Lemon Among MVC Most-Improved

[Bobby Parker]

Walt Lemon Jr. was voted to the MVC Most-Improved Team:

http://www.bradleybraves.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=25965&SPID=1498&DB_LANG=C&ATCLID=205388876&DB_OEM_ID=3400

[LittleBrave]

Walt Lemon Jr. was voted to the MVC Most-Improved Team:

http://www.bradleybraves.com/ViewArt...DB_OEM_ID=3400

Congrats Walt!!!

Way to keep your head in the game in a rocky & difficult season.
Here's to 2nd team All-Valley next season!

[Da Coach]

Here are the rest of the Most Improved and All-Bench teams-

http://www.mvc-sports.com/mbasketball/news/2011-12/5828/cox-simons-top-leagues-specialty-awards/

Press release-

http://www.mvc-sports.com/media/2011-12/mbasketball/2012%20All%20Bench_Most%20Improved%20Teams.pdf

2012 MISSOURI VALLEY CONFERENCE ALL-BENCH TEAM

Student-Athlete, School Yr. Pos. Ht. Hometown (High School)
*Ned Cox, Evansville Jr. G 6-1 San Antonio (Texas) Judson High
Kurt Alexander, Drake Sr. G 6-0 Toronto (Ontario) Pine Ridge High
Bryant Allen, Illinois State Jr. G 6-0 Maplewood (Mo.) Maplewood-Richmond Hts.
Chip Rank, UNI So. F 6-6 Cedarburg (Wis.) High
Ethan Wragge, Creighton So. F 6-7 Eden Prairie (Minn.) High

2012 MISSOURI VALLEY CONFERENCE MOST-IMPROVED TEAM

Student-Athlete, School Yr. Pos. Ht. Hometown (High School)
*Ben Simons, Drake Jr. F 6-8 Cadillac (Mich.) High
Jackie Carmichael, Illinois State Jr. F 6-9 Manhattan (Kan.) South Kent Prep
Walt Lemon, Jr., Bradley So. G 6-3 Chicago (Ill.) Julian High
Caleb Patterson, Missouri State Sr. C 6-11 Ames (Okla.) Ringwood High
Joe Ragland, Wichita State Sr. G 6-0 W. Springfield (Mass.) North Platte (Neb.) JC
Garrett Stutz, Wichita State Sr. C 7-0 Kansas City (Mo.) North Kansas City High
*--indicates team captain.

[Bradleyfan1]

Congrats Walt! Tourney MVP this weekend?

[lefty]

Congrats to Walt.....he also improved the most during the season IMO for us with Jalen as well.

[real fan]

Great job Walt as you continued to get better, trying to figure out how Carmichael is on that list as he was good last year.

[ph]

Great job Walt as you continued to get better, trying to figure out how Carmichael is on that list as he was good last year.

He was great vs us last year.
I think he was good against more teams this year.

[Da Coach]

...trying to figure out how Carmichael is on that list as he was good last year.

He always has good games against us. But his averages last year were 9.8 ppg and 5.4 rpg- not bad but this year he was much better- 13.6 ppg and 9.4 rpg. I suspect the media that does the voting for Most Improved has all the stats showing them how much each player averaged last year and this year, and Carmichael's improvement numbers ranked very high among MVC players.

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/players/88746

[tornado]

SIU had the most NEW guys on their squad -- they had EIGHT new guys who logged pretty good minutes (Bryer, Daniels, Early, Goff, Lindsay, Setty, Swan, Whitt)
Daniels got mention on All-Frosh team but none of the rest despite major minutes and opportunity were able to produce...
Maybe a lesson - don't bring in too many new guys all at once...

[Boiler]

SIU had the most NEW guys on their squad -- they had EIGHT new guys who logged pretty good minutes (Bryer, Daniels, Early, Goff, Lindsay, Setty, Swan, Whitt)
Daniels got mention on All-Frosh team but none of the rest despite major minutes and opportunity were able to produce...
Maybe a lesson - don't bring in too many new guys all at once...

Or maybe the lesson is that you need to bring in better new guys than they did.

[BuBraves55]

Looking forward to watching Walt continue to get better these next two seasons.

Any takers on o/u 20 for Walt tomorrow?

[Hello Newman]

Or maybe the lesson is that you need to bring in better new guys than they did.

Correct Boiler. There are examples of bringing in alot of new guys all at once can lead to success. See Kent State 2010-11. Making claims its a good or bad idea based on one or two examples would be foolish.

[tornado]

...See Kent State 2010-11. ...

Kent State in 2010-2011 was already coming off a superb 24-10 record in 2009-2010...
so not quite comparable to trying to rebuild SIU from their 13-19 season in 2010-2011.

PLUS-- Many of Kent State's best players and team leaders from 2009-2010 were returning for Geno in 2010-2011 (Justin Greene 15.4ppg & 8.3 rpg, Randall Holt 10ppg & 2nd in 3-pt w/ 66 made, Rod Sherman 13ppg, 3rd in 3pt w/46 made)
They lost just one double digit scorer, Singletary...and really only a couple newcomers played significant roles...
So unlike SIU where 3 of the top four in minutes played were totally new guys, 4 of the top 6 in conference scoring were new, and eight of the top 13 overall were new...
Also - only one returning SIU player led the team in any statistical category.

[Hello Newman]

I wasnt comparing Kent St to SIU. Just pointing out that bringing in a bunch of new players isnt a a bad idea based solely on the 2011-12 version of the Salukis.

There isnt evidence one way or another as to whether it is a good or bad idea.

[tornado]

guess it depends on who you choose to believe...plenty of experts and D-I coaches have said it is a bad idea...
when Baylor did it several years ago and there were big problems among teammates with Dave Bliss ending up getting booted out in shame -
many commentators went out and found that his way of building a team was widely panned among D-I coaches...

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1029498/index.htm

Even Baylor's own internal investigation and report cited all the incoming new players as a major reason for their immense turmoil.

http://www.baylorfans.com/forums/archive/index.php/t-52116.html

BTW - it's also not working out too well at SJU where their incoming class of 9 or 10 newbies have had gobs of problems and they have almost nothing left...