Exhibition games...

[Da Coach]

UNI avoids upset loss to Division II North Carolina-Pembroke thanks to a little help from the refs followed by a late 15-0 run

http://wcfcourier.com/sports/college/uni/mens_basketball/uni-basketball-panthers-rally-late-to-avoid-exhibition-upset/article_44d12536-469e-5f52-b344-3a6a46c17a46.html

[wily coyote]

Taylor Bruinga scores 9pts and 8 rebounds. Can you say Alex Peters.

[Da Coach]

Taylor Bruinga scores 9pts and 8 rebounds. Can you say Alex Peters.

I watched some of that game, and I would not go quite that far yet with TB. He can be a very good player, but he's not quite where Peters was at this stage. He will struggle against D1 opponents, IMO. Lewis is doesn't have any good big men, so TB did look good today. I still think a Red shirt year would have been better for him.

[wily coyote]

I watched some of that game, and I would not go quite that far yet with TB. He can be a very good player, but he's not quite where Peters was at this stage. He will struggle against D1 opponents, IMO. Lewis is doesn't have any good big men, so TB did look good today. I still think a Red shirt year would have been better for him.

Sorry I guess I didn't make my post very clear. I'm not saying Taylor is at the same stage Alex was. I know three people who told Geno Alex should be our main target even though we told him we liked Taphorn. We just thought Peters was more of a Valley type. I know it's early and I do like what I've seen from the Missouri Frosh and I hope he has a great career at BU and I think it's possible but I REALLY like the up side of Taylor and would have loved to see him in a BU uniform.Bottom line not comparing anyone to Peters.

[tornado]

Taylor Bruinga scores 9pts and 8 rebounds. Can you say Alex Peters.

Nice game - he played more minutes than any Bradley player played in either of our exhibitions...

pretty much all the ISU players looked very good...they will not be in the MVC basement..
It's hard to tell with certainty from just one exhibition, and Lewis looked like they ran out of gas - playing 6 or 7 of their subs more minutes than most of their starters..
But ISU's top 3-4 guys can play with anyone in the Valley. The question of depth comes in, as I don't think they wanna go too many minutes with 2-3 freshman & untested sophs playing.

[Da Coach]

With the injuries ISU has, Taylor will get a lot more playing time that he would have, and that should benefit him.

[mvcfan]

Good game by the Birds overall. They looked better then I thought they would. Copeland was behind the bench engaged with the game. That is a good sign for next year. The Birds will be very competitive this year and could be down right scary good next year.

[Da Coach]

They did look very good, I will agree. But everyone who Lewis has played so far has looked very good. The next 2 weeks will tell us a lot more about the strength of ISU, and all the MVC teams.

[BUfan39]

Good game by the Birds overall. They looked better then I thought they would. Copeland was behind the bench engaged with the game. That is a good sign for next year. The Birds will be very competitive this year and could be down right scary good next year.

Scary good next year? Yea, we'll have to wait and see about that LOL.

[tornado]

it depends no what players are available -
they will lose almost nobody but they always seem to have a lot of roster turnover

[YATittle]

Exhibition games

I listened to the ISU game vs. Lewis. We need to keep in mind that the 7' center was out, a 6'9" player is out for personal reasons, and a key freshman recruit out of a strong Maryland Catholic League is also injured. And a 20 ppg game JUCO recruit is academically ineligible. Yet they had a 28 point lead in their exhibition game at one point. They may surprise a lot of teams this year and should be very formidable next year. Bruninga will prove to be a solid player.

[tornado]

You're 100% right Yelberton (yup I am old enuf that I was a real YA Fan back in those days....he just passed a month ago)

I thought they'd struggle even against DII since they had so many guys who were new to DI, but they played well.
Time will tell how they do with the short bench against better teams - they start right off vs. FGCU this Saturday - FGCU is the favorite to win the A-Sun again, and they are ranked higher than any MVC team in the Mid-Major Top 25

[Da Coach]

After Eastern Illinois pulled a shocking 89-67 upset of Illinois in an exhibition game last Friday, they played Division II Southern Indiana tonight and got beat 95-92-

http://www.eiupanthers.com/boxscore.aspx?id=6398&path=mbball

[tornado]

so all that stuff about how the Illini actually faced a tough exhibition opponent might have been a little exaggerated...
now that we see EIU loses to their DII opponent..
The two Evansville Reitz HS kids they have Nate Hansen & Alex Stein went 13-17 overall, 8-10 from the arc and scored 40 pts between them.

http://www.eiupanthers.com/boxscore.aspx?id=6398&path=mbball

Wichita won their exhibition game vs. Newman but the interesting thing is how empty the stands were
they announced 5000 but it was way less than that...this really surprised me as they sell out every game, don't they?
The whole upper bowl was empty - http://goshockers.com/galleries/?image=13470
but so was half the lower bowl - http://goshockers.com/galleries/?image=13445

[PurpleAceFan]

You're 100% right Yelberton (yup I am old enuf that I was a real YA Fan back in those days....he just passed a month ago)

I thought they'd struggle even against DII since they had so many guys who were new to DI, but they played well.
Time will tell how they do with the short bench against better teams - they start right off vs. FGCU this Saturday - FGCU is the favorite to win the A-Sun again, and they are ranked higher than any MVC team in the Mid-Major Top 25

ISU's non-conference schedule is very tough this year, so I do expect them to take some lumps before they get people healthy. I wish Marty would get some games on the schedule for my Aces that are comparable. Other than the buy game at Duke and the Mountain West challenge game, their schedule is horrible. ISUs schedule, along with UNI, is clearly the toughest in the MVC this year.