Luke Morrison's former/future Calvin teammates told coach Bill Sall, "Coach, that kid can hoop." Call that the understatement of the tournament. Photo by Doug Sasse, d3photography.com

By Riley Zayas
Managing Editor, True to the Cru

It seemed that every time Luke Morrison had the ball in his hands, the diameter of the rim doubled. 

And that was a good thing for Calvin, because the 6-5 guard had the ball in his hands a lot. So much so in fact, that the fifth-year senior put together what Calvin head coach Bill Sall called “one of the more amazing offensive performances I’ve seen.” Morrison went for 37 points, as Calvin reached the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2014, defeating UW-Platteville 76-64.

“I think almost every one of his shots was contested,” Sall said of Morrison’s performance against Platteville. “He was in that flow, though. When you’re in that zone, that rim is about twice the size of what it normally is.”

A transfer from Emory, Morrison had experience playing in postseason games entering the tournament. The Knights certainly relied on his offensive prowess, but it is the intangibles that he, and Calvin’s three other grad students — Alec Fruin, Thad Shymanski, Emmett Warners —have brought to the table.

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“I think we, especially the older guys, know what we’re capable of,” Morrison said. “We’re a very strong defensive team and we also have so many weapons on offense. There’s been some bumps in our season where we’ve had some highs and lows but we’ve shown at times that we can compete with anyone in the country.”

Interestingly enough, Morrison was a Knight before he ever became an Eagle. It is not often a player attends one school, transfers to another, then returns to the original school. But that is the exact roadmap the native of Bristol, Indiana, followed after beginning his collegiate career.

“I was here at Calvin my freshman year,” Morrison said. “I enjoyed my time here but felt called to do something different, and leave the area. I grew up in Indiana so I’ve been in the Midwest my whole life. I went on a couple visits and found Emory. I loved the campus, met some of the players and liked them a lot.”

Coming off the bench in 22 games as a sophomore in his first year with Emory, Morrison got a chance to experience the NCAA Tournament for the first time in that 2018-19 season. The Eagles posted a 20-6 record, but saw their season draw to a close in a high-scoring 100-88 loss to Wittenberg in Greensboro, North Carolina. For a player who had not even played in the MIAA tournament the year prior, as Calvin did not qualify, getting his first taste of tournament basketball at the collegiate level was a lasting memory.

“It was a very cool experience, something that prior to I had never been a part of,” Morrison said. “Emory, years prior, had a lot of success, so they were used to getting into the tournament. But I had never had that feeling where it could be your last game of the season, and you have to win.”

One year later, Emory went one round deeper into the tournament, defeating Methodist 78-74 before a narrow one-point loss to Pomona-Pitzer the following day. Little did he know, that turned out to be the last time he would step onto the court in an Emory uniform. A week later, the 2020 tournament was abruptly canceled due to COVID-19, and the pandemic wiped the 2021 tournament off the schedule as well. It also was responsible for the cancellation of Emory’s entire 2020-21 season.

When that turn of events unfolded, Morrison and the team’s seven other seniors were left thinking, ‘What now?’ It did not seem like what should have been a memorable senior season had actually ended. It never really began. It was that feeling that drove Morrison back to his Midwest roots, and former program, Calvin.

“Last year with Covid, obviously I wasn’t able to have a normal season,” Morrison recalls. “We had eight seniors on the team and we were looking forward to making an NCAA run again. I didn’t want my career to end like that.”

So after graduating from Emory, Morrison looked elsewhere for a place to use his final year of eligibility. Calvin’s one-year MBA program fit the description as did the basketball program.

“I had been weighing my options of playing another year and Calvin had a one-year MBA program online, which was something I’d been interested in. I enjoyed my experience here my freshman year. On top of that, my fiancée is from Grand Rapids too. So multiple factors went into it.”

After talking with Sall, Calvin’s second-year head coach, Morrison was sold on a return. Sall had a similar conclusion after talking to Morrison, especially once he heard what a couple of Morrison’s former teammates had to say.

“When he came to look around, I mentioned it to Thad Shymanski, and Emmett Warners, who had played with Luke for one year,” Sall recalls. “They were like, ‘Coach, that kid can hoop.’ He had a really good recommendation as far as his skill level and how he could play. But then, sitting down and getting to talk to him, and finding out the quality of person he was, made all the difference.”

Photos by Doug Sasse, d3photography.com

Morrison immersed himself into learning Sall’s system. When the season began, for the first time in his college career, he was in the starting lineup. And yet, through the rise to prominence within the Cavin program, and now, nationally, Morrison’s attitude never saw him put his own performances over the team’s success.

“He’s a such a team-first guy,” Sall said. “We all rely on him for the scoring elements of it, but he’s the first one to find the open guy.”

The head coach also noted an improvement from Morrison on the defensive end this season, another example of how his team-first mentality has improved the success of the team as a whole. Morrison enters Friday’s third-round matchup against Elmhurst averaging 1.3 steals and 3.5 defensive rebounds per game.

“To be quite honest with you, in my years of coaching, it’s awfully hard to get shooters to be good defenders,” Sall said. “I don’t know why, but it’s the truth. We are a jump-shooting team, but as this season has gone along, we have really taken pride in how we defend and what we can do on the defensive side.”

Things have gone full circle for Morrison this season. The same place he began his collegiate career is where he will end it. His role has increased within the team, and his talent has blossomed, but the same quality of person that left Grand Rapids in 2018 is the same person who returned last fall.

“He spent some time obviously at Emory,” Sall says, “but in a lot of ways it’s like he never left.”

Riley Zayas is co-founder of the website True to the Cru, which covers Mary Hardin-Baylor athletics.