DETROIT (8/11/2025) -- While the Titan faithful were enjoying the summer, the University of Detroit Mercy men's basketball team was hard at work getting ready for the upcoming season.

The Titans were able to have 13 of their 14 student-athletes on campus in the summer to get that early work in, and for head coach Mark Montgomery, that will definitely give UDM a heads-up start once the players officially return to school for the fall semester.

"It was a great summer for us," said Montgomery. "To have nearly our entire team here, working hard on the court, in the strength room, that is going to have a positive effect on us this year."

The Titans have six returning players, and you can make the argument that five are returning starters. Both of those numbers would be the most out of anyone in the Horizon League, and Detroit Mercy will add eight talented newcomers.

"It is a different era now with players coming back, but returning the core that we do and the new players, the summer is so key to a team's development," said Montgomery. "I loved the fact that not only did we work so hard on the court, but we also worked on being a team. We did a lot of team functions because our success will be how well we come together as a team." 

The Titans return senior Orlando Lovejoy, who led the team in virtually every statistical category last season. Senior Legend Geeter is back after his best collegiate season in scoring and rebounding, and so is senior Jared Lary, who was enjoying a fine season until an injury ended his year just nine games in.

Detroit Mercy also returns three sophomores who took their lumps as freshmen, but kept on getting better in Nate Johnson, Ryan Kalambay, and TJ Nadeau. The trio were the only Titans to play in all 32 games and participate in every practice.

"When you look at what we bring back and what we added, it is going to be interesting. I knew coming into practice that we were going to be a deep team, but the way we played, it even shocked me how deep we can be. I think going into the season, we have a lot of guys that will battle for time, and we can go 11, 12, I mean, we have a lot of players, and that stuck out to the coaching staff."

When the team returns, they will get right back at it as they get ready for the season. Detroit Mercy has already announced its non-conference schedule and will release its preseason slate soon. Also, the Horizon League will announce the conference ledger by early September.