Rust?

[BUfan14]

I love how losing to Loyola is all the sudden becoming acceptable with this 'experience' excuse.

Can you tell me where I said it was acceptable? In fact I believe I said it was not acceptable in my post....I was just giving a possible reason for optimism. I for one am optimistic. What was unacceptable to me was the players not playing hard the whole game like I thought they did yesterday because they filled their roles because they are gelling. I never said it was acceptable, I just didn't think the season was over after Loyola. I think a lot of people here think because someone is optimistic they don't get dissappointed. I am as dissappointed after any loss as anyone, but I try to keep it in perspective.

[shaunguth]

First, MK and JE were non-factors in the 2nd halves of both home losses, so they're irrelevant in this discussion. SM, EM, TB, CR, SS, and AT did play in Brazil, and I believe WE played a few minutes in the first game down there.

Second, we aren't a young team. Young teams start all freshmen and sophomores. Sam Maniscalco is a junior who's logged major minutes his whole career. Andrew Warren is a 4th year junior who's logged major minutes his whole career. Chris Roberts is a senior who logged major minutes last year. Eddren McCain is a sophomore who started the whole season last year and played big minutes. Taylor Brown is a sophomore who saw consistent playing time last year. Will Egolf is a 3rd year sophomore. Anthony Thompson is a 3rd year sophomore. Sam Singh is a 6th year senior. I'm sorry, this isn't a group that's just now learning about Division I basketball. Every guy has been in the program for a while now, and whether or not each guy has been on the court with the other guy doesn't hold much water to me. They didn't just all meet each other yesterday.

Lastly, how many games have the guys at Missouri St played at the DI level? How many games have they played together? What about Loyola? What about Wichita St? What about every other team in the league? I would be curious to see those numbers.

Not going after you our your thoughts shaunguth...just trying to make a point.

And I'm still trying to figure out who said we are a "young" team in the literal sense of the word. The fact still remains that only SS/SM and SS/AW have more than one full season playing together.

I really don't have the time right now to look up the history of all those other teams. Besides, more than one person around here has said "who cares about the other teams".

[tornado]

Hmm. Well, Missouri St sure isn't having trouble with so many new players. The mantra starting the season was all the 'experience' we were returning, and how much better of a position we were in because we weren't going to be depending on newcomers and freshmen as much as we had in the past. Now we're 'young' and just starting to learn? I'm not buying that. Sorry.

Missouri State's really weak early season schedule devoid of any real tough road tests will come back to bite them..

[Chucky T's]

Playing "only" one year together does not cause individual players to stop doing the fundementals. I can go out and play with four other guys I never met before and still block out for a rebound, make a free-throw, throw a decent entry pass, etc.....

[Out of Balance]

First, MK and JE were non-factors in the 2nd halves of both home losses, so they're irrelevant in this discussion. SM, EM, TB, CR, SS, and AT did play in Brazil, and I believe WE played a few minutes in the first game down there.

Second, we aren't a young team. Young teams start all freshmen and sophomores. Sam Maniscalco is a junior who's logged major minutes his whole career. Andrew Warren is a 4th year junior who's logged major minutes his whole career. Chris Roberts is a senior who logged major minutes last year. Eddren McCain is a sophomore who started the whole season last year and played big minutes. Taylor Brown is a sophomore who saw consistent playing time last year. Will Egolf is a 3rd year sophomore. Anthony Thompson is a 3rd year sophomore. Sam Singh is a 6th year senior. I'm sorry, this isn't a group that's just now learning about Division I basketball. Every guy has been in the program for a while now, and whether or not each guy has been on the court with the other guy doesn't hold much water to me. They didn't just all meet each other yesterday.

Lastly, how many games have the guys at Missouri St played at the DI level? How many games have they played together? What about Loyola? What about Wichita St? What about every other team in the league? I would be curious to see those numbers.

Not going after you our your thoughts shaunguth...just trying to make a point.

I agree with you BB Good facts here I do know what shaunguth is getting to with players playing with players over time. But didn't this team beet Illinois When they won where was the excuse hunters then and what happen to this team from that point to now We did lose a experience asst. coach Theres NO Time for excuses now and to JL credit, he has never looked/used one or say wait tell next year So why the hell should anyone else Don't look for excuses, just play to win the game with what you have Come On Man

[MacabreMob]

But didn't this team beet Illinois

Perception isn't reality. Reality is reality. And so maybe UIUC isn't that good?

[chitown fanatic]

Missouri State's really weak early season schedule devoid of any real tough road tests will come back to bite them..

while not of the caliber of an OKie St or BYU, Arkansas and St louis are no slouches as far as road tests and although they lost in OT, MO st had won nearly every other game by double digits, not squeaking out 2 point wins against the Woffords of the world.

[Nacho]

Missouri State's really weak early season schedule devoid of any real tough road tests will come back to bite them..

MSU Road non-con (per realtimerpi.com)
Arkansas- Little Rock (RPI of 20
Arkansas St. (RPI of 196)
SLU (RPI of 96)
Arkansas (RPI of 242)

(What's with all the ARK schools????)

BU's Road non-con
BYU (not scheduled by BU- RPI of 43)
Northern Illinois (RPI of 274)
Iowa State (RPI of 129)

Neither team is exactly blowing it up in terms of "real tough road tests"...

Not everyone can schedule like North Carolina in the non-con and play Texas and Michigan State...

There comes a point when non-conference schedules are irrelevant... Is there any actual proof that tough non-con opponents prepares you better for the conference season???

[BradleyBrave]

Missouri State's really weak early season schedule devoid of any real tough road tests will come back to bite them..

How about their home games? They won those. We didn't win ours.

[Bravesfan]

An astute comment last night by Dick Versace went something like this....

--that Andrew Warren hadn't played any basketball in 1.5 years....so he is effectively only 11 games into his junior season after an 18 month layoff.

--Will Egolf is just now showing some athleticism and skills that are actually surprising given that he is only 11 games into what amounts to his sophomore season...again after nearly 1.5 years layoff.

--Jake Eastman is playing after a surprise removal of his redshirt status - and is really only 2 games into his college career after a layoff since the end of last spring's high school season.

--Taylor Brown is likewise only a few games into his sophomore season - Eddren likewise

--Sam Maniscalco is having to play extra duty-minutes because of injuries and short bench...thus his produciton may be hamopered by having to play a dual role of PG/SG and extra minutes...

all of our post players combined (SS, WE, AT) combine for fewer total career minutes played than what most Valley teams starting center alone has.


What Versace was suggesting is that as this season wears on our guys will shake off the rust (we saw evidence last night with Andrew) and this will give most of the guys a tremendous potential for improvement...
Our team HAS PLAYED the toughest schedule to this point, and I think it has help us, while the opposite may have hurt WSU, SIU, ISU as they have not played a very tough slate so far.

I think these are all great points. I think some of us (myself included) thought Bradley would breeze through the non-conference portion of their schedule with an 8-2 record and then have a great Valley season. However I think some of us underestimated the experience factor going into this season and the 5-5 non-con record showed that. Obviously most basketball pundits thought the same way by predicting a sixth place finish for Bradley. But we did show some flashes of brilliance and still have a good shot to at least finish in the top 3 of the Valley, a record that would obviously be better than most expected. Seeing how our players have played from time to time gives us some hope.

And it will be intersting to see just how "good" WSU, SIU and ISU will be by the end of the season as well!

[Bravesfan]

agreed. and a more telling comment came from Bussone at halftime when asked about the state of Bradley's team...."this team has a lot of problems" and he followed that up with chemistry issues, injuries,etc. Missouri st is an excellent example. They have no point guard depth to speak of but are now 11-1. No more excuses...just get it done.

Very true, but that 11-1 record for MSU will do them no good if they finish 8-10 in the Valley. Let's see just how good they are by the end of January. Then we can make a more accurate assessment of how good they and all the other Valley teams are by then.

[Bravesfan]

I love how losing to Loyola is all the sudden becoming acceptable with this 'experience' excuse.

I don't think anyone is saying this was acceptable. But these things happen with inexperienced teams. However, I do agree that I don't want to see these types of collapses at home for the rest of the year. With inexperience comes learning from mistakes, and learning from mistakes leads to experience. So no more excuses as the season moves along.

[real fan]

This team was suppose to have great depth which would make a huge difference in being able to substitute for anyone that was in foul trouble or just having a bad game, unfortunately Dunson and now Simms-Edwards got hurt which really has hurt our guard rotation , McCain is in a huge slump so Maniscalco is having to play a lot of minutes which takes some of the effectiveness out of him, the position of concern is center as Egolf is not experienced and small compared to the rest of the centers in the Valley, we just need to be able to hold our own until Dyricus gets back as he has been a huge contributor and will make a difference down the stretch.

[BradleyBrave]

I don't think anyone is saying this was acceptable. But these things happen with inexperienced teams. However, I do agree that I don't want to see these types of collapses at home for the rest of the year. With inexperience comes learning from mistakes, and learning from mistakes leads to experience. So no more excuses as the season moves along.

We are not 'inexperienced'. Not even close. SM, AW, CR, EM, TB, and SS have all been in these situations before. It's really reaching for an excuse.

[shaunguth]

We are not 'inexperienced'. Not even close. SM, AW, CR, EM, TB, and SS have all been in these situations before. It's really reaching for an excuse.

Not even close? I honestly don't get why it's so hard to understand that these guys have not played together for very long (more than one full season). Personally, I feel that's kind of important. Obviously, there are many people that don't seem to think that matters at all.