Men's Basketball: Season-in-Review

UNIVERSITY PARK, IL—Governors State's four-year run of postseason appearances came to an end during the 2021-22 season as the Jaguars finished 10-19 overall and 12th in the Chicagoland Collegiate Athletic Conference with a 7-15 record.

GSU's schedule was loaded with quality opponents, featuring six teams that qualified for the NAIA Tournament: Huntington, IU Kokomo, IU Northwest, IU South Bend, Olivet Nazarene and William Penn, which ascended to No. 1 in the nation.

"We pride ourselves on playing tough competition outside of conference, there's probably not a team in the NAIA that plays as many Top-10 teams as we do," said Head Coach Tony Bates, who has 99 wins after seven seasons in University Park.

Governors State began its season on October 22, downing East-West at the Jaguars Tip-Off Classic. GSU advanced to the championship game for the third-straight year before falling to William Penn. The Jaguars went on to record their first win against Taylor and rallied from 10 points down with 10 minutes to go to defeat Cornerstone in a building where the Golden Eagles had an 84 percent winning percentage. At home, the Jaguars drew crowds that placed GSU 61st out of 233 schools in NAIA attendance.

The Orange and Black also improved to 6-0 all-time in conference openers with a 16-point win over Saint Xavier at the Athletics and Recreation Center. Other CCAC wins came against Calumet St. Joseph (a season sweep), Cardinal Stritch, Lincoln, St. Ambrose and Trinity Christian. GSU scored a season-high 94 points against Trinity for its ninth win in 10 meetings versus the Trolls.

Individually, DeAndrey Robinson led the team in points (347), blocks (19) and steals (38) while setting a season record for rebounds (251). Exceling on both ends of the court, Robinson became the first Jaguar to earn all-conference honors three-straight seasons, earning a spot on the All-CCAC Second Team. The Jaguars captain appeared in 80 straight games, finishing as the program's all-time leading rebounder (662) and fifth-leading scorer (988 points).

"With DeAndrey, we always knew we were going to get at least 10 points and 10 rebounds," said Bates of the player who delivered 28 career double-doubles. "In his three seasons with us he became the foundation of our team."

Robinson was one of five players honored on Senior Day along with Lamar Crenshaw, Gerald Duckworth, Tariq Deere and Chris Winters, a graduate transfer from Cardinal Stritch.

Junior guard Payton Harley captured the team scoring title, averaging 12.2 points over 25 games and was equally adept at distributing the ball, leading the team with 128 assists. Harley produced the highest-scoring performance of the season—25 points against St. Ambrose on January 5—and earned a spot on the Jaguars Tip-Off Classic All-Tournament Team.

The second half of the season saw rookie Adam Taylor become a scoring threat. The junior transfer averaged 4.4 points through 14 games before raising that norm to 14.0 over his final 15 contests. He sank a team-high 58 3-pointers, helping GSU amass the fourth-most treys in conference play. Taylor set a school record for free throw percentage (90.5) and turned the ball over just 12 times in 539 minutes of action.

"Adam has a high basketball I.Q., it was night and day how he improved from the first to second semester. We expect big things from him next year," said Bates.

Over the course of the season, 20 players wore the Orange and Black, the most-ever for a season. Five were promoted from the varsity reserve squad. "We had three or four freshmen that really played well on the reserve team and earned the right to move up to the varsity," stated Bates, who added that keeping a starting lineup intact was challenging due to COVID-19 and injuries.

"This is the most different lineups since we've been here. Generally four or five games into the season we're down to seven or eight players we're going to play consistently and this year it didn't work that way. We had the talent level this year, it just came down to consistency which we weren't able to sustain over a period of time. Our goal next season is getting back to playing a winning brand of basketball."