Preseason All Conference Awards

[tornado]

https://twitter.com/ValleyHoops/status/658995394664407040

First Team All-MVC
Ron Baker
DJ Ballentine
Fred Van Vleet
Egidijus Mockevisius
Devaughn Akoon-Purcell

Honorable Mention - Wes Washpun, Milton Doyle, Anthony Beane, Devontae Brown
(awwww...shut out again...)

Here's the Preseason Poll

http://www.mvc-sports.com/mbasketball/news/2015-16/8336/wichita-state-favored-to-win-mvc-crown/#.Vi-VsskrLIV

(ps- one other ISU player was also named Preseason Conference Player of the Year!
SMU's Nic Moore was the Conference POY in the American Conference)

[PTownHawkeye]

I wonder if there has ever been a unanimous last place pick? Apparently we were 6 votes away from being unanimous.

Also, WHO THE HELL PICKED LOYOLA TO WIN THE CONFERENCE???

[tornado]

Looks like Kirk Wessler & Dave Reynolds got caught in traffic on I-55 heading to the MVC events and may have missed the opening Awards press conference

https://twitter.com/wics_abc20/status/659003133507584001

https://twitter.com/KirkWessler/status/659002943996342272

[Da Coach]

....

Also, WHO THE HELL PICKED LOYOLA TO WIN THE CONFERENCE???

Dan Muller? Royce Waltman?

[tornado]

I wonder if there has ever been a unanimous last place pick? Apparently we were 6 votes away from being unanimous.
..

lockerroom bulletin board material - our guys expected it, now time to shut them up...
Go Braves!!!

[Da Coach]

This may be the shallowest the talent pool has been in the MVC in a long time.
The Preseason All-Conference team includes these 5 players- Fred Van Vleet, Ron Baker, D.J. Balentine, Egidijus Mockevicius, and Devaughn Akoon-Purcell.

The first 4 are obvious. Akoon-Purcell may be the best of the rest, but I am not sure he'd have made the Preseason All MVC team most years.

But there is no 2nd team named, and only 4 players named to the Honorable Mention list-
Milton Doyle, Anthony Beane, Wes Washpun, and Devonte Brown of Indiana State.

Can't they find any other possible preseason All MVC players anywhere in the league than those 9 players?
Sorry, but IMO, that is getting pretty marginal. Devonte Brown is a nice MVC guard and I'd like to have him on Bradley this year, but he is a Will Franklin type of guard, and the MVC used to have many of those every year. Creighton used to have several on just one team every year. And I do not think Brown is even Indiana State's best player, and I doubt most InSU fans do either.

[tornado]

it'll be interesting to see if Loyola can live up to the hype of receiving FIRST PLACE votes....given they have really only one proven, injury-plagued scorer...

I know they had a nice run in last year's EIEIO Tourney but they finished the season last year going 6-9 over their final 15 Valley games, and were 8-10 overall in the MVC and are still very thin in the paint...

[Da Coach]

If the 1 vote for Loyola was because Gregg Marshall either didn't want to vote for his own team, or if maybe a new rule didn't allow him to, then it is kind of a slap in the face to Evansville, UNI, or ISU. Or more likely, as has happened in the past by Muller and Waltman, sometimes a coach with no chance to win will vote for his own team #1 as some kind of "message".

[Da Coach]

BTW, the Bradley women were picked 9th, just barely avoiding having both teams picked last. They finished 8th last season, so this poll actually predicts they will drop.
This will be Mike Brooks' 4th season.
How many more years will we be keep hearing the "we're young" excuse?

[tornado]

one pleasant surprise - we are picked ahead of ISU in WBB

[PhiAlphaBoy]

There is NO way Milton Doyle falls to second team MVC unless he gets hurt. I believe he will have a dominant year and be in the running for MVC POY.

[Da Coach]

The mystery of who gave Loyola a 1st place vote in the preseason MVC poll remains. Jim Benson, the sportswriter for the Bloomington Pantagraph and who follows the ISU baskeyball team, asked Dan Muller (who voted his own team #1 last year) and Porter Moser and they both denied voting for Loyola.

http://www.pantagraph.com/sports/college/basketball/men/wichita-state-one-vote-shy-of-unanimous-again-in-mvc/article_a26d50bc-b80e-509b-807d-d85c6c14aca2.html

[tornado]

There were 43 members voting this season -
Paul Suellentrop states that the voters are made up of
"the four voters representing each school — coach, two media members, media-relations person"

Benson said the voters were:
".. league coaches, media and sports information directors"

The SIU article specifically said the voters were "..league head coaches, SIDs, beat writers and radio announcers"

so...can anyone explain why there were 43 voters and not 40? Am I the only one curious?

[sam hannam]

According to the PJStar this morning Loyola's vote came from their student reporter.

[mvcfan]

I will truly never understand why people's votes for pre season team rankings gets people up in arms. When Muller did it last year I think he was showing his team he believed and was also having a little fun with it. It is pretty clear who the favorite is going into the last two years. Some might consider it disrespectful to the clear favorites and that's fine but people need to relax.