Julius Washington Reports

How do you follow up on Howard men’s basketball’s best season since 2002? That’s the question Head Coach Kenneth Blakeney is looking to answer this season.

Last year, the Bison went 16-13, good for second in the NCAA’s Division 1 MEAC Conference and a dramatic turnaround from the previous two seasons’ 1-4 and 4-29 records. 

Blakeney is no stranger to winning, having been a member of the 1991 and 1992 Duke NCAA championship teams. Speaking about the upcoming season, he stressed the importance of the process and moving step by step towards making the Howard basketball program into a contender. 

“I think it took Coach K [Duke men’s basketball head coach Mike Krzyzewski] maybe nine attempts before he won a national championship…It wasn’t like it just happened,” he said. You’ve got to have a certain amount of pain and hurt, in order to take those steps to get to the next level.”

“My message to our guys is ‘can we win today?’ Not to look past today, but to lock in and be present on where we are right now,” Coach Blakeney continued.

In terms of locking in on the court, Blakeney talked about wanting to continue to play an NBA-style, uptempo brand of basketball, but was also looking forward to the ability to put more defensive-minded lineups on the floor. Howard’s offense led the MEAC and was in the top 50 in points per game nationwide, but struggled defensively and on both sides of the glass. This year should be different.

“We might have six or seven dudes that are 6’ 5” or taller that are over 200 pounds. So we have the bodies that can kind of match up with teams when you’re doing all the interior banging and all the stuff you have to do with going to the basket for three-point-plays,” he said. “We have a unit now that can physically, I think, withstand those kinds of confrontations. And then we have the length, I think, to be, one, a great defensive team, and two, a pretty good rebounding team.”

Howard hasn’t had a player drafted to the NBA since the Rockets drafted Larry Spriggs back in the fifth round of the 1981 NBA draft, but there are signs that may be changing soon. Makur Maker, the five-star high school prospect who committed to Howard back in 2019, signed an Exhibit 10 contract with the Washington Wizards this offseason. Steve Settle, who is returning to the Bison this season, was named to the All-MEAC team last year. Kyle Foster, who led the NCAA in three-point percentage last year, played Summer League games with the Detroit Pistons and signed a professional contract with French team Chorale Royale Basket this past July.

Coach Blakeney was ecstatic when talking about the success of Kyle Foster, “To actually see it manifest at the highest level of NBA Summer League basketball, you can’t do anything but be proud and be happy for that young man, and I think, the trajectory of the program.”

“We’re getting handed the baton”

—Howard Men’s Basketball Coach Kenneth Blakeney

Howard’s recent success may be a surprise to some, but to Blakeney, it should be the expectation at a school like Howard, with the motto, “Excellence in truth and service.” Coach wants more than a winning season. He wants to build a culture of excellence campus-wide. 

“…We’re getting handed the baton, and though it’s not the academic side of the campus, we’re still a part of Howard University. With excellence, that shouldn’t just be on the academic campus, it also should be in athletics…”

Noting Howard’s position as the preeminent HBCU, he called it the University’s duty to continue to push the envelope of what athletics at HBCUs could become, in terms of building programs that are renowned across the country. “I think there is a huge responsibility,” he said. 

And many HBCU athletic programs have already started to take steps toward national relevancy. Jackson State’s football team made headlines for signing Hall of Fame cornerback Deion Sanders as head coach, who led the team to a school-record 11-win season and a berth in the Celebration Bowl for the first time.

The same is true in HBCU basketball as well. Coach Blakeney praised a few of these programs, including the Norfolk State Spartans, North Carolina Central Eagles, and Kevin Broadus’ Morgan State Bears, who faced off against Howard in last year’s inaugural NBA All-Star Game HBCU Classic. Blakeney succinctly stated, “Our league [MEAC] is really good.” 

If Blakeney has anything to say about it, it’ll be just a matter of time before the rest of the country knows it too.

This story was written to fulfill a writing requirement for Multimedia Storytelling and appeared on the HU Multimedia Storytelling Tumblr page. View here.