Back to Basketball...

[tornado]

Some basketball news...


DePaul beats #24 Seton Hall to go 5-2 in Big East - Oliver Purnell likely is off the hot seat for now
Northwestern drops to 1-5 in Big Ten - Nate Taphorn out with foot injury - at least 2 wks
Manual's Lawrence Alexander - 24 pts & 5 rebs
UC-Davis plays at 11pm in Hawaii

[tornado]

Remember those people who used to gripe that we never had anything to root for after mid-February??

Wonder what they are doing now, since we don't have much to root for even by mid-January any more...
We don't even have any recruits either pledged, signed, or anywhere on the horizon that we can be following or root for...
No wonder so many Central IL basketball fans are staying away in droves.

[Vent]

Remember those people who used to gripe that we never had anything to root for after mid-February??

Wonder what they are doing now, since we don't have much to root for even by mid-January any more...
We don't even have any recruits either pledged, signed, or anywhere on the horizon that we can be following or root for...
No wonder so many Central IL basketball fans are staying away in droves.

I'm glad we don't have any recruits pledged, signed or on the horizon. Time for a new coach to use the scholarships.

[LongTimeFan]

If there is a change in the coach,I would think it would be very hard to recruit any quality recruits for next year. I have felt that there would be four scholarships available this spring. That in itself is very hard to fill with quality talent. We need shooters, a center, and a point guard. If any others left because of the changes in coaches, it gets much harder.

I would like to think we could keep our two or three good players, especially one freshman. Amerson could help next year.

[tornado]

again - back to basketball.....

I will name my SURPRISES (although not surprises to everyone) for the year thus far....both good & bad...

Good...
#1 UC-Davis - leading the Big West and is an exciting team to watch

#2 UCD's Corey Hawkins is an impressive All- Around player - 8th nationally in scoring, 3rd in 3-ptFG%, but among conference leaders in assists, rebs, and just about everything else.
Coach Les will get some mention for COY

#3 DePaul is 5-2 and tied for the Big East lead

#4 Valpo is 18-4 & battling for lead in the Horizon

#5 Indiana keeps surprising - but they have had good recruiting classes so this is not that much of a surprise

Hon. Mention - Evansville's Egidijus Mockevicius - kid is averaging a double-double and will have NBA scouts showing up before the season is over...

Bad...
#1- Creighton, perhaps the biggest disappointment of all to many but not all- was Top 25-ranked earlier this season but now 0-7 in Big East but hold on -- their next three games are at #4 Villanova, then St. John's and Big East co-leader Georgetown.

#2 Illinois was hoping to be a bit better than this - hanging in 10th place in the Big Ten just ahead of Rutgers!

#3 TCU (supposedly a good-loss earlier this season for Bradley) was 13-0 in non-conference play but now is just 1-4 in Big 12 & battling for last place

#4 Saint Louis - coming off a great year is just 1-5 in A-10

#5 Houston & Kelvin Sampson are 0-7 and getting pummeled in the American Conference. Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

Hon. Mention: Bradley - a lot of people (but not everyone, cuz some were a bit more informed) were saying BU would do better than this...


feel free to note your surpises

[bigjimmy]

Not too surprising that UC Davis occupies the top 2 spots. DePaul has had an interesting season, starting 6-1, then losing 6 straight and at the moment are 5-2 in their last 7 games. For Valpo Washington's Alec Peters leads the team in scoring with 17.8 and rebounds with 6.3. Think he would have looked good in a BU uniform? Indiana looked really good against Maryland but will have a tough game Sunday at Ohio State. Creighton has lost 8 in a row. Learning how life is without Dougie McBuckets. I am so sorry for their fan base. The Illini fan base, I'm sure, was expecting a lot better. Groce is out of his league. Until they can get the top tier talent out of Chicago the Illini will be in the bottom half of the Big 10. I was in Corpus Christie for that TCU game and I still say we should have beat them as well as St. Louis. I feel sorry for Kelvin, NOT. As for BU the story is still to be told. Hopefully the book has a happy ending.

[tornado]

as if things are not going bad enough for Creighton's Greg McDermott, who finds himself 0-7 in his league...

now he finds out his 2nd leading scorer & best outside shooter is gone for the season...

http://www.gocreighton.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=1000&ATCLID=209862043

[bradleyfan124]

Excuse me if I don't have any sympathy for Creighton. I get tired of teams that are in the Valley that start to do well. Then they think they are too good for the Valley and bolt to another league. I know there are various reasons for defecting but I wonder how good the Valley would be if St. Louis, Lousiville, Memphis State, Cincinnati, Tulsa, and Creighton had stayed

[tornado]

wonder if just playing us has anything to do with this...

the Missouri State beat guy writes about MVC basketball
"WHERE HAS THE OFFENSE GONE?"
"BRICKLAYERS...":

http://www.news-leader.com/story/sports/college/msu/2015/01/27/valley-insider-offense-gone/22418785/

[Vent]

Excuse me if I don't have any sympathy for Creighton. I get tired of teams that are in the Valley that start to do well. Then they think they are too good for the Valley and bolt to another league. I know there are various reasons for defecting but I wonder how good the Valley would be if St. Louis, Lousiville, Memphis State, Cincinnati, Tulsa, and Creighton had stayed

Most of the teams that have left the Vallley, with the exception of St. Louis and Creighton, have left for football while all of the teams have left for bigger media markets and better competition. This goes back a long time. I don't fault programs that are consistently much better than the rest of the teams in their league that leave. When they play better teams and are in bigger media markets, it makes recruiting much easier.

Most people would rather spend a weekend in Milwaukee, St. Louis, Chicago, Memphis, Cincinnati or Louisville than Terre Haute, Evansville, Peoria, Carbondale or Cedar Falls.