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4 MVC games Tuesday 12/4

Da Coach

Da Coach

Moderator
Staff member
4 games in the MVC including Michigan State at Bradley at 8:05 pm CST

the other 3 games--
Illinois State (5-2) at Eastern Michigan (3-4) at 6:00 pm CST

Indiana State (3-3) Miami (Ohio) (3-3) at 7:30 pm CST

Maryland-Baltimore County (6-1) at Wichita State (4-2) at 7:05 pm CST

Scores--
http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaab/scoreboard?d=2007-12-04&c=mvc&refresh=60

Note-- IlSU and InSU play road games, and Miami is tough at home.
Maryland-Baltimore County sounds like one of those cupcake opponents that Wichita should beat easily. But they are not. They are a very good team with several talented players. They are 6-1 and have already beaten St. Peter's, LaSalle (road), Richmond (road), George Washington, Morgan State, and American (road). Their RPI is 28. This will be a very tough game for WSU.

By the way, the MVC remains the #5 ranked conference after last night's games--
http://realtimerpi.com/rpi_conf_Men.html
http://realtimerpi.com/rpi_mvc_Men.html

Maryland-Baltimore County plays in the American East Conference, which is usually a weak conference. The American East is currently the #27 ranked conference, and every team has an RPI of 198 or lower, except MD-BC's RPI of 27.--
http://realtimerpi.com/rpi_aeast_Men.html
 
I thought I was the only lunatic up at this early in the morning haha. However, you pry slept and are getting ready to go to work and I have yet to even attempt sleep....Regardless, cant wait for the game tonight.
 
Yup- I gotta get going early to make time for the Game-day luncheon, and the pregame party!
 
My predictions:

71 - Illinois State
63 - Eastern Michigan

70 - Maryland-Baltimore County
69 - Wichita State

60 - Indiana State
66 - Miami (Ohio)

73 - Michigan State
74 - Bradley
 
shaunguth said:
My predictions:

71 - Illinois State
63 - Eastern Michigan

70 - Maryland-Baltimore County
69 - Wichita State

60 - Indiana State
66 - Miami (Ohio)

73 - Michigan State
74 - Bradley
Click to expand...

You were close with the WSU game, although you picked the wrong people winning :(. I actually thought we may lose also as UMBC isn't worldbeaters but they aren't slouches either. Wasn't sure this young team was ready

WSU - 77
UMBC - 68
FINAL

Also, heck of a game tonight. Sorry your boys couldn't pull it out. While I don't believe in moral victories, sometimes these close loses to really good teams opens eyes. I believe the close lose to Illinois a couple years ago for WSU boosted their confidence quite a bit and that's the year they went to the sweet 16. Hopefully it'll have that kind of boost for you guys (not necissarily prediciting sweet 16, but hopefully it'll boost you guys to continue to have a good year :) )
 
Da Coach said:
The MVC goes 1-3 tonight, but remains the #5 ranked conference in RPI.

Illinois State 63
Eastern Michigan 72
http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaab/boxscore?gid=200712040181

Indiana State 58
Miami (Ohio) 74
http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaab/boxscore?gid=200712040356

MD-Baltimore Cty. 68
Wichita State 77
http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaab/boxscore?gid=200712040648

Michigan St. 66
Bradley 61
http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaab/boxscore?gid=200712040062

Conference RPI--
http://realtimerpi.com/rpi_conf_Men.html
Click to expand...

While it won't stay this way....UMBC was #25 RPI when they came into the WSU game tonight :).
 
Da Coach said:
The MVC goes 1-3 tonight, but remains the #5 ranked conference in RPI.

Illinois State 63
Eastern Michigan 72
http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaab/boxscore?gid=200712040181
Click to expand...


The Valley's SOS as a conference went UP from 10th to 7th last night,
I suspect based mostly on BU playing MSU.

The attendance listed at the ISU-EMU game was
385!!!!
One other thing that stands out in the box score....ISU was whistled for 32 fouls (EMU for 22)!!!
and yet the refs were very familiar names (Steve Skiles & Tim Hutchinson)!

By the way..... any ISU fans out there.....why doesn't Levi Dyer start??
 
tornado said:
The Valley's SOS as a conference went UP from 10th to 7th last night,
I suspect based mostly on BU playing MSU.

The attendance listed at the ISU-EMU game was
385!!!!
One other thing that stands out in the box score....ISU was whistled for 32 fouls (EMU for 22)!!!
and yet the refs were very familiar names (Steve Skiles & Tim Hutchinson)!

By the way..... any ISU fans out there.....why doesn't Levi Dyer start??
Click to expand...

Could be a million reasons, but one of them is likely to provide an offensive spark off the bench, something he didnt even come remotely close to doing last night. Plus, defensively and interior-effectiveness/athletic wise, we are better off with Odiakosa starting. Also yes, the 54 fouls called in that game were ludicrous. There was seriously a stoppage of play about every 30 seconds. It would not have been a good win, but it surely is an awful, embarrassing loss. Apologies to the Valley. We just played terrible last night and our post guys couldnt stay on the floor due to foul trouble.
 
Les is More said:
385 fans? there are more people at a freshmen girl's high school game!
Click to expand...


Yea, you could hear a pin drop in there on the radio broadcast. Their biggest crowd of the year was vs. Detroit a couple weeks ago where they drew 1,099. And we think we have attendance problems at ISU...
 
A couple more thoughts on the Eastern Michigan-ISU game....

Here is a blog from the Pantagraph's Jim Benson, and he does indeed confirm that the number of whistles and fouls called was pretty astounding.
"If I had to cover games like this every night in the winter, I would look for another line of work"
http://www.pantagraph.com/blogs/main/?p=2307#more-2307
By the way...Benson also makes a comment that there were 1200 people there in attendance, although he describes the crowd as
"the sparse crowd at the Convocation Center in Ypsilanti, Mich., Tuesday night, it seems like the preliminary game before the home team takes the court in the second game a copule hours later"

Later in the same blog....Benson admits he was wayyyy off with his pregame estimate and says this:
"Back to the crowd. Excuse me, but 385 at a Division I home basketball game? With the students still in class? Are you kidding me? I know the University of Michigan is five minutes away, but that is embarrassing"


One other comment from both Benson's blog and from this coverage
http://www.pantagraph.com/articles/2007/12/06/isusports/doc47563fa07ad07586089878.txt

...was that "Tim Jankovich was forced to use four guards for much of the rest of the half"
So for long stretches of the game (up to 14 minutes), Jank had to go with a four-guard offense.

But the other story also says:
"Jankovich said ISU has never practiced with four guards on the court at the same time."

Hmmmm....maybe he needs to give Jim Les a call and get his team properly prepared.
When Jank went to the 4-guard set...ISU was actually ahead. In fact, ISU lead 14-4 when the fouls took their toll on the ISU big men, and by the end of the half ISU trailed 30-26.
Also..........Osiris Eldridge was used as "power forward" and
" Eldridge earned Jankovich's hook when he put up an ill-advised 25-footer (his second air ball) with plenty of time on the shot clock."

I know I will catch heck from the ISU-er's but ...isn't it the coach's job to get his team prepared for any and all potential situations?
Surely Jank knew he wasn't going to have Sampay (injury), and it doesn't take a genius to know Odiakosa and Slack are, at times, foul prone.
And when playing on the road, you sometimes get some bad foul calls....
So ..........
JUST WHY could he not have foreseen the possibility of having to go with 4 guards, and maybe have prepared a little for this?
This is exactly what Jim Les foresaw LAST SEASON even before games started and prepared quite well for having to use 4 guards at a time.
I'd say Jank should have learned from Jim Les and been prepared, and your Pantagraph writer seems to be suggesting the same.

http://www.pantagraph.com/articles/2007/12/06/isusports/doc47563fa07ad07586089878.txt
 
tornado said:
I know I will catch heck from the ISU-er's but ...isn't it the coach's job to get his team prepared for any and all potential situations?
Surely Jank knew he wasn't going to have Sampay (injury), and it doesn't take a genius to know Odiakosa and Slack are, at times, foul prone.
And when playing on the road, you sometimes get some bad foul calls....
So ..........
JUST WHY could he not have foreseen the possibility of having to go with 4 guards, and maybe have prepared a little for this?
This is exactly what Jim Les foresaw LAST SEASON even before games started and prepared quite well for having to use 4 guards at a time.
I'd say Jank should have learned from Jim Les and been prepared, and your Pantagraph writer seems to be suggesting the same.
Click to expand...

The only real possibilities I can think of are that either Jank never imagined this scenario happening for whatever reason (which I dont really believe), or more likely that he never installed that part of his offensive system. He has gone on record time and again as saying he is inputting the system little by little and he is nowhere near the full installment yet. So going by that, I believe him when he says they never worked on a 4-guard portion of the system. Given how guard-heavy we are, I'm sure he has some 4-guard stuff in his bag 'o tricks, but they probably didnt install it/practice it yet. It was obviously something we werent prepared for in that game however. (Though I bet we are now.) Everything he has put in so far clearly involves the post players, so when he was forced to go without them for long stretches, he didnt really have a 2nd gameplan option to go on. I agree, this made him look ill-prepared. Hopefully it serves as a hard learning experience for the staff and the team.
 
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