Missouri Valley Conference Post Season Honors

[tropicalshox]

Cotton left off 1st team.

[wsubball96]

http://www.mvc-sports.com/mbasketball/news/2014-15/7922/tuttle-highlights-2014-15-all-missouri-valley/#.VPYF7PnF8f0

[Shocker-maniac]

From MSU beat writer:

@LscrantonNL: Inexplicably, Wichita State's Tekele Cotton left off all-MVC first team.

@LscrantonNL: As if Wichita State needed an outrage card to play at MVC tourney ...

[Dave Stalwart]

Cotton left off 1st team.

Classic MVC. Put him on any top half team and that team immediately contends for an MVC title because HE can defend OUR guys and no one else can. That is not true of anyone else, I don't think.

Tekele is so "all valley" it's ridiculous. Tekele is "all NCAA." :)

[Shocker-maniac]

They will pay for this in STL. It will be a massacre.

[SB Shock]

Tuttle Is player of year - Baker and Fred combined have more points than Tuttle

[Dave Stalwart]

Bush Dubya is POY. He owned Tuttle one on one :)

[SB Shock]

Evansville w/ 2players on 1st team - what a joke

[bighouse]

Evansville w/ 2players on 1st team - what a joke

So a team that finished .500 in league play, and 8 games out of 1st place has the same number of players on the first team as the 8th ranked team in the country who went 17-1 in league.....makes sense.

[Shock Top]

Evansville w/ 2players on 1st team - what a joke

Those two them to a glorious 5th place finish. They should be proud.

Wonder what would have happened if ISUr didn't underperform. They were predicted to win by someone after all..

[Play Angry]

They will pay for this in STL. It will be a massacre.

Heaven help them if we find out the staff of the SIU/MSU winner voted for Balentine. We might see basketball's first shutout in a century.

[Jhook89]

Mock is the league leader in rebounds and double doubles by a mile and Balentine is the leagues leading scorer. Though I full heartedly think Cotton should of made it over one of them, I also can't argue that much about either one of them being left off the first team.

[jegbomb52]

Kind of thought your guys would split votes and POY would go to Tuttle, as a UNI fan im happy for him. The comment that Baker and VanFleet had more votes than Tuttle is a little misleading, they had more total votes, first place votes if you total theirs they don't amount to 25% of the votes Tuttle got combined.

Funny your beat writer didn't vote for Jacobson and thats okay, our beat writer didn't vote for hcgm and he's a homer :)

Evansville having two on first team is a joke. You think you guys feel jobbed by equaling them in honors, we had one player on the first and second team being doubled up by E'Ville and TRIPLED up by Illinois State. Think we have a gripe? We had one of the best teams seasons in the modern history of the Valley.

I thought Tekele was well deserving of DPOY

Congrats on the honors, see you guys in a few day! As always, good luck, until Sunday :)

[1972Shocker]

So a team with two 1st Team All-Valley players can finish no better than 9-9 and 5th place in the conference. Should we expect the COY award to go to Marty Simmons?

Regarding Tekele being left off the 1st team I think the Valley has a rule that the Defensive Player of the Year is usually not allowed to be on the All-Conference 1st Team and is certainly disqualified for POY consideration.

For example, last year Shocker WBB Alex Harden was clearly the best player in the Valley but she was also clearly the best defensive player as well. A compromise of sorts was apparently reached. Give the POY award to the Valley's leading scorer (from a 5th place team) as if that is all that counts and the make Alex the Defensive POY. Of course, their is no way they could keep Alex from 1st team All-Conference honors. She is in the same situation this year. It will be interesting to see how the Valley deals with this. It is interesting to note that last year's women's POY was due to return this year but was suffered a season ending injury and her team went from 5th to 2nd without her. OTOH Alex's team under her leadership has won back-to-back conference titles. What does that tell you?

I think Tekele and Alex are the victims of a couple of things at play here. 1) an anti-WSU bias around the Valley perhaps due to an inferiority complex or perhaps just plain jealousy and 2) voters who simply look at scoring averages and have no real understanding of what makes a really valuable player.

But that is just the way it is in the Valley of Even or is that the Valley of Get Even.

Nevertheless, congratulations to Ron, Fred, Tekele and Darius on the awards they did receive.

Also congratulations to Seth Tuttle on the POY award. He had a great year and I can't really argue with his selection. Plus Seth lead the Panthers to a great season and very strong 16-2 Valley finish even though he had no teammates on the 1st or 2nd teams.

I think the men should consider doing what the women do and just have a 10-member All-Conference team plus Honorable Mentions. No 2nd team needed. That would eliminate, or at least cut down on, whiny fans like me.

The thing is I'm sure Shocker fans are more upset about Tekele being left off the 1st team than Tekele is. Perhaps the Valley should add one more specialty award given to the Senior or Seniors with who have the most wins over their 4 years (eliminate any partial seasons that resulted in a hardship waiver). Call it the Winner Winner Chicken Dinner award. I bet they could get Tyson Foods to sponsor.

[Shock Top]

Mock is the league leader in rebounds and double doubles by a mile and Balentine is the leagues leading scorer. Though I full heartedly think Cotton should of made it over one of them, I also can't argue that much about either one of them being left off the first team.

While that may be true, it didn't help produce wins. So those stats don't mean as much.