By Joe Budzelek (@stf_ncaa)
It’s rare for a coach as young as Joe Gallo to be as involved with a basketball program for as long as he has, but after playing four seasons at Merrimack, coaching as an assistant for four seasons and then leading the Warriors for the last eight seasons, Gallo’s omnipresence should earn him the nickname “Mr. Merrimack”.
Caught in the crosshairs of a four-year D1 transition, Merrimack were unable to reap the benefits of winning the 2023 Northeast Conference tournament – we all remember what happened after that with the NEC representative FDU beating Purdue in the first round – but Gallo’s resume speaks for itself as the Warriors enter their first season in the MAAC.
Most notably, Merrimack won the 2019 Northeast-10 Conference Championship in their final season of Division 2 basketball, the program’s first NE-10 title in nineteen years. In their first five seasons in the Division 1 ranks, Merrimack won the Northeast Conference Regular Season Champions three times, even winning in their first season despite being selected last in the preseason polls, a feat that earned Gallo the NEC Coach of the Year Award.
Armed with a talented and deep group of returning guards along with a new-look frontcourt fortified by a pair of non-D1 transfers, expect Merrimack to enter conference play as one of the most respected programs in the MAAC.
Merrimack’s signature is in its steal-centric, high-pressure, perimeter-smothering “Make Chaos” zone defense. “You’re going to see a tight knit group,” says Joe Gallo, “Not only a unique defensive style, but a defense where guys are connected and playing with a ton of energy. There’s deflections. There’s steals. A lot of our juice comes from the defensive end to the floor.”
Case in point: in every season, Merrimack’s defense has ranked nationally within the top-40 in turnovers caused rate and within the top-75 in 3PA/FGA prevention.Their steal rate has ranked within the top-seven in all but one season. Plenty of defenses force a ton of turnovers, but leave multiple shooters wide open. Merrimack’s activity and quickness on defense makes open shots rare.
The foundation of the team’s overall intensity is fostered in Merrimack’s practices: “Our practices are wild,” says Gallo, “It starts with our staff and the energy we bring every day. Those guys know that as soon as that buzzer goes off for practice to start, there’s going to be hands clapping, high-fiving – we’re going to bring it.”
Merrimack’s star guard is the reigning Northeast Conference Rookie of the Year and Second Team All-Conference selection Adam “Budd” Clark, a 5’10 155 guard originally from Philadelphia. “He’s our leader on both ends,” says Gallo, “I think he’ll be one of the best guards in the league. He’s great with the basketball, gets his teammates shots, and for his size, he’s a really good finisher at the rim.”
Last year, nearly 90% of Clark’s field goal attempts were from inside the arc, but his efficient mid-range game could soon expand his range to the three-point line. “In the day and age where coaches don’t let guys shoot the mid-range, he’s like a 50%+ from the mid-range,” says Gallo. “His three-point shot will come, we work on it, we encourage him to shoot it from three, but we don’t need him to shoot a lot of them because he does a lot of other things so well.”
Case in point, Clark finished last season with the 12th highest steal rate and 63rd highest assist rate in the nation. His strong distribution game was surprisingly efficient for a freshman as he caused more turnovers than he gave up.
A similarly built Malik Edmead returns to Merrimack after one season at Albany and redshirting last year. Like Clark, Edmead is a potent pilferer and is an excellent distributor while penetrating to the hoop.
Edmead’s return will also help solidify Merrimack’s inconsistent three-point shooting. “The way Budd and Malik get into the paint, we want to surround those two guys with more shot makers,” says Gallo. “The last few years we didn’t make them at a rate that I would have liked, but this is a team that could shoot more in the mid-to-high thirty [percent range] as a team with some of the shooting we brought in.”
Edmead shot 38% from three over his last two seasons. Last year, returning senior starting guard Devon Savage led the team in three-pointers made and even returning sophomore starting five-man Bryan Etumnu shot 30% from three, but the staff’s major focus on the transfer portal was to improve their perimeter play.
Enter grad-transfers Matt Becht (Southern New Hampshire) and Sean Trumper (Franklin Pierce), two of Merrimack’s three transfers that are stars from the non-D1 ranks.
Starting his collegiate career at Mount St. Mary’s, Matt Becht returns to the MAAC after a standout career at SNHU with the veteran 6’4 guard averaged 16.4 points per game while also shooting an incredible 44.8% from three. Whether he starts or is a steady shooter off the bench, Becht will have a consistent role right away.
A native of England, the 6’7 Sean Trumper brings versatility to his game after averaging 18.8 points, 8.0 rebounds, 6.8 free-throw attempts, 2.4 assists and nearly a steal and a block per game last season while also shooting 35.6% from three and 86.7% from the free throw line. Trumper is a good bet to start next season at the 4.
Projecting what could be, Merrimack’s strong defense provides their strong floor, but if the offense clicks, the team’s ceiling is sky high. “This is the most offensively versatile team we’ve had in my nine years [at Merrimack],” says Gallo, “We’ve got eight nine guys who can do a lot of things offensively and we’re further along this summer than we’ve ever been.”
Joining Etumnu and Trumper in the frontcourt is Connecticut College (D3) grad transfer David Murray. The 6’7 245 Murray was last year’s NESCAC Player of the Year after leading the conference with 52 blocks and was among the conference’s top-five in scoring (17.7 ppg) and rebounding average (8.9 rpg). Between the two leading candidates to play at the five, Etumnu is more of a classic power forward who can stretch the floor while Murray is a low-post bruiser akin to recent Merrimack great Jordan Minor.
Rounding out Merrimack’s backcourt rotation is 6’2 junior guard Jaylen Stinson, who was initially the Warriors’ starting two-guard two seasons ago, but his minutes dwindled towards the end of last season. Stinton will be battling for backup minutes alongside promising freshman Ty Dorset, an early commit who signed with Merrimack back in October. “He’s been a pleasant surprise and is going to be a hard guy to keep off the court,” says Gallo.
At the Division 1 level, Joe Gallo has kept his rotations tight, but this year’s group is Gallo’s most talented and versatile. “We can go both ways,” says Gallo, “We could have some big lineups and we could also have some smaller lineups where we could really spread people and be really hard to guard.” For example, Trumper and Etumnu shoot well enough to play the 3 and 4, respectively, and share the floor with David Murray, providing the team lineups with three 6’7 players. Or, Malik Edmead shoots well enough to play off-ball alongside fellow sub-six footer Budd Clark.
Merrimack’s non-conference schedule features a visit to Rutgers and a strong mid-December back-to-back visit to Stanford and Saint Mary’s. As it stands, Merrimack also hosts Vermont and Princeton, two of the best mid-majors in the country, along with hosting the upstart Maine Black Bears, who have played some of their best basketball in recent memory in a pair of seasons led by Chris Markwood. Come January, the Warriors will be battle-tested and will look to continue their undefeated streak in the month of February, with their last loss occurring all the way back on February 24th, 2022.
Quickly growing into one of the best mid-major programs on the East Coast, Merrimack will immediately contend in their first year in their new conference, especially if their new league mates take time to adjust to The Chaos.
Comments
Post a Comment