by At the conclusion of the 2024-25 Ball State men’s basketball season, third-year head coach Michael Lewis took some time before looking back on the year. It was the second-straight season the Cardinals missed the Mid-American Conference (MAC) Tournament after posting a 14-17 overall record and a 7-11 conference mark.
“I think at the end of the season, you can make emotional decisions. I like to let the dust settle,” Lewis said. “Then I go back, and I think once you have a clear mind of things that you need to do, you look at things that need to change, things that you want in your program that maybe you didn’t have [during the year].”
Lewis said there were multiple things the Cardinals struggled with throughout last season. Things like leadership, the right kind of attitude and off-court distractions were all issues he noted. Due to this, Lewis said the team had problems finding momentum.
But during their 2025-26 Media Day event Sept. 24, the Cardinals themselves used one word to describe this year’s roster: competitive.
“We have a whole bunch of competitive players,” graduate student transfer Cam Denson said. “We just gotta listen to the coaches, and use the competitiveness the right way and be smart with it.”
Including Denson, Ball State has 10 new players wearing the Cardinal logo, with only five returners making their way back to Muncie. The roster features eight guards, which is an area that Lewis wanted to improve upon.
“If you don’t have good guard play, you struggle. I thought our guard play was not good enough last year,” Lewis said. “When you break down the statistics and you talk about evaluating your team … we were at the bottom [of the MAC]. We were No. 11 or 12 in production in some of those spots.”
With the large number of new guards, multiple Cardinals, including returning redshirt freshman forward Jai Anthoni Bearden, said it has affected the intensity in practice and has forced guys to play much harder. Add in the fact that the program has missed the conference tournament the last two seasons, and it’s supposedly a good mixture.
“We really push every day, and we have a real goal. This year, we want to achieve it,” Bearden said. “We really want to win, and I can feel that energy [around the team].”
Some of the new additions to Ball State’s roster include names like senior guard Juwan Maxey (Youngstown State), redshirt sophomore forward Kayden Fish (Iowa State) and junior guard Armoni Zeigler (Saint Peter’s).
The newest Cardinals, including those three, all had similar things to say when asked why they chose Ball State. To them, the head coach was an important factor.
“Anyone from Indiana, you know the pedigree that Lewis has,” Fish said. “If you know anything about basketball or IU, you know he’s serious about hoops, and that’s what I wanted.”
But it wasn’t just his name that drew recruits in. It was what he promised them and the honesty he showed them.
“One of the things that stood out about Lewis and the coaching staff was that they kept it 100 percent,” Maxey said. “Lewis is gonna be real with you at all times, whether you want to hear it or not, and I saw that as soon as I came on campus.
“I wanted to turn this place around for men’s basketball. I heard it’s been down for a couple of years, so why not go off my last year with a bang?”
Though the players and staff believe this team has the tools and talent to be competitive in the MAC, Lewis wants to see more than that. He wants to see the Cardinals ‘want it’ and rise to the occasion for themselves.
“I called it an alpha [mentality] last year. You’re just talking about a guy that’s not scared, not afraid and who has the charisma and the characteristics to put themselves out there that demands the people around them [to do the same],” Lewis said. “I don’t know if there are true alphas anymore. I think that’s more of a societal issue, and I think those alphas get squashed in kindergarten and first grade.”
Lewis went on to highlight the issues he believes athletes and society in general have when it comes to finding ‘alphas’ or leaders.
“I keep up with my hip hop here with the guys. So I listen to the radio in my car when I come in. It was after the Country Music awards,” Lewis said. “It was for the entertainer award, and people were calling in to complain. [They said] once you win entertainer of the year, you shouldn’t be allowed to win that award ever again … You look at a company like McDonald’s.
“It doesn’t go like ‘Hey, man. You guys sold the most hamburgers last year. [Because of that], you can’t sell hamburgers this year.’ It doesn’t work that way.”
Though the Cardinals agree that they need to find leadership and have players step up during the campaign, some believe they need to get out of their own way. Returning junior forward Mason Jones said there was one major thing he learned from last year’s issues.
“I would just say everyone needs to be about winning,” Jones said. “We need to do things the right way and put our personal goals aside.”
With this being Jones’s third year in Muncie, he has seen what’s worked and what hasn’t for the Red and White. When asked about this year’s team, he said the summer workout sessions stood out amongst the other Ball State teams he’s been a part of.
“I think it was a very quick transition in terms of getting the camaraderie and playing together well,” he said. “I feel like it was the best start of our team since I’ve been here, and I think it’s going really well.”
Besides players, the Cardinals also added two new coaches to their coaching staff. Associate head coach Scott Combs joined the staff in June and has a head coaching record of 124-65 (Martin Methodist). Also making his Ball State debut is assistant coach John Clancy. He has spent the last two seasons as an assistant at Western Illinois.
The Cardinals will start the year as they host Louisiana, Nov. 3 at Worthen Arena. The game will be a part of the MAC-SBC Challenge. The MAC season will begin Dec. 20 as the Red and White take on Miami (OH) at home.
“I said last year that basketball’s king [in Indiana]. It is, man,” Lewis said. “I know what’s going on with Indiana football, and the Colts are hot and everybody is happy. But this is Indiana … At the heart of this thing, you’re in Hooserland. We’re going to do everything we can to put a team out there that you can get behind and enjoy.”
Contact Zach Carter via email at zachary.carter@bsu.edu, zachcarter039@gmail.com or via X @ZachCarter85.
