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Coach of the year

If he doesn't win it, who else would? You could make a case for UNI's Jacobson, but they've struggled lately. JL is the front-runner right now.
 
After what JL has done over the last few season, I think he deserves it the most. And after being selected to finish at the bottom of the Valley in preseason and currently in 4th place, how can you say no. :lol:
 
At this point I think you are down to a three way race between Les, Altman, and Lowery. I'm going to play devil's advocate and put my two cents in for Altman and Lowery, even if I think that Les is just as deserving.

Altman's team really struggled with chemistry and injuries early in the year, but have really turned it on as of late. It's always hard to win the conference when you're picked to win it and have the bulleyes on your back.

Lowery has his team in first place at 12-3 with 7 straight wins in conference. They actually look like they will finish at 15-3 or 14-4 which is pretty darn good considering it was looking like 12-5 might win the conference for a while there.
 
I see your points about Lowery and Altman, but those teams were supposed to succeed. Nobody (myself included) expected BU to be in a position like this when the season began. I think JL deserves more credit for taking what many thought was a play-in round team and turning them into a fourth-place (knock on wood) team.
 
I will say that Les has had to chang his style of offense and defense since last year, while SIU, Creighton, UNI (even with their new coach), WSU (...OK basically all other 9 teams in the Valley) have kept the same type of system in that they had last year.

Long story short: Les adapted from his "Big" team to his "Small" team and STILL SUCCEEDED AND EXCEEDED EXPECTATIONS (picked 8th, currenty T-4th)
 
BUBravesMan said:
I will say that Les has had to chang his style of offense and defense since last year, while SIU, Creighton, UNI (even with their new coach), WSU (...OK basically all other 9 teams in the Valley) have kept the same type of system in that they had last year.

Long story short: Les adapted from his "Big" team to his "Small" team and STILL SUCCEEDED AND EXCEEDED EXPECTATIONS (picked 8th, currenty T-4th)
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Very well said........and that is why JLes is Coach of the Year!!!
 
I would vote for Les, but then I don't get a vote.
Barry Hinson might also get some votes. I know the MSU fans don't like him, but I think he is a good coach and he does seem to get a lot out of his teams. Unlike SIU and Creighton, MSU doesn't have many highly rated recruits and other than Ahearn, may not have anyone who will get All-MVC attention. And Ahearn was not highly recruited either. They don't have quality big men or a great point guard, and they have nobody else in the top 20 in the league in scoring except Ahearn. It seems every year they have a bunch of role players who just win. Barry must be doing something right.
 
FWIW My vote would go to Jim Les and really it's not even close for me.

He has done a remarkable job in changing his system to fit his roster for this year as opposed to the other way around which most coaches do. He took a gamble and it's paid off as BU is having another good season.

I think he deserves a ton of credit for this, when you add in that most people picked BU to be in the 7-10 range in the standings, it's even more impressive.

I think he deserves COY.
 
I just want to make sure I'm not bashing Les, because I think he's got a great shot at winning coach of the year and even deserves it. I just don't want everyone over here ripping on a selection if it's not Les because Lowery and Altman have both done great jobs with their teams this year.
 
Majik45 said:
At this point I think you are down to a three way race between Les, Altman, and Lowery. I'm going to play devil's advocate and put my two cents in for Altman and Lowery, even if I think that Les is just as deserving.

Altman's team really struggled with chemistry and injuries early in the year, but have really turned it on as of late. It's always hard to win the conference when you're picked to win it and have the bulleyes on your back.

Lowery has his team in first place at 12-3 with 7 straight wins in conference. They actually look like they will finish at 15-3 or 14-4 which is pretty darn good considering it was looking like 12-5 might win the conference for a while there.
Click to expand...


Well, I'll throw in that Dana Altman returned TWO players who are 1st team preseason All Conference (Funk and Tolliver) and one of them is the preseason POY and is the leading candidate to actually get the award as well.
Sure he's had some injuries, but the only significant player they lost was Mathies, they returned FIVE of their best six players and leading scorers. They were picked by many if not most to win the Valley, and are right about where they were picked, maybe even a bit below.


And I'll throw in that SIU was picked by just about anyone who didn't pick Creighton, and also returned their entire starting five, most of whom were recruited by Lowery's predecessor.
I agree they are having a good year, but again, they are right about where they are supposed to be in the Valley.

Only Jim Les has done something with his team that far exceeds what he was predicted he'd do.
He has done the best coaching job in the Valley by far, and even people outside the Valley are noticing.
Several threads on opposing Valley teams' message boards have praised the coachgin job JL is doing, and an article by the main MSU beat writer listed his COY picks as Ben Jacobson with JL a close second,
"A close second is Bradley's Jim Les, whose team has a completely revamped its playing style from a year ago and is having success."
BUT-- since that article was written, UNI has now lost FIVE of their last SIX games, and has fallen from 6-2 in the Valley to 7-8!!
So I think we can surmise that even that writer would withdraw his nomination of Jacobson.
 
I have to go with JL, he lost so much scoring production, gets his team to buy into this new approach. we can't finish lower than 6th, which is still better than 8th. less than 20 3's away from breaking the all time valley record. he has done an amazing job and next year looks even better with the talent we're bringing in.

Dana and Chris L. are respectable choices but expecations were high for them. SIU returned all major players from last year so if they didn't finish high then we'd be surprised and when Dana has someone playing for him that is as old as he is (funk) who has basiclly supposed to be the best player since the dawn of college, expectations are once again high

JL and Bradley were in the cellar in the beginning when predictions are made and now are making some noise with more to make. :D
 
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