Liberty Prepared For Big Stage That Awaits in NCAA Tournament First Round

Gonzaga. Butler. Wichita State. VCU. George Mason. Davidson.Valparaiso. Northern Iowa. Florida Gulf Coast.

The list of mid-major programs who have become household names thanks to what they have done in the NCAA Tournament is lengthy. Some of them had just one or two big upsets that launched them into the national spotlight, others have had Final Four runs, and a few have leveraged that success into long-term staying power on the national landscape.

Over the past three seasons, Liberty and head coach Ritchie McKay have been flirting with breaking through that barrier and becoming a household name and mid-major power. The Flames have won 82 games over the past three seasons, second most in the country among all Division I teams, only trailing Gonzaga.

In 2019, Liberty won 29 games and was awarded the program’s highest seed in the NCAA Tournament in school history, a 12. The Flames would upset Mississippi State in the first round of the Big Dance for the first NCAA Tournament win for the program.

Last year, the Flames returned the majority of the 2018-19 roster and won a school record 30 games before the 2020 NCAA Tournament was canceled due to the COVID pandemic. McKay’s team was poised to make a run with a veteran squad that had four professional basketball players as seniors, but that opportunity was taken from them.

“Our barometer of success is in the young man that we invest in and developing his whole person, I like to not base it all on the scoreboard, but I get that’s societal in terms of its measurement,” McKay said of winning on the big stage the NCAA Tournament presents. “I think winning in the Tournament against Mississippi State two years ago was good, last year’s team we had a team that was old and probably since they had been there, probably would have had a decent seed and a great chance.”

On April 1, 2015, McKay was hired for a second time as Liberty’s head coach. He was taking over a program that had three straight 20-loss seasons and 82 losses in the prior 4 years. The Flames hadn’t scratched the top 200 in KenPom’s annual rankings in six seasons under the previous head coach Dale Layer.

By year two, McKay had the team winning 21 games and eyeing postseason success. Over the past few years, Liberty has defeated high-major programs such as UCLA, Wake Forest, Vanderbilt, Mississippi State, and South Carolina, but wins in March have a much greater reward.

“We’re at a point in our program where we want to test ourselves against the best,” McKay said. “With the little bit of success we’ve had, it becomes harder and harder to schedule in the non-conference. We actually benefited from the change in scheduling that the pandemic necessitated and were able to get in the Space Coast Challenge and ended up having three NCAA teams in there, if I’m not mistaken. Mississippi State is in the NIT, so all four of those teams went to postseason play. In Kansas City, which we only had a day in between travel, we played South Carolina, TCU, and then at Missouri and Columbia is a tough place to win.”

For a third consecutive season, McKay has his Liberty program back on the national stage and a massive opportunity awaits the Flames in Friday’s NCAA Tournament First Round. At 23-5 overall and 11-2 in the ASUN, Liberty received a 13-seed in this year’s Big Dance and drew a showdown with No. 11 Oklahoma State who many feel deserved to be a 2 or 3-seed.

The game is scheduled to tip at 6:25 Eastern from Indiana Farmers Coliseum in Indianapolis, Indiana. It will be televised on TBS with a star-studded broadcast crew of Kevin Harlan, Dan Bonner, and Dana Jacobsen. A prime time matchup with a national television audience, but many will be tuning in to watch the Cowboys and their diaper dandy.

6’8″ freshman Cade Cunningham became the first Oklahoma State player to ever earn First-Team All-American honors from the Associated Press earlier this week. He is one of 10 semifinalists for the 2021 Naismith Trophy which is given annually to the national player of the year. Expected by many to be the number one overall selection in the 2021 NBA Draft, Cunningham has been named the Sporting News National Freshman of the Year after leading the Big 12 in scoring.

“I don’t think our guys will be afraid of the moment or whatever jersey name it would have been on our line against us,” said McKay. “I just think we’ve got to focus on how difficult of a task it is to defend Oklahoma State and then try and get a shot on the other end. This is the NCAA Tournament, you’re going to play someone good.”

The Flames are set for the program’s 6th ever NCAA Tournament appearance. Liberty is 1-4 all-time in the Big Dance, losing to 1-seed North Carolina in 1994, 1-seed St. Joseph’s in 2004, and fellow 16-seed North Carolina A&T in 2013 as part of the First Four held in Dayton. In 2019, as a 12-seed, Liberty upset 5-seed Mississippi State for the program’s first ever NCAA Tournament win before falling to 4-seed Virginia Tech in the second round.

Meanwhile, this is Oklahoma State’s first time in the NCAA Tournament since 2017. They haven’t won a game in the Big Dance since 2009, losing in the first round in their last five tournament appearances, including two as the higher seeded team. Not a single player on the Cowboys’ roster has played or been on the sidelines for an NCAA Tournament game.

“I don’t think the stage, especially with Cade Cunningham, he just seems to have a maturity about him that warrants a fearlessness in the moment,” McKay said. “You look at all of his big shots at the end of games. I just think they’ve got a group that really believes in themselves.”

Amid the COVID pandemic, the 2021 NCAA Tournament will have a much different feel to it than in the past. Many of the 68 teams participating in this year’s event, have been in Indianapolis for much of this week. The Flames were one of the first to arrive, getting into town Saturday evening before the brackets were unveiled on Sunday night. Oklahoma State got to Indianapolis late Sunday night.

The teams have been quarantined to their hotel, with each player and coach having their own separate room. There has been very little time allowed outside with rigid schedules and COVID testing requirements to uphold. The arenas will be limited to approximately 25% capacity with about 1,700 spectators allowed inside the 6,500 seat Indiana Farmers Coliseum on the grounds of the Indiana State Fairgrounds.

Pace of play will likely have a big impact on the outcome of the game Friday. Liberty ranks No. 347 out of 357 Division I teams in adjusted tempo. Oklahoma State ranks No. 43. The Cowboys like to get out into the open court and score in transition as they average 15 points per game in fast break points. Liberty only allows 4.7 fast break points per game and had just one game this season when it allowed 15 points or more, when the Flames allowed 17 in a 65-59 loss to Stetson on January 15.

“Every team is different, so I’m not quite sure how this one will react, but a win against the 11th ranked team in the country will be good any time of year, but especially when the stage or platform is so big,” McKay said. “Obviously, it would help build the brand, but we’re an every day program. We’re trying to grow every single day. Although the task is arduous, I think our guys will be really invested in the 40 minutes of opportunity that we do have.”

“Big stars or household names,” McKay continued, “that doesn’t happen at the mid-level unless you do something on a really large stage. We will see if this is our year.”