Softball is the latest tool to help strengthen the Racers' bond
MBB: Competing in multiple sports is helping bring this group of newcomers together
On Wednesday night, the scoreboard at Racer Field showed a final score of 8-6. Murray State Men’s Basketball coaches and staff held off a late rally by the Racer players to grab the win on the softball field.
“It was way closer than I thought it was going to be” Murray State Head Coach Ryan Miller said with a smile.
There were a lot of laughs and fun throughout the night, but, make no mistake, winning was the only option during this ‘friendly’ game.
“It always happens like that,” Murray State sophomore guard Layne Taylor said. “We joke about it leading up to it, and then once we get out there, it's pretty competitive. I mean, that's how it should be for a bunch of athletes.”
But losing to the coaches? Taylor said while it stings a little bit, the softball loss now evens up the score after the players recently won a paintball competition.
“We're 1-1, so we're not out of it yet,” Taylor said. “They couldn't hang at paintball. I thought that would apply out here because there was some running involved, but we weren't good enough fielders. We'll work on our game and get back at it.”
Wednesday was just the latest in a series of team-building exercises Miller has put his team through this summer. Whether it’s been softball or pickleball or paintball or bowling, the Racers are constantly competing with each other. Murray State’s first-year head coach is hopeful this will ultimately lead to wins on the basketball court.
“That's what I want to teach these guys, teach our team and teach our staff, too,” Miller said. “Every time we do something out here, we're coming out here to compete to win. Whether it's pickleball, whether it's softball, whether it's paintball the other night, we're competing to win and to just have that competitive desire. The three most important things for me putting together this team, I’ve always said we want an unselfish group, which we have. We want a team that's going to be very tough mentally and physically. Then we want a team that competes no matter what they do. Whether it’s in the classroom, in the CFSB Center, wherever it’s at, we want to compete and be the best versions of ourselves and the best versions of us.”
Murray State’s first official practice leading up to the start of the season is Monday. The Racers will take one final preseason getaway this weekend to Nashville. Along with getting some work in on the court, they’re going to compete at an obstacle course at Fort Campbell, enjoy some TopGolf and then see the Titans play on Sunday.
“We're excited we get to do some fun stuff,” Taylor said. “That'll be a lot of fun. We just enjoy hanging out, getting to do all that stuff together. It's really cool. We have 15 new players and a bunch of new support staff, so we've really built a camaraderie and a culture early on, which is tough to do. In the landscape of college basketball now, everything's kind of year-to-year, so you kind of have to do it going forward. I think we've done a really good job of it, (I know) our coaches have. We’re together all the time. They have fun stuff like this outside of basketball for us to do, so we're starting to build a really good culture.”
“We want this to be a family,” Miller added. “We want this to be something that they remember. The biggest (way) you remember is you take a group of guys, you bring them together and we all sacrifice for a goal. Ultimately that goal is to sacrifice for each other so we can win championships. We want to make sure when we leave this season, when we get to spring, we left it all on the line and we made this a memorable moment for everybody.”