan scored 19 points on 14 shots, losing effectiveness slightly as the game went deeper and Farrakhan found himself hampered by foul trouble. But for much of the night, Farrakhan torched whoever Michigan put on him, his speed serving as the ultimate neutralizer to any defender's strengths.
The buzz around this Eagles program is palpable, and it is certainly at a level that has not been seen in my lifetime. The position Eastern Michigan is today as a program traces back through several years of recent history, with the return of Emoni Bates to his hometown serving not as the chief moving event for the Eagles this season, but as a side effect of a program trying to find its footing. To understand the present, we need to look to the players and forces that have led us to today.
The 'late-tenure' years of Rob Murphy's time at EMU start with the 2018-19 basketball season. EMU had just come off a strong 22-13 season in 2017-18, the most wins under Murphy in his tenure as the Eagles' head coach. The squad was set to return All-MAC First Team and All-MAC Defensive selection James Thompson IV, along with fellow seniors Paul Jackson and Elijah Minnie, for their senior campaigns. The team also had three promising underclassmen in Ty Groce, a sophomore, and Malik Ellison and Kevin McAdoo, both freshmen that cracked the rotation and important roles throughout the year.
Instead of taking the next jump up in productivity as a team, the Eagles wilted. Jackson, who played almost 90% of available minutes out of necessity without a legitimate backup point guard, took a step back in every metric possible barring assist numbers, where he stayed stagnant. Thompson IV scored the fewest points per game in any of his four seasons at EMU, ultimately still having a strong year, but undeniably the weakest in his Eagles career from a statistical perspective. And Minnie, who would have needed to pick up significant slack scoring and shooting, did neither, averaging a full three-and-a-half points fewer from his junior to senior seasons while grabbing fewer rebounds and putting up a worse shooting percentage.
The shooting of this team, and their ability to guard shooters, in turn, was also a gravely serious concern, and would ultimately serve as a warning for the years to come. On defense, Murphy's patented 2-3 Zone meant that one of Toure (6'11") or Thompson IV (6'10") would be a defender of the wing from the block. Both tall and lanky, neither man had the quickness to close out with effectiveness, and opponents could feast on open threes. While the Eagles shot 29.5% from three (good 346th of 353 NCAA D1 teams), their opponents shot 34.1% from distance. Minnie and McAdoo shot nearly an identical 32.5% from distance, the rest of the team collectively shot just under 27%. In the modern game, the Eastern Michigan Eagles were in danger of falling behind their peers.
With arguably his most talented core ever graduating and having been wildly ineffective in carrying his side, the writing seemed to be on the wall for Murphy. The next season saw a massive rebuild for the Eagles, as Murphy recruited heavily from the junior college ranks. Critics of Murphy saw this as him overlooking the talent in his own backyard of Michigan, where there is no shortage of mid-major level players. But Murphy brought some undeniably talented players in Noah Morgan (also formerly of Fairleigh Dickinson), Yeikson Montero, and a sweet-shooting Italian forward in Thomas Binelli.
After starting 9-1 in their first ten of the 2019-20 campaign, and finishing the non-conference campaign at 10-3, the wheels would wholly fall off. The Eagles lost seven straight, unable to crack 70 points in any of those seven games. The shooting woes continued as over that stretch, as a team, they shot 22.6% from three. A four-game stretch of three-point shooting splits shows you just how ugly this team was on the offensive end: 6/25, 4/21, 5/25, and 2/16.
The abridged COVID season was just a continuation of the misery, with Murphy's bread and butter, the defense, getting ripped apart to the tune of opponents shooting 56% from two and just a shade over 37% from three. The team went 6-12, 3-11 in the MAC. The clock had struck midnight, the Murphy era had clearly run its course, and Murphy and the university "mutually" parted ways.
Under Murphy, the Eagles had a unique identity, but by the end of his time with the side, the identity was that of a team who would try to beat you by throwing rocks at you and grinding you out until they could make as many shots as you, or you started catching fire from the corner and knocking down threes. And in the last years, it was much more of the latter.
With Murphy out, EMU decided to dig into their alumni base and pull out Stan Heath, a former coach of Kent State, leading them to the Elite Eight, Arkansas, and USF, before jumping to the NBA's G-League with the Lakeland Magic.
Heath inherited a nearly-bare cupboard and found himself having to work immediately to fill the roster, leading to a team that simply could not develop an identity of their own yet due to the circumstances. The roster effectively served as a patchwork quilt of raw talent, players looking for second opportunities to shine, and one or two EMU vets looking to end their careers on a high note.
EMU finished MAC play by going 3-14 and relying heavily on freshman transfer from East Carolina Noah Farrakhan to carry the scoring load. In those three wins in that stretch, Farrakhan scored 28 against Miami (Ohio), 24 against Central Michigan, and a career-high 31 against Northern Illinois.
This is now Heath's second season and the first in which Heath can really start looking to breathe into this Eagles program his own identity. Heath has done so with immediate energy, seeming to have learned from the mistakes of his predecessor. Through the transfer portal, Heath has identified areas of need and supplemented them with not just talented players, but players from the state of Michigan with three years of eligibility. Emoni Bates is the headliner, but the arrival of Bates should not overshadow Tyson Acuff (Duquesne by way of Detroit's Cass Tech) and Legend Geeter (Providence by way of River Rouge), along with out-of-state transfer Jalen Billingsley (Georgetown by way of Cleveland). Heath has also looked in-state at incoming freshmen, including Orlando Lovejoy (Detroit/Summit Academy North).
It is this supporting cast, and these incoming players looking to play a big role at a slightly-smaller stage, that will need to produce if Eastern Michigan is to contend in the MAC. Against Michigan, these role players stepped up in their own ways, Acuff scoring ten points and contributing four of the Eagles' nine assists, Geeter scoring eight points on just two field goal attempts while inhaling five rebounds and three steals, and Colin Golson, a transfer from Siena who is also from Detroit, scoring eight points, while (like Geeter) showing his touch from the mid-range.
Over the opening two bouts for this EMU side, a more complete vision of this new-look Eagles team begins to show itself. Bates played impressively within the offense, putting up plenty of shots, but most of them coming on great looks, with Farrakhan working in a symbiotic manner with Bates -- the two players both taking defensive pressure off one another as teams try to pick their poison. Bates looked completely confident, at one point yelling, "This is my city" while heading back on defense after a make.
Eastern Michigan is a program that has gone through a lot. Emoni Bates is a player who has also gone through a lot, including legal difficulties this offseason and dealing with the unbearable weight of too-high expectations for much of his young career. In many ways, it's a perfect fit; the chance for a hometown hero story that you can only find in sport. But the young season has many more twists and turns. To avoid the pitfalls of years past, it will be up to the new blood of this EMU program to guide the ship to safe harbor. They're off to a good start.
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