3 MVC games tonight (Wed. 1/15)

[Da Coach]

Missouri State at Indiana State
Drake at Loyola
Evansville at Illinois State

http://scores.espn.go.com/ncb/scoreboard?date=20140115&confId=18

[Da Coach]

The first final score is in from tonight's game-
Missouri State 55
Indiana State 70

http://scores.espn.go.com/ncb/boxscore?gameId=400500075

[Da Coach]

Illinois State wins 79-78 in overtime

http://scores.espn.go.com/ncb/boxscore?gameId=400500074

Loyola wins at home over Drake

http://scores.espn.go.com/ncb/boxscore?gameId=400500076

[tornado]

Milton Doyle goes off for 28 points to help Loyola beat Drake - we need to send roses to Giacoletti - he's the only reason BU isn't 0-5 and in last place.

Indiana State drew 5,895 for their win over Missouri State - we drew 5745 when we hosted the same Missouri State team (if you believe the announced figures) - people would have laughed a couple years ago had you predicted InSU would be outdrawing Bradley basketball - they're probably not laughing now....

ISU's lineup is going thru a metamorphosis and they barely escaped getting upset at home by Evansville - who joins BU at 1-4 in the Valley.
John Jones started almost every game and played starter minutes until quite recently, now he's been demoted to a sub role and played just 12 min.
Kaza Keane was hailed as PG of the future, started a bunch last year and played 20 mpg but now never gets those kind of minutes and never starts.
and for some reason their best scorer and maybe best player Daishon Knight didn't start either.
They wouldn't have won Wednesday had it not been for Knight getting hot late in the game.
And the Pantagraph described an odd phenomenon - that ISU fans were flocking to the exits when they thought their home Redbirds had lost the game - down JUST 3 pts and Aces with the ball.

BTW - for the ISU fans - Jordan Threloff, who left & transferred to NIU, has darned near gone scoreless in 2014....
after a couple pretty good outings he can't seem to find the basket. He has only 5 made baskets in FIVE games and was without a FG in both of his last two games. his scoring average has plummeted to just 3.7 ppg since last year.

The Illini were terrible again losing to Purdue at home, getting terribly outrebounded as Groce simply has not landed any BCS caliber frontcourt players. Egwu was scoreless on 0-7 and the only other post player they used, Maverick Morgan, has a stat line that looks like someone spilled a dozen eggs.

Despite all the glowing writeups Northwestern's new HC got when they beat Illinois - tonight they returned to form as their entire starting lineup scored just 25 points despite three of them playing 39 or 40 minutes.
Their starting center had 4 pts & 3 rebs in 39 minutes! Nate Taphorn played just FOUR minutes and made as many baskets as three of the starters did whose minutes totalled 85 minutes.

[cpacmel]

ISU's lineup is going thru a metamorphosis and they barely escaped getting upset at home by Evansville - who joins BU at 1-4 in the Valley.
John Jones started almost every game and played starter minutes until quite recently, now he's been demoted to a sub role and played just 12 min.
Kaza Keane was hailed as PG of the future, started a bunch last year and played 20 mpg but now never gets those kind of minutes and never starts.
and for some reason their best scorer and maybe best player Daishon Knight didn't start either.
They wouldn't have won Wednesday had it not been for Knight getting hot late in the game.
.

Muller starts the players that have been playing the best. If that means bringing your leading scorer off the bench, so be it. Knight has been slumping and he didn't start vs. Loyola either.

Keane has been really up and down this year. He tries to make stuff happen when he is in the game, and often that leads to turnovers. He did make a few defensive plays that saved the game for us yesterday though.

[LongTimeFan]

cpacmel, I have only seen at part of one game but it looks like your freshman center is a keeper.

[Nacho]

cpacmel, I have only seen at part of one game but it looks like your freshman center is a keeper.

This, along with the success of the 2-3 zone, are the only positives out of the Middlebrooks situation. It has forced Reggie to play big minutes and he has performed well. He is leading the league in blocks per game (2.4 per game when #2 is at 1.5) and 2nd in shooting percentage at 59.8%. He still fouls too much and needs to improve his rebounding but he has definitely outperformed his expectations as a true frosh "big". Watching is development over the next 3.5 years is going to be a lot of fun.

[cpacmel]

Nacho pretty much said it all about Lynch. He needs to work on his free throws but his defense has been solid. In high school, they really didn't utilize him. He was teammates of Graham Woodward (penn st) and Woodward was a chucker!