It’s been quite the ride for the University of Detroit Mercy men’s basketball team in the last few weeks. With the holiday season bringing upon the spirit of both giving and receiving, that accurately summed up the Titans’ recent span of games. They’ve gone 3-4 in their last seven games, picking up victories over non-Division I opponent Sienna Heights, Youngstown State on the road and Cleveland State at home on Sunday.
Detroit Mercy also dropped narrow decisions against Purdue Fort Wayne on the road, Robert Morris and Horizon League leading Wright State, both of which were at home, before losing in a more lopsided loss to Northern Kentucky on the road tonight. It was a game in which they were even with NKU through the first 15 minutes, but fell behind going into intermission and couldn’t claw their way back in it the rest of the way.
Mark Montgomery’s squad currently sits at 7-10 overall and they hold a 4-4 record in conference play thus far. The team is just one win short of the total it finished with last season and have already matched the number of league wins from a year ago.
One important tidbit to note is that apart from the setback suffered against the Norse tonight, Detroit Mercy’s three other losses since conference play started were highly competitive, and the Titans gave themselves a chance down the stretch to pull out a win in each of those games. After wins over IU Indy and Cleveland State gave them a 2-0 start in the league, they suffered an 81-77 setback on the road against the Mastodons.
After UDM beat Sienna Heights and Youngstown State, they dropped an 85-77 decision to Robert Morris in a game that saw the Titans’ advantage grow to as large as eight points in the second half. The Titans’ third and most recent league loss came at the hands of Wright State. They lost 84-82 to the conference-leading Raiders. After leading 32-29 in the first half, UDM went into a dire scoring drought, managing to tack on only one point in the final 4:53 to go down 44-33 into the break. Detroit Mercy played from behind the whole second half, but a final five-minute surge gave them an opportunity in the final minute to pull off the comeback.
The red, white and blue also notched a couple of conference victories in games which it dominated much more than the final score would imply. A 73-68 road win at the expense of the Youngstown State ended in just a five-point differential, but a massive 24-4 Titan run that started in the first half and continued in the second half was the shift that ended up being too difficult for the Penguins to overcome. The run gave them a 51-29 lead just under five minutes into the second half, and it remained a double-digit game until the final minute of play. Most recently against Cleveland State, they dominated the Vikings for 30 of the 40 minutes en route to a 94-84 win at home. And although the outcome was only a 10-point triumph, Cleveland State went on a massive run after the game was out of reach, as Detroit Mercy led 88-65 with less than five minutes left.
What’s been impressive about this stretch of games, however, has been that they needed to do it all without third leading scorer Ayden Carter, who hasn’t played since the Dec. 3, 2025 win over IU Indy due to a knee injury. Unfortunately, they’ll have to continue to right the ship without him, as he is ruled out for the remainder of the season.
“Definitely not how I saw my junior year going, ending early … but when you trust God’s PLAN and WILL you know it’s all for a reason. Seven [going to] be back up and better,” Carter announced in an Instagram post earlier this week.
Although the absence of Carter leaves a sizeable void, the Titans have done a good job in attempting to fill it, with numerous guys stepping up each game to do that. Orlando Lovejoy has continued to do whatever he needs to help his team win. He scored a game-high 22 points in the win over Youngstown State, and is coming off a superb performance against Cleveland State in which he recorded 19 points, nine assists, seven rebounds and eight steals.
Lovejoy also reached the 1,000-point milestone in his college career in their game against Sienna Heights on December 20th. Freshman Keshawn Fisher added 15 points and seven rebounds in that road win against the Penguins. TJ Nadeau continues to help the team as he’s now up to 46.5% from beyond the arc, proving night in and out that he’s one of the biggest shooting threats out there. Legend Geeter has joined the fun, even tabbing a career-high 22 points in the battle with Wright State.
There have clearly been numerous players that have proved to be important in helping the Titans stay in the league race, but two guys that have been instrumental to the success that Detroit Mercy has seen at times in this recent stretch have been Tyler Spratt and Ryan Kalambay. The redshirt freshman in Spratt finally found his stride, as he’s scored in double figures in four of the six games over the winter break, and all four in which he saw greater than 20 minutes of play. He had a double-digit scoring streak of three going, even recording a career-high 19 points against his old squad in Cleveland State.
Despite a slower start than maybe he would have liked, Spratt expressed that he’s now playing with some more confidence:
“I’ve been getting in [work] early, some late nights, just trying to build my confidence back, and I feel I’ve got it back, so just putting in all the work, I knew it would come. I just stayed the course,” Spratt said.
Kalambay on the other hand, started the season off in a reduced role, much smaller than the one he had for the latter part of his freshman season a year ago. However, the Ontario native has picked things up in the last few weeks, with his minute share also increasing. He had a seven-point, 10-rebound performance against Youngstown State, a game in which Kalambay also blocked five shots. He’s also tallied nine blocks in the last four games, and is coming off a double-double against the Vikings.
The sophomore attributed finding recent success again to doing all the little things.
“I’m just going in everyday trying to get better, watching film, not taking shortcuts, and slowly the hard work pays off. You might not notice it day one, but once you take a step back and look at everything, you’ll notice it, so I’m just trying to stay consistent right now,” Kalambay said.
Moving forward, Detroit Mercy is in a spot that it hasn’t been in for a few years now, close to .500 overall, and in the thick of the Horizon League race. Spratt had a big key for the Titans in order to continue playing good basketball.
“We got a good group, and everyone is producing right now. The biggest thing is to just keep playing hard defense. We got so many skilled guys that the offense will in part take care of itself if we do that,” Spratt said.
Next Up
The Titans hit the road again. On Saturday, it’ll be the second matchup against the IU Indy Jaguars at 2 p.m. inside The Jungle in Indianapolis.
Detroit Mercy then returns home to attempt to avenge a loss a few weeks ago, taking on Purdue Fort Wayne next Wednesday at 7 p.m. inside Calihan Hall. The Titans will remain home, as a much-anticipated matchup against rival Oakland will take place just three days later, Jan. 24. The game against the Golden Grizzlies will tipoff at 3 p.m.
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