2007-2008 Lindy's College Basketball Preview

[tornado]

There are different regional covers, and the ones sold in Illinois have Shaun Pruitt (Illinois), DePaul's Draelon Burns, and in a smaller cameo shot at the bottom, they have Randall Falker.
Also a small banner at the bottom right says:
"Salukis: King of the MVC"
(seems if they were interested in proper grammar, it should say "Kings of the MVC")

The first feature is the Top 25 (expanded to the Top 40) for 2007-2008.

Here is how they have 'em:

1-UCLA
2-UNC
3-Tennessee
4-Memphis
5-Louisville
6-Georgetown
7-Washington St.
8-Kansas (subtitled "Lost their way to San Jose")
9-Michigan State (future Bradley opponent)
10-Indiana
11-Gonzaga
12-Stanford
13-Marquette
14-Texas A&M
15-Arizona
16-Duke
17-Pitt
18-Davidson (pretty bold!!)
19-SIU "Still the MVC's Big Dog"
20-Texas
21-Kentucky
22-Oregon
23-Butler (I guess they don't want to get embarrassed this season, so they have a fair # of mid-majors)
24-NC State
25-Virginia Commonwealth (another future BU opponent)
26-Xavier
27-Wisc.
28-Syracuse
29-UConn
30-Ohio State
31-Clemson
32-Saint Joseph's
33-Alabama
34-Maryland
35-UAB (wow, a lot of mid-majors!)
36-Arkansas
37-Missouri
38-BYU
39-Providence
40-Villanova


Then a really interesting piece on all the new things, changes, incoming studs, etc.
A little about Rick Majerus' return, and the All One-and-Done teams
2007-2008: OJ Mayo, Derrick Rose, Mike Beasley, Eric Gordon, Kevin Love, Kyle Singler
2008-2009: Tyreke Evans, Greg Monroe, Brandon Jennings, and a few more including Tyler Zeller.
A piece on Skip Prosser, some key matchups and early season tournies, and all the coaching changes.
(but they have several errors, failing to list Maryland-Eastern Shore, Florida A&M, or Norfolk State)


Then..the first really blood boiling thing is the rating of the conferences!!!
How can they give a lot of respect to SIU then disrespect everyone else in the Valley.
They have the MVC rated as the 12th best conference!!!

1-Pac-10
2-SEC
3-Big East
4-ACC
5-Big 12
6-Big Ten
7A-10
8-C-USA
9-Colonial
10-Mountain West
11-West Coast!!!
12-MVC
13-WAC
14-Horizon
15-Southern
then the rest...all the way #31.

But seriously....MVC falling below those guys.....just more proof these guys don't do a lot of homework, and there's a whole lot MORE such proof, too...read on.


Then they predict their Field of 65 for the NCAA
Of course they select SIU as the auto bid from the Valley, but take a guess how many other Valley schools they believe get at-large bids??
Whoa..........stop before you think maybe 4, 3, 2, or even only ONE.....
these guys think the MVC will drop back to a one bid league with SIU getting the ONLY bid from the conference, after three different teams from the MVC have made it to the Sweet Sixteen in the past two years!
ONLY ONE BID FOR THE VALLEY!!
They also ppick SIU to drop a game in the first round and their Sweet Sixteen predictions have absolutely NO mid-majors (unless you count Gonzaga).

Their Final Four prediction: Memphis, UNC, Tennessee, UCLA.
They think UCLA will win.

Then they have stories on Billy Gillispie, Tubby Smith, Billy Donovan, Kelvin Sampson then they have a full story on the best mid-major coaches.
They highlight Mark Few (Gonzaga) but also Barry Hinson & Dana Altman.

Then the Top 25 players at each position (PG, SG, SF, PF, C)
DRuff not listed, and JC not listed, but Butler's AJ Graves is #13 among SG's
Actually among the Top 125 at each position (125 players overall) not a single MVC guy, except Randall Falker is listed as #12 among PF's.

Then gobs of stuff glorifying all the major conferences and their teams.
PM me if you want to know any of it...

They pick Saint Louis 3rd in the A-10 (behind Xavier & St. Joe's)

Then finally the Missouri Valley........I will post that next...........

[MacabreMob]

EErrrrrrrrrrrrrrr....... SCREeeeeeeech......Crash-Blam-Klaplowie!!!!

THE DRIVE-BY MEDIA HAS STRUCK AGAIN!

[tornado]

The Missouri Valley..................
Pretty much boils down to SIU and then whoever....

Here's how they rank the teams:
1-SIU
2-MSU
3-ISU
4-Creighton
5-Bradley
6-Indiana St.
7-WSU
8-UNI
9-Drake
10-Evansville

They do grant two Bradley players FIRST TEAM ALL CONFERENCE status...and one on 3rd team!
First Team All Conference: Ruffin, Crouch, Eric Coleman (UNI), Randall Falker (SIU), Deven Mitchell (MSU)

2nd Team: Couisnard, Eldridge, Dyer, Watts, Shaw
3rd Team: Holsinger, Josh Young (Drake), Bryan Mullins, Slack, and Matt Salley!!

Other awards--
POY: Falker
Newcomer of the Year: P'Allen Stinnett, Creighton
Top Shooter: Jeremy Crouch
Top Rebounder: Eric Coleman
Top Defender: Couisnard, WSU
Top Playmaker: Daniel Ruffin
Most Versatile: Deven Mitchell (MS)
TOP NBA PROSPECT: JEREMY CROUCH
Most Entertaining: Deven Mitchell
Best Group of recruits: Creighton
Best Jump Shooter among newcomers: Booker Woodfox (Creighton)
Best Playmaker/Passer among newcomers: Kavon Lacey (Evansville)
"Will Take You By Surprise": Bradley's Anthony Thompson
"Bradley has had success with under-the-radar big men in the past. This year's sleeper is Texan Anthony Thompson. The lanky 6-10 forward has good athleticism and a raw skill set that could develop quickly in college. A redshirt year would be ideal for him, but that may not be an option. Thompson has a chance to develop into a very productive player for the Braves.

Biggest Miss: Clayton Vette - reneged on Indiana State and went to Iowa State instead.


Then the coverage of Bradley.......
as they do for most of the MVC teams, nary a word about any one of the new incoming freshman.
They do list Cole-Scott and Theron Wilson as good backcourt help, and Rashad Austin as adding depth and bulk inside, but no mention anywhere of David Collins.
Some nice things said about DRuff and JC, and a little on Andrew Warren, but no mention of Sam Singh....although they do list Brian Lavin among the "other key players".
One last comment............
"Keep an Eye On"---- Rashad Austin, the headliner of a recruiting class ranked in the Top 25 nationally.

They really play up Creighton's newcomers (Stinnett, Millard, Harriman, Brandt, Lawson)
as if a buch of untested freshman are going to carry Creighton to the top of the Valley.

Here are just a few comments about ISU:
"Tim Jankovich found the cupboard well-stocked when he took over at Illinois State in the spring.

...Sead Odzic - a sharpshooting guard who was the (USC) Trojans sixth man as a sophomore"

Levi Dyer could be a Valley Player of the Year candidate Osiris Eldridge should contend for the award...before his career is ended.."


----OK....what am I missing..........
Sead Odzic redshirted his true sophomore year, and quit the team just after the season started last year. His 3-pt shooting pct. has been about 30%.
Are they expecting way too much from then kid? I don't see him in the starting lineup.

The rest of the issue covers all the other teams and conferences, PM me if you want to know anything.

Courtney Lee is POY in the Sun Belt, AJ Graves POY in Horizon, and they go out on a limb and suggest NINE NCAA bids for the Pac-10!!
(in your dreams!!)


They do rank recruiting classes, Top 25, but BU is not in their list.
Florida is #1, Indiana #9 (even with EJ), DePaul #16.
They also rank all the high schoolers down to sophs.

[tornado]

Here's more from the Lindy's issue:

Here's how all of BU's non-conference opponents fared in their review--
THREE top 25 teams!

UIC -- picked 6th in a 10 team league
IOWA STATE -- picked 9th in a 12 team league
MARYLAND-EASTERN SHORE -- 11th in a 12 team league
FLORIDA GULF COAST -- 11th in a 12 team league
Iowa -- 11th in Big Ten
Vanderbilt or Utah State -- 4th in SEC East or picked to battle right to the end in the WAC but finish 2nd to NMSU
Loyola-Chicago -- 7th in 10 team league
SOUTHEAST MISSOURI STATE -- 4th in an 11 team league
MICHIGAN STATE -- PICKED TO WIN THE BIG TEN ranked #9 nationally in preseaon
Wright State -- picked to finish in top two in Horizon behind #23 Ranked Butler
Butler -- picked to win the Horizon, ranked #23 pre-season
VCU -- picked to WIN the Colonial, #25 ranked in nation in pre-season

[tornado]

My last input in this issue is to review how Lindy's did last year.
Each of the last two years they divided the conferences into Majors, Mid-majors, and Minors.
Both years they included the Valley among the Majors.

But last year here's how they picked the Valley:
1-Creighton
2-WSU
3-SIU
4-MSU
5-UNI
6-Drake
7-Evansville
8-BU
9-ISU
10-Indiana State

So they actually only got ONE of the Valley teams in the right finish position (UNI at 5th)
and a couple teams like WSU and BU they never knew what hit them with those bad predictions.
They did NOT correctly hit either the POY (they guessed Funk, it was Tatum) or NOY (they guessed Eldridge, it was Spencer Laurie, although OE was FOY)
In fact they didn't even name Tatum to the First Team All Conference (he was on their 2nd team)

So all in all...they were close on a lot of the obvious stuff, but had some misses.
We'll soon see how they do this season!

[Average Joe]

Thanks
Nice review, but how can they have credibility if they list Lavin, a walk on with minimal minutes played, only 2 minutes per game and only playing in deep garbage time,
as being a key player. They really show they have not done homework and are throwing out names almost by guess work.
Plus the Valley is going to have to be unexpectedly terrible to end up with only one bid. And if so, then the regular season winner of the Valley had better hope they won the tourney, too.

[Dubl R 1]

What an absolute joke, on so many levels. Whoever wrote this obviously does not follow the Missouri Valley on a regular basis, as many of his/her comments are completely of the radar.

1. Lavin a key player? What a joke. No disrespect to Brain, but he isn't a key player and he and everyone except the author of this article knows that.

2. The MVC as the 12th best conference. Another comical prediction. Why is it that the MVC never gets respected even though year in year out the MVC produces teams that make quality runs in the tournament? What's funny though is VCU has a decent regular season(loss to BU at home though) beats a mediocre Duke team in the tournament, and vaults into the top 25, and also vaults their conference ahead of the MVC.

3. Levi Dyer as POy candidate..............















sorry, I just recovered from a laughing fit on the floor.

4. The MVC a 1 bid league. What a shame and a step backward that would be for college basketball.

5. Devon mitchell as the leagues most entertaining player?


These are just a few of the insane comments made by this writer. It's a slap in the face to a league that has put a lot of work and effort to try to climb into the upper echelon of college basketball. What a joke.

[Phantom]

3. Levi Dyer as POy candidate..............















sorry, I just recovered from a laughing fit on the floor.

IMHO, it's really not a stretch for Dyer to be mentioned in preseason POY talks. Eric Coleman is likely the preseason fav for POY, followed by probably Falker and Ruffin. But if Dyer has another year like last year, he will be in the running too. Lets not forget Dyer is the MVC's leading returning scorer in conference games (15.4) and the 5th returning scorer overall (12.1). He also shot 48% from 3 for the year (51% in conference games) and if his inside game continues to develop he could be an extremely tough player to guard. All that considered, I dont see how its a laugh riot that he's mentioned as a possible POY candidate.

[ph]

Hasn't it been established that the MVC POY generally comes from the MVC champs, Even if he was the best player, ISU would have to win the Valley before Dyer could get POY.

[DannyCooksey]

Hasn't it been established that the MVC POY generally comes from the MVC champs, Even if he was the best player, ISU would have to win the Valley before Dyer could get POY.

Tarise Bryson won it in '01 by a landslide and the Redbirds were not conference champs. Being on the 1st place team certainly helps, but it doesn't mean a player from a non-1st place team can't win. I don't see it as a stretch that Dyer could be considered a candidate. Anthony Parker won it in '97 and how did the Braves finish that year? It has been done in the past and it's not unprecedented.

[Da Coach]

Tarise Bryson won it in '01 by a landslide and the Redbirds were not conference champs. Being on the 1st place team certainly helps, but it doesn't mean a player from a non-1st place team can't win. I don't see it as a stretch that Dyer could be considered a candidate. Anthony Parker won it in '97 and how did the Braves finish that year? It has been done in the past and it's not unprecedented.

Anthony Parker did not win the MVC POY in 1997, Jason Daisey of UNI did.

Parker won it in 1996 as a junior, as the Braves won the MVC that year. He was the preseason POY choice, and he might have won it again in 1997, but he broke his foot early in the '96-'97 season, missed a couple months of action, and was slowed down when he did return late in the 1997 season.

[DannyCooksey]

Anthony Parker did not win the MVC POY in 1997, Jason Daisey of UNI did.

Parker won it in 1996 as a junior, as the Braves won the MVC that year. He was the preseason POY choice, and he might have won it again in 1997, but he broke his foot early in the '96-'97 season, missed a couple months of action, and was slowed down when he did return late in the 1997 season.

Yeah.......I seem to recall the Parker injury now. Even still, UNI didn't win the league in '97, so the point is still made. In fact, did UNI even finish in the Top-5 that year?

[ph]

Those past examples are seemingly ancient history in the current MVC environment.

It still seems that since the MVC's recent surge Team standing is not most important in voting. Strong arguments can be made for POY's in Cellus, Ruffin and Crouch, but as a team BU put them out of contention. Jim Les could of been COY but it was the best team record that determined the vote.

[MacabreMob]

Yeah.......I seem to recall the Parker injury now. Even still, UNI didn't win the league in '97, so the point is still made. In fact, did UNI even finish in the Top-5 that year?

UNI finished tied for 4th with an 11-7 record.

(ISU 14-4, Mo St and BU 12-6, UNI and E'Ville 11-7)

[Da Coach]

Here are all the MVC POY award winners. It is now called the Larry Bird MVC Player of the Year Award--
1969 Bobby ???Bingo??? Smith, TU
1970 Jim Ard, Cincinnati
1971 Jeff Halliburton, Drake
1972 Larry Finch, Memphis St.
1973 Larry Kenon, Memphis St.
1974 Junior Bridgeman, Louisville
1975 Junior Bridgeman, Louisville
1976 Mike Glenn, S. Illinois
1977 Roger Phegley, Bradley
1978 Larry Bird, Indiana State
1979 Larry Bird, Indiana State
1980 Lewis Lloyd, Drake
1981 Lewis Lloyd, Drake
1982 Paul Pressey, Tulsa
1983 Antoine Carr, Wichita State
1984 Xavier McDaniel, Wichita St.
1985 Xavier McDaniel, Wichita St.
1986 Jim Les, Bradley
1987 Hersey Hawkins, Bradley
1988 Hersey Hawkins, Bradley
1989 Anthony Manuel, Bradley
1990 Bob Harstad, Creighton
1991 Chad Gallagher, Creighton
1992 Ashraf Amaya, S. Illinois
1993 Curt Smith, Drake
1994 Gary Collier, Tulsa
1995 Chris Carr, S. Illinois
1996 Anthony Parker, Bradley
1997 Jason Daisy, UNI
1998 Rico Hill, Illinois State
1999 Marcus Wilson, Evansville
2000 Nate Green, Indiana State
2001 Tarise Bryson, Illinois St.
2002 Kyle Korver, Creighton
2003 Kyle Korver, Creighton
2004 Darren Brooks, S. Illinois
2005 Darren Brooks, S. Illinois
2006 Paul Miller, Wichita State
2007 Jamaal Tatum, S. Illinois