Smith prepares on driveway goal

Three days after the Murray State men’s basketball team lost a close Ohio Valley Conference Tournament final to Belmont in March, DaQuan Smith and his teammates were shocked when the nation shut down at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

So Smith did what every student at Murray State and hundreds of colleges and university did. He went home.

Home is Holly Springs, Mississippi — a place where Smith settled in and kept on playing the game he loves on the goal in his driveway. The game can’t get any more basic than that.

“I rested the first week and then got to work,” Smith told GoRacers.com. “I have an outdoor court and I worked on my game.”

Smith said his first goal for driveway arrived when he was in the fourth grade. By his memory, he’s on his third or fourth goal. He probably wore the other ones out from taking so many shots. Just how many shots has Smith taken in his driveway?

“Well, I know I’m always shooting when I’m at home,” Smith said. “It would be hard to say exactly, but I’d say I’ve probably taken a million shots in my driveway over the years. That’s a whole lot of shots!”

Smith and his teammates have adjusted their workout regimen according to COVID-19 procedures, but they try not to think about it much when they’re on the court, and they’ve tried to pay little attention to all of the talk of when and how the season might happen.

The 2020-21 season has arrived. The Racers were slated to open the season this past Sunday against the Greenville University Panthers at 4 p.m. In the CFSB Center.

They are going to Middle Tennessee December 2. Next Tuesday, Dec. 8, they host Austin Peay.

“The biggest thing we have tried to do through the summer and now once we came back to Murray, is to prepare like we were going to have a season,” Smith said. “We had to in order to stay prepared for when that time comes. The workouts, the weight room, the practices. I think we’ve prepared well and we’re all excited to get to the games.”

Smith came to Murray State after a stellar prep career at Holly Springs High School where he led his team to the Mississippi 3A state championship game in 2018 and along the way he became his school’s all-time scorer with 2,788 points.

Smith had to sit out the 2018-19 season at MSU, derailed by injury.

In the 2019-20 season, his freshman season saw him become a big part of the Racers’ third-straight OVC regular season title by making 30 starts and scoring 7.2 points per game. He was second on the team with 110 assists and made 45 three-point baskets for third-best total on the team. He had eight games of double-digit scoring with a career-high 21 points against Kennesaw State. Smith’s career high assist game was nine against Middle Tennessee.

An advertising major, Smith enjoys being in the program built on a solid foundation by head coach Matt McMahon and his staff. Smith loves the culture of Racer basketball.

“The main things we believe are that we as players are going to have toughness and accountability,” Smith said. “Coach McMahon tells us to be ELC. E stands for being early and never being late for anything; L stands for loud, that is having energy in try to communicate in a way everything we do; C stands so we can have the best team for communication, and we we can have.”