Folks on another thread are saying we are not this or not that and destined once again for last place or by some quirk--ninth !! Glory be !! Ninth !!!

I say we are better than that and there are teams worse than us--No Names for now , but some opponents have really lost a lot.
It appears to some that our recruits are chopped liver and opponents' kids are world beaters. Enough of the pessimism---We will be far better than folks think.

Our new bigs are rather tall across the board --No, there are no seven footers but we are big enough--they will beef up and probably have been.

If Porter cannot succeed with these, then , like his predecessors he will have to go--Good recruiter or not--buy out or not. Fr G dictated a winner for us--He will get it or else--
Bold prediction---Doyle will be in the running for POY--and with any help , he will get it.
Another---The FINN will be a keeper --He and Thomas will do fine down low.

You know, it is so easy to make these wild predictions at this time--but I see only three with validity--

Shockers will be Champs again--That will change shortly down the road---This League can be had and will be--not now but shortly
Doyle will star
Moser will surprise--He must

GO RAMBLERS

Brot, I'm not saying that our talent is bad. I think in terms of athleticism, physical ability, quickness, and ability to score, we're going to be a much better team than last year. We had many long stretches of games last year where we only had two players on the court who were serious offensive threats, allowing the opposition to key on our offensive threats and force bad passes/desperation shots late in the shot clock. When Doyle was out of the game and when Christian Thomas was playing against a good defensive big man, our scoring options were pretty weak.

As for Christian Thomas himself, all you have to do is take a look at his numbers to see the difference between the MVC and Horizon. He had a 31-game streak of scoring in double-digits lasting from January 11, 2013 (including all but one game of our last year in the Horizon) to January 11, 2014. Against Horizon teams during the streak, he had games of 23 and 21, plus two games of 19 and one at 18. He also had a 31-point game in that streak against Kent State. The streak was broken in our fourth game in the MVC. Including that game against Illinois State where the streak was broken through the end of the season, Thomas hit double digits in only 10 of 17 games and only reached 20 points once-- in the overtime home win over Northern Iowa, where he played 44 minutes. He only averaged 12.2 points in the last 17 games against MVC teams (playing several more minutes per game), but averaged 16.1 ppg in the last 17 games of 2012-13 against mostly Horizon teams. Hopefully, the better athleticism and scoring ability of the new frontcourt players will help take some of the pressure off him and open him up for better shots.

But despite the positives of the new players, we're probably going to have a lot of problems finding effective player rotations and good defense. Expect some foul trouble from the new players, and a lot more turnovers. Last year we averaged 63.9 ppg on offense in MVC games. I expect that to go up by several points per game, and I think we'll see a lot more games scoring in the 70s or above. Last year we scored 70 or better in only 8 of our 20 MVC games (including low scoring outputs of 38, 45, 48, and 50). Meanwhile, on defense, we allowed 68.4 ppg in league games, ranking 6th. The question is whether this new crop of players will be able to improve enough on offense to overcome what's likely to be a backslide in defense. I think defense will improve with experience at the D-1 level, but I wouldn't expect things to click on defense until late in the year or next season. I think we're going to get particularly hurt by teams with high-scoring big men-- Tuttle on UNI, Mockevicius on Evansville, Lynch on ISUr, Kirk on MSU, Carter on WSU-- and players who can drive or slash to the basket.

So maybe it will be a much, much more fun team to watch, but I think there's going to be some frustration with defense, turnovers, and silly fouls. We haven't even talked about coaching-- it will be interesting to see if Moser is better at coaching a looser, higher-scoring bunch than the grind-it-out gang.

If and I say IF. we start in running , well I will take the turnovers as we should be scoring a lot--I remember Ireland's teams ran and ran and ran--lots of t/os as they ran up ninety or so points all the time--Now I am not comparing what we may have to Harkness and Co--I'm just sayin' turnovers come with the run game. We just have to defend and score---Guaranteed fun !!

GO RAMBLERS !!

I'm not sure I see us avoiding the bottom four with out lack of size, but I think we will be better than last year with more experience and depth at guard. That said, the whole league will be more bunched up.

The Shockers will almost certainly win the league again (unless UNI can sweep them). But the way I see them is Van Vleet and Baker are very good to great college players. On the other hand, Early was a second round draft pick who could have gone in the first round. I don't see how they replace that right away. He was a major impact. Even a great newcomer isn't going to play at that level. So, WSU will be beatable for a few teams in the league. Hell, at the game in Gentile, WSU led pretty comfortably the whole way, but when Early was out of the game with foul trouble and for rest, we held our own. Early scored 18 points in 21 minutes and seemed to magically appear every time we strung a couple baskets together.

Again, I'm picking the Shockers to win the league again, but I think the gap is shrinking considerably.

But enough about them. Looking at the four games we won last year, I don't think you could consider any of them a fluke. We beat Drake and ILSt by 10, MSU by 30, and played our best game of the year to beat UNI in overtime.

We also should have beaten SIU at home, had an overtime loss to them on the road, probably should have beaten Bradley at home (I refuse to believe they were a better team than us), and we had a great shot at beating INSt at home.

The rest of the games we lost fair and square: both vs WSU and at INSt, played horribly at ILSt, Drake, and Bradley. Played horribly both games vs Evansville. Got hammered by MSU and UNI on the road.

My point is that even with our team last year, we could have easily won 6, and maybe won 8 games without even playing that much better.

Has the rest of the league improved so much compared to us that we can't go 8-10 this year? I don't really think that's the case. I'll probably be proven wrong, but I think we're flat out better than Drake, Evansville, and Bradley.

I see 6 wins on the low end, and maybe 9 on the high end. Seventh place with an outside shot at sixth. Our luck has to turn around at some point...

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MBB Scholarship Chart

As long as I have good luck in Vegas, whatever else happens this season will be fine.

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MBB Scholarship Chart

I think we will be in the middle. We return our top five scorers and 79% of our points. We also return 4 of out top 5 rebounders.

Jones can play. He will make mistakes but will make up of other mistakes with shot blocking, rebounding and speed (steals).

His and James's role will be more like Moore's role or Andy Polka when they first played.

Peterson will add off the bench where we also need it.

Look for us to surprise.