MVC A Guards League?????

[AZ BU Fan]

I question the notion the MVC is a "Guards League", and that the team with the best guards, or plays the most good guards, wins...

If memory serves me, UNI and Creighton (#1 and #2 last year) had some pretty good centers on the floor, complimented by other big men who contributed...

Player...................RB/G.......STL.......BLK........PTS/G
Lawson Jr.,Kenny....4.8....... 10..........56......... 8.5
Eglseder, Jordan.....6.4....... 5........... 44.........10.2

For Drake in 2007-08, Johnathon Cox avg 8.5 RB/G and 12.3 PTS/G

The last time BU made a big spash was with POB, Cellus, Boogie, and Zach...

BU has tried small line ups with undersized 4's and reliance on guards and quick wing players who can jump..it has worked 17-18 times out of 32 in the past....

IMHO, we will need to get more contributions from our bigs to get to the next level.

I would love to see TB at the 3 at some point in time in 2009-10 (with two other bigs) on the front line...and pound it inside with high low post offense.

If everyone else in the Valley is trying to win with guards, perhaps we should try to win with bigs and pound everyone else on both ends of the floor!

Appears Jank may be recruiting that way for the future!

[tornado]

I think the Valley is still mainly a guard's league...

every Valley team goes after quality big men, it's just that most don't want to come and play in the Valley...so few ever end up in the Valley.
The kids are more informed than a lot people give them credit...they know the Valley has NOT been kind to big men....the usual reffing we see hampers their development as we saw with POB...tons of ticky fouls called in the lane, fouls called on every clean block, neverending high screen fouls called..etc.
and simple history will show that very few big men in the MVC even get a sniff when looking to play at the next level.

These reasons are why the Valley has a nice history of guards developing into good pro players, but outside of Benoit Benjamin (almost 20 years back and he still kinda flopped at the next level) and POB (going on four years back and he still hasn't exactly wowed the NBA), none of the Valley's big men have done squat as pros unless you want to go all the way back to Steve Kuberski, Joe Allen, and Wes Unseld!

--Jonathan Cox was a walk on and developed into a decent PF but not a game-changer...
recall his only really successful year at Drake was when they had a stable of good guards. Then the next year, even though he was teamed with Josh Young, Cox couldn't do much more than help Drake to an 8-9th place tie - one slot out of last place.

--I would even dare to say Lawson was NOT the reason Creighton has been good the past couple years. It has been their guards, who accounted last year for 82% of Creighton's scoring and even 70% of their rebounding....
their top rebounder was a 6-4 wing player, not their centers.

--Maybe UNI is the best team to use if you want to demonstrate good big men as they have both Eglseder and Koch, but I think most Valley fans know what beat Bradley both times in the regular seaosn...and it was not the big men.
It was Kwadzo, Johnny Moran, and Ali Farokhmanesh...
In fact in one of the games (the one at UNI) Eglseder was invisible - scored ZERO pts, and had one rebound and no assists, and Koch was neither the leading scorer or rebounder.
In the other game, the late comeback was due to the guards, and the 3-pointers that Ali & Moran nailed at the end were the deciding factor.
So I think if BU and UNI swapped big men in both of those games, the winner would still have been UNI and it would not have been because of the big men.

[AZ BU Fan]

I'm not saying the MVC is the cradle of NBA big men

My point T is each year there are several teams in the MVC with good guards...I still believe what has put certain teams at the top in the MVC is credible big men contributing inside....

IMO BU would be picked to finish first in the league this year (by a wide margin) with a player like Eglseder or Lawson on their team...

Small line ups of good shooting guards seem to be more vulnerable than teams with balance and big men who produce...which then makes it easier for good guards to produce. Even the BU teams that rained 3's with Ruffin, Crouch, Adams, Warren, Sammy, etc weren't able to crack the top 3 in the Valley.

I'm hoping AT, WE, JP and SS will fill the need for good bigs this season for BU...and that BU put pressure on opposing teams with good guards by playing big...

[tornado]

I see what you're saying and I would like nothing better than to see several of the current big guys in the Valley develop into players that get national recognition...maybe it'll happen with the guys like Prosser, Stutz, Wilkins, Threloff, etc..

[houstontxbrave]

I think the Valley is certainly a more guard dominated league overall. But basketball generally is a guard dominated game. They handle the ball more and make decisons more then lets say a center.

But to get to a different level you MUST have size, length and basketball athletic ability. We at Bradley have seen upclose that yes in the Valley you can be competitve with a small 4 guard lineup as long as you dont turn the ball over, and make your open 3 pt shots. But the other side of it is you have to live with being out rebounded nightly and when you are out rebounded you tend to let your opponent have more possessions and more scoring opportunities. Your margin for error is much to slim.

In the 06 season we also saw what can happen if you play a long athletic 5, and put that person with a physical long 4 and a very athletic 3, 2, and 1. You can compete with college basketball programs throughout the country. The key though is athletic tall lengthy front courts.

The Valley is a guard oriented league but that is not a formula for NCAA success. It can be a formula for competitive basketball if done exact, but to get to a different level you have to have 3-5 guys who are big, athletic and secure the glass.

[bu fan 9]

All the NCAA is a guard league there are very few good big men anywhere.

[SFP]

All the NCAA is a guard league there are very few good big men anywhere.

You are so right but the better teams do have a very serviceable big if not two! We thought we had a big team when we went to the Sweet 16 but Memphis was even bigger and longer! I'm sure JL would love to have a taller more athletic team but in reality they all do. What coach goes out there and says give me all the short ball players? You go after the best players that you have a chance at playing at your school, PERIOD! Hopefully we'll find a few more diamonds in the rough like POB!

[SaintLouBrave22]

Maybe more so this year, but I tell ya what, I like the idea of a frontline of Will Egolf, Taylor Brown, and Chris Roberts and feel like they can go up against any front 3 in the entire league.