A new era of Ball State basketball is on the horizon.
After finishing the season 12-19, Ball State fired head coach Michael Lewis after four seasons on Saturday, March 7. The Cardinals went 7-11 in MAC play for three consecutive seasons and missed the MAC Tournament in each of those seasons. Lewis was 61-64 in his four seasons at Ball State, beginning with a 20-12 season in 2022-23 and regressing each season thereafter.
Ball State athletic director Jeff Mitchell met with local media, including The Star Press, on Monday, March 9, to explain the decision and the next steps for the program.
“We appreciate the contributions that Coach Lewis made to the program over his four-year tenure,” Mitchell said. “These decisions are, and always are, extraordinarily difficult. It impacts people’s lives. In this particular case, the level of success after year one had declined year over year, and we also didn’t make the conference tournament for three consecutive years. We were stagnant, finishing in the 7-11 range in conference play year over year. We defeated only one Division I opponent that ended the year with a winning record.”
According to Mitchell, internal conversations about Lewis’ future began in the back half of the conference schedule. He could not say whether qualifying for the MAC Tournament would have changed the outcome.
Even with a four-game winning streak to end the season, the decision to go in a new direction was made. Mitchell met with Lewis on Saturday morning to inform him of the decision, after the Cardinals finished their season with an 85-69 home win over Central Michigan on Friday, March 6.
“These decisions are never made in a vacuum, not in operations at this level,” Mitchell said. “It’s a broad-based approach. There was alignment on that, and for me, for us as an institution, the ability to act quickly and provide the opportunity for a thorough and thoughtful search is really important to me as a director of athletics and to the institution as well.”
Mitchell could not put a firm timeline on hiring the next Ball State basketball coach, but he said that there would ideally be a new coach in place before the NCAA Tournament Final Four, which will be held Saturday, April 4. The transfer portal opens for college basketball players on Tuesday, April 7, the day after the national championship game. However, if Ball State hires its next coach before then, there will be an additional five-day portal window that opens the day that coach is announced, meaning some Cardinals could officially enter the portal a bit earlier.
Mitchell also met with the team on Monday ahead of his sit-down with the local media. A few players — including guards Davion Hill and Kody Clancy — have already announced their intentions to enter the transfer portal in the wake of the coaching change.
“I’ve met with the team and acknowledged to them that I understand how difficult this is,” Mitchell said. “I also acknowledged to them that I recognize, certainly, in this era of intercollegiate athletics where the freedom of transfer is in play year over year that I respect the decisions that they will make as we hire a new head coach. I also told them that we’re working diligently to find a new head coach, and I hope that they have the opportunity to visit with that new head coach to talk about their future, whether it’s here or whether it helps them make a decision about what it looks like.”
Since Lewis’ firing was announced, the narrative across national media reports and social media has focused on Ball State’s lack of resources and administrative support to field a competitive basketball program. Similar narratives emerged surrounding other MAC schools that fired their head coaches, like Eastern Michigan, Western Michigan, and Northern Illinois (which will play next season in the Horizon League).
While Mitchell could not get into the specifics of Ball State’s resource allocation, he did reaffirm the university’s commitment to supporting the men’s basketball program, citing the hiring of dedicated men’s basketball staffers and the construction of the Foss Championship Performance Center — a new on-campus athletic training facility set to open in June — as examples of their continued investment.
“That’s a constant, near-daily conversation that we have at the institution about driving more revenue-enhancing budgets,” Mitchell said. “What I will tell you is that we have increased the level of support for basketball and other sports year over year for three years. I also acknowledge that everybody would want more. I wish I could snap my fingers and give them more. In addition to financial resources, we have provided staffing assistance to men’s basketball —from a dedicated trainer to a dedicated strength and conditioning coach — to continuing to invest in our facilities.
“There’s a lot going on to better not only men’s basketball, but the rest of our programs that are all resource-based in different ways, and we are going to continue to drive more revenue and generate more resources to help support all of our programs, including basketball, and it’s a daily exercise.”
Contact Cade Hampton via email at cbhampton@usatodayco.com or on X, formerly known as Twitter, @CadeHamp10.
This article originally appeared on Muncie Star Press: What’s next for Ball State basketball after firing Michael Lewis?
Reporting by Cade Hampton, Muncie Star Press / Muncie Star Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
