Here is to our winning BOTH the Brave and Ill St games flat out !!

I have a hunch that Bradley will be tough for a while but we plainly just have too much for them at our house--I look for a big win here.

Ill St will give us match up problems but we again will have too much in the end of a fairly close game.

I am truly looking for two DULL winners rather than all those exciting losers we have been having--

Milton and Turk will go off big time --as we get ready for wherever we are seeded later on. To use a racing term--this colt is ready to run !!!

Don't like to name names but O'Leary MUST improve--He has yet to do so--He truly would be a huge help. All the rest appear to be playing to their up-sides.

GO RAMBLERS !!

Bradley is the only team we haven't seen this year, which makes me a little nervous. What gives me some hope is they haven't won a single road game this year, and they lost to Milwaukee by 6. Still, they have a lot of talent-- especially senior Walt Lemon, Jr., a Chicagoan who played at Julian. Ka'Darryl Bell (Oak Park-River Forest) and Xzavier Taylor (Morgan Park) are also from the Chicago area, plus Mike Shaw (Illinois transfer sitting out this year). Bradley has a lot of alumni in the Chicago area and travel well, so expect a very large Bradley crowd at the game.

We've seen Illinois State, and I'm hoping the experience in Normal gave us some ways of countering their press and their zone. We seemed to handle Wichita State's defensive pressure fairly well, and we were a little bit better in the Southern Illinois game. Right now we're ticketed for Thursday in St. Louis, and if we can find a way to win these two we're back on track for possibly escaping an ignominious Arch initiation.

Win these two, plus the roadie at Drake and the last home game of the season vs. Evansville, and here's how I see the league shaking out:

Wichita State 18-0
Indiana State 15-3
Mizzou State 10-8
Illinois State 9-9
Northern Iowa 8-10
Loyola 7-11
Drake 6-12
Bradley 6-12
Evansville 6-12
SIU 5-13

That would give us a Friday game vs. Missouri State at a neutral site. Of course, if we lose the game at Drake, that means we're not only playing Thursday, we're playing as the #9 against Evansville or Bradley at a neutral site.