Eastern Illinois now #341 out of 341

[Da Coach]

Thanks Mike. It would have been nice if the Trib article would have included that information.

[squirrel]

I defended EIU through last year. With an young, optimistic, upbeat Miller at head coach who apparently was able to recruit pretty well (2 consecutive newcomers of the year), the results simply have not been there on the court.

After being reasonably competitive the first half of the season, I expected them to break through the second half last year with a home-laden sked, and they did not. And they actually look worse this year.

I still think they could be the surprise team in the OVC, but at this rate, things don't look good.

[Da Coach]

This is Mike Miller's 3rd season, and it would be hard to say he's made any progress. With one of the worst schedules in the country (actually it is the worst right now, #341 out of #341), he is winless against D1 competetion. The Ohio Valley Conference is pretty weak (7 of 11 teams have just 1 win or less and none have winning records), the Big South is the only conference ranked lower. So EIU could still do well in conference, but their RPI won't rise much. Their next 2 games are at home against winless OVC opponents. I have also felt Coach Miller should be given more time, but these next few weeks could change my mind.

How much longer would you give Coach Miller? I am sure you recall that when Jim Les didn't produce a winning season by his 3rd year, there were a lot of loud voices calling for Bradley to rectify their "mistake". In fact that was happening by the middle of Jim Les' 2nd season, and continued through season 3 and the first 3 months of season 4.

As for Western Illinois, Derrick Thomas is 28-86 in 4 years, and appears to be going downhill. The talent he recruits to WIU seems as good as the talent level at other schools in the Summit League, but they underachieve, or leave. If things don't turn around there this season, I wouldn't blame their followers for wanting a change. So far it doen't look like that's happening.

[Da Coach]

It looked like Eastern might have had their best chance at a win tonight. They played their first Ohio Valley Conference game at home against Tennessee Tech. Tennessee Tech is 0-6 against D1 opponents, and their RPI was 338, barely ahead of EIU's RPI of 341.

But unfortunately, despite playing in front of a home crowd of 834, Eastern Illinois was humiliated by Tenn. Tech 72-53.
Tech had a 21 point halftime lead and coasted the rest of the way.--

http://sports.yahoo.com/ncaab/boxscore?gid=200712060179

Tennesee Tech's RPI rank zoomed all the way up to 331 after the win over EIU.

http://realtimerpi.com/rpi_ovc_Men.html

But EIU's RPI dropped from 0.2474 to 0.2268. They are breaking new ground with their ineptitude.
For the record, the lowest RPI I can find for a season was Liberty University in 1999 when they finished last in RPI (310 out of 310) with an 0-20 record against D1 opponents, and an RPI of 0.3198.
That RPI is still far better than where EIU's is now. Will EIU be able to rally and get their RPI back up to the level of the previous worst in history?

[Chico]

I've read on this board that Southern Mississippi had a terrible schedule. Is it better than EIU's?

[Da Coach]

Southern Miss. schedule is extremely weak, partly because it includes 4 extremely weak NAIA teams. But the NCAA doesn't count games against non-Division 1 teams, so for RPI sake, their Strenght of Schedule will come out ahead of EIU's. Also, the final SOS won't be determined until all games are played, but since th Ohio Valley conference is so weak, with such poor RPI's, no doubt EIU's schedule will be at or near the worst SOS in the country. But for a team like Southern Miss of the CUSA, their schedule is an embarrassment.

[Old Coach]

For a state-supported institution, EIU doesn't have a very big budget for athletics. They have poor facilities, and their coaches must have a hell of a time trying to convince kids to come to Charleston. The town is literally in the middle of nowhere.

It certainly hasn't hurt their football team.

I'm not sure what the problem is with the basketball program. As somebody else mentioned, they have had the last 2 OVC New-comers of the year.

They have 2 NCAA tournament appearances in the last 15 years, which certainly isn't horrible, but man have they hit rock-bottom now.

[2bradleyfans]

Eastern's football teams are over rated. Primarily because the OVC is not very good. What is Eastern's record against Gateway teams the last 10 years?

If you put Eastern football in the Gateway they finish 6th. Can't beat UNI SIU YSU WIU or ISU.

Hard to believe that Tony Romo hailed from EIU.

[edmondo15]

SIU may be in the middle of nowhere, but I'll be darned if the only thing you hear about or see within a 1 hour radius is Saluki athletics. There was even a commercial on last night supporting SIU basketball from O'Fallon! That's 2.5 hours away!

I was talking to Tyrone Green when I first got down here this summer, he was in one of my marketing groups, and he said that the reason he loves playing down here so much is that the student body and the town live for SIU basketball. Which is true, this place pretty much shuts down during home games. So I'd imagine that's how Weber/Painter/Lowery were able to get such quality recruits over a steady period of time.

When it comes to BU, if you look before the Sweet 16 season in 2006 the student body really could have cared less about the basketball team. Since then the student body has really taken to the team and the buzz on campus has been really great. The community has always supported the team, but if you think about it 99% of the time these players are on campus so it's really the student/peer support that they see and care about the most. Hence, BU is getting better recruits every year and will keep improving because of it.