Your prediction of the Valley at the end of regular season play

[Dave Stalwart]

This will be all the funnier when you boys finish in the bottom half of the league. Say sixth? Sixth or seventh seems about right for the boys from Sedgwick County.

I am really enjoying this thread.

[WSUwatcher]

Lusking must be expecting the Shocks to hit quite the slump (and he should know what a slump looks like), don't you think, DJ?

[Aargh]

Lusking must be expecting the Shocks to hit quite the slump (and he should know what a slump looks like), don't you think, DJ?

Probably expecting a series of injuries to a bunch of starters - oh, wait...never mind.

[ShockTalk]

Hope you guys aren't putting the jinx on the Shocks.

Our last half of conference play is a lot tougher than the first. 3 home games to 5 road (including UNI, IN St, Ill St and CU).

Last 4 games: Ill St away, IN St away, Evansville home, and CU away.

We need to start hitting on all cylinders soon and on a regular basis.

[Kung Wu]

I hope you go undefeated in non-con and you are undefeated when we roll into your cool lil arena on Jan 19!

Pretty close prediction. Thanks for rollin' into our lil arena.

[Dan]

BAM. Nice. Did you think you would be THIS right though.

I didnt buy into the Illinois State hype. Losing both a coach and star point guard is too much to overcome. No way did I think they would be in dead last.

[rrshock]

I didnt buy into the Illinois State hype. Losing both a coach and star point guard is too much to overcome. No way did I think they would be in dead last.

That spot was reserved for MSU. By EVERYONE. Little did we all know that the hype would get to ISUr and they would fall apart.

I am guilty of believing that WSU wouldn't be the winner and I know the season isn't over yet, but I like being proved wrong in this category.

[Dave Stalwart]

And there you have it. We pretty much averaged picking 2nd. I guess we did a good job. Still hurts

[forevershockerfan]

And there you have it. We pretty much averaged picking 2nd. I guess we did a good job. Still hurts

Nice find. It does put this Season back in perspective. However, we are still disappointed because we had the ship slip right through our fingers. Who would have known we could have been in such a fine position with the injuries? We rose way above the curve, got use to it, and knew a Championship was within our reach.

Now let's do this. Would we still have picked our Shocks 2nd, if we would have had the foreknowlege that we would be missing 2-3 starters during some or all of the games, compounded by a hosing by a poor whistle at the SIU game? Hmmmmm? Me wonders what we would have predicted then upfront?

On thing about it. We did NOT take no stinkin 4th place, so thar!!!! Didn't one guy that was prognosticating on some smaller scale come on SN and pick us 6th? Plaaaa---eeeessseee!!!! Not going to do that, not now, not evaaa!!!

[forevershockerfan]

This got brought up in another thread, but I think it's worth it's own thread. Here's how I see it

1. CU
2. WSU
3. UNI
4. IlSU
5. UE
6. DU
7. InSU
8. BU
9. MSU
10. SIU

If you want some humor in your reading, go to MVCFans after this thread gets linked over there. I certainly hope it's not one of the WSU apologists that still post there who links this thread.

It appears that Aargh, whom started this thread, may be the most accurate of all? However, since he started the thread, it sounds fishy!!! Muhahahahaha

[ShockTalk]

My problem is not where we ended up, but how we got there. I really felt this team would have problems in the 1st half of the season and some of that would continue into the first half of Valley play. By the time the second half of Valley play rolled around, we'd be on our game to weather a tough 2nd half schedule and do no worse than in the "easier" 1st half of MVC play. How'd we do?

Non-Con: I expected a loss at VCU plus only winning 2 of 4 of Iowa (neutral), @ Air Force, @ TN, and Southern Miss.
That's going 9-3 in the non-con, but we won at VCU and won 3 of 4 the other games, losing NO unexpected games. Great start. 11-1, not 9-3.

1st half of Valley(easier half): Loss to CU plus losing 2 of 3 of UNI, @ UE, Ill St.
That is going 6-3, but we beat CU and won 2 of 3 of the other games, with NO unexpected losses. That's 8-1, not 6-3. Overall, 19-2, not 15-6.

2nd half of Valley (tougher half): Loss @ CU plus lossing 2 of 3 of @ Ill St, @UNI, @IN St and not having any unexpected losses as the team is now hitting their stride (plus win the BB game).
That's going 7-3, but, while losing @ CU, we won 2 of 3 of the other tough games. So, we should have been 8-2, not 7-3. Overall, 27-5, not 22-9.
However, something UNEXPECTED happened. We lost 3 games we should not have lost, especially after winning most of the tougher games.
So, no 27-5, but a record of 24-7 which was better than expected.

The team had no doubt overachieved through the non-con and 1st half of the season. The down side is that, not only did the Shocks underachieve the last half of Valley play, the underachieved what should have been reasonably expected.

[im4wsu]

Wessel missed 23 games and averaged 19 minutes before injury
Hall missed 7 games and averaged 28.3 minutes before injury
Baker missed 21 games and averaged 25.1 minutes before injury
Orukpe missed 3 games and averaged 15 minutes before injury
That totals 1207.2 minutes missed by four of our five starters in 54 games.
which translates to an equivalent of thirty 40-minute games.

Had this been one near-40-minute-a-game player, we would have played the #6 and #7 men in the rotation more minutes to make up the gap. But this was basically three men, so we had to replace the minutes with #8 , #9, #10 & #11 men in the rotation. Using Creighton as a comparison, their #8-#11 men totaled 669 minutes this season. That covers only 55% of the minutes our starters missed due to injury.

[Shockeriffic]

Wessel missed 23 games and averaged 19 minutes before injury
Hall missed 7 games and averaged 28.3 minutes before injury
Baker missed 21 games and averaged 25.1 minutes before injury
Orukpe missed 3 games and averaged 15 minutes before injury
That totals 1207.2 minutes missed by four of our five starters in 54 games.
which translates to an equivalent of thirty 40-minute games.

Had this been one near-40-minute-a-game player, we would have played the #6 and #7 men in the rotation more minutes to make up the gap. But this was basically three men, so we had to replace the minutes with #8 , #9, #10 & #11 men in the rotation. Using Creighton as a comparison, their #8-#11 men totaled 669 minutes this season. That covers only 55% of the minutes our starters missed due to injury.

One minor qualification to make is that Orupke was injured earlier than the others. For Tulsa and Air Force, he was the only player injured. For Northern Colorado, we were down 2 players. Only Wessel missed Tennessee even though Orupke wasn't himself yet. His missed games didn't put the same amount of strain on the rotation because he was the only one hurt.

[im4wsu]

One minor qualification to make is that Orupke was injured earlier than the others. For Tulsa and Air Force, he was the only player injured. For Northern Colorado, we were down 2 players. Only Wessel missed Tennessee even though Orupke wasn't himself yet. His missed games didn't put the same amount of strain on the rotation because he was the only one hurt.

He was part of the starting five up until injury, so he should be included. Your analysis has some validity; however, the premise was the minutes that starters missed. Every team has its two-game three-game injuries, so for that reason it is proper to include EO.

[pogo]

I missed this the first go around but I really think I would like a life size action figure for my birthday.