I know we are all optimistic,,,,but I think our climb to the top of the Valley is going to be a little harder this year. Missouri State and Evansville have both been energized by coaching changes and good hires. SIU comes back healthy and experienced . Bradley has a strong returning group. Several of the teams have added well to their rosters highlighted by Evansville just signing 4star Sam Cunliffee who has transferred from Kansas....Gonna be some good basketball this season in the Valley.

I agree the conference is going to be stronger overall.

The 1995-96 Kentucky team Walter McCarty was on is one of my favorite college teams of all time (surpassed by the 2018 Ramblers, of course), so I’m interested to see how he does as a head coach.

But also keep in mind that a number of transfers aren’t going to be eligible to play this year, including Cunliffe.

According to a few different sources, Illinois State's best player, Milik Yarbrough, has been suspended indefinitely.

The Pantagraph is a pretty reliable source....

https://www.pantagraph.com/sports/colle ... user-share

I'm guessing "indefinitely" means he will get a solid 2-3 weeks of practice before their first game.

_________________
MBB Scholarship Chart

Classic ISUr, only in Normal could a player who is already under court supervision hit a woman with his car, not another vehicle but a person, injure them, flee the scene and not lose their spot on a sports team.

2:30 in the morning on a weekend, in a college town...not too difficult to guess a reason why he didn’t want to stop...

So nice to not have to worry about stuff like this with our guys. I am sure they have their fun--but they are not criminals.

As a resident of Normal, I can vouch that the Normal police are known for their traffic hassles. The real estate lady who sold me my home 12 years ago went on and on about it as she was driving me to see a house.

Yarbrough first got into trouble for not paying a fine on one of those famous Normal traffic stops.

But then he got into a fight with a girlfriend over a stolen phone. The cops were called. The altercation over the phone continued. And then he pushed her in the back, near a set of stairs. He was cited for it.

So he goes to court for his traffic stop warrant and his citation for endangering the woman's life by pushing her. And it gets cleared up-- he got on some kind of probation/supervision with no jail time or super-negative marks on his record.

Now this. I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt on some of the earlier stuff-- wrong place at the wrong time, lover's quarrel/spat, broke and not able to pay fines or show corrections to violations, etc. This is entirely different.

Do you know how DIFFICULT it is to hit another human being with your car at 2:27 a.m. in Normal? Bloomington/Normal's entire population is about 135,000, and-- this is no exaggeration-- 92% of them are asleep at 11 p.m. on a Saturday night. These people keep farmer's hours.

You've probably got 35 people walking in this town at 2:30 a.m. on a Saturday night. Bloomington has 22.5 square miles, and Normal has 18.75. Probably about three of those 41.25 combined square miles between the two towns are corn fields. Yet somehow, Malik Yarbrough found somebody to hit despite there being fewer than one pedestrian per square mile. Crazy.

You also forgot his first run in at ISU

https://www.midmajormadness.com/2016/10 ... -yarbrough