2016 Valley All-Conference Teams

[WuShock Reaper]

In the last 10 years, and prior to this year (2016), the COY has either gone to the Coach that finished 1st (8 times, 80%) or 2nd (2 times, 20%) in the conference standings. It is highly unusual for the Coach that finished tied for 4th to receive the COY. I am sure if I had more time to go check all the records, back to 1949, you would not find many Coach's beyond 1st, 2nd, or 3rd to have received the COY honor.

As a point of reference:

2015 - WSU finished the conference 1st at 17-1, UNI finished the conference 2nd at 16-2, Ben Jacobsen won the COY.

2013 - WSU finished the conference 2nd at 12-6, CU finished the conference 1st at 13-5, Gregg Marshall won the COY.

[AZ Shocker]

Holy death wish! Buh-bye Valley foes. This tournament just got ANGRY!!! Thought your team may get hot and win the tournament for the auto-bid??? Prepare for complete embarrassment. The voters just opened up a whole can of whoop-was!!!

GO SHOCKS!!!

[gdb620]

=
By my count, there was one other ballot that didn't have Marshall on it. Am I right?

I counted six. 45 voters-4 associated with WSU = 41, Marshall named on 35 ballots.

[Walker]

Barry is a solid coach and amazing in post game interviews, but the mental gymnastics you have to use to give COY to a 4th place coach when 3G has this team 4 games in front not to mention his 3rd consecutive Valley regular season title is baffling. It's going to look even more silly once they cut down nets in St. Louis and I still suspect the best has yet to come for this group in the big dance.

[MSNSaluki]

I betcha Barry will give a shout out to Gregg Marshall and admit that Gregg should have won it. I can see that happening.

If there's videotape of today's luncheon you may want to try and watch. I've been told Marshall had a fantastic look on his face throughout Hinson's remarks. :)

[SHOCKvalue]

I count 7 MVC COY voters (out of the 41 who could vote for him) who did not place Marshall on their top 3 ballots at all:

We know that...

He received 81 points in total.

and...

He has 17 1st place votes, which equals 54 points.
He has 10 2nd place votes, which equals 20 points.

That adds up to 27 voters accounted for, out of 41 in total (not including 4 local media who couldn't vote for him), for which 74 points are attributed. That leaves 14 voters and just 7 points to account for, and since 3rd place is worth just 1 point, that tells us that 7 MVC COY voters did not even put Marshall on their ballots at all.

Lots, and lots of butt-hurt around this conference - it's athletes, fan, alums, and media members.

[1972Shocker]

He did teach his wife to shot fake.

I thought it was the Mrs. doing the shot fake teaching.

[ShockerGorilla]

HCGM should have the COY award in the bag next year after he blows through the Valley schedule without Van Vleet & Baker.

[IComeInPeace]

Barry is a solid coach and amazing in post game interviews, but the mental gymnastics you have to use to give COY to a 4th place coach when 3G has this team 4 games in front not to mention his 3rd consecutive Valley regular season title is baffling. It's going to look even more silly once they cut down nets in St. Louis and I still suspect the best has yet to come for this group in the big dance.

He really isn't a solid coach. He is a solid soundbite. In game, he is a mediocre offensive coach and one of the worst when it comes to making defensive adjustments. He is a very poor recruiter(SIU without Beane is a roster with very little talent) and an awful scheduler.

[WSUwatcher]

I am a lifelong SIU fan, and am admittedly not a fan of Wichita State. With that said, I feel for you guys. Hinson would not have even been on my top 3. SIU went 2-6 vs the top 4 teams in the conference, and 4 of those losses were blowouts. SIU finished the year poorly, going 4-5 in the last 9 games.

And as I said elsewhere: People-i.e. fans of other teams-like Hinson when he isnt their teams coach. He is an average at best in game coach(offensively, he is one of the worst at making defensive adjustments), cant recruit, and refuses to put anything resembling a decent non conference schedule together. From the outside, people just see/hear the folksy "gee, aww shucks" soundbites. When he is your teams coach, however, you are able to witness the entire mediocre package. Theres a reason he couldnt even find an assistant coaching job after being let go by Missouri State. If Hinson is the best you can do as a head coach that is a sad indictment of tour program. SIU isnt on the way up. They played one of, if not the, worst non conference schedules in NCAA. SIU's roster minus Anthony Beane has very little talent on it.

This is a sad day for SIU, as no doubt Hinson will try to use this to garner an extension.

Interesting analysis, Peace, and thanks for offering it. My sympathy, but the real problem SIU has isn't Hinson; it's (a) the lack of resources to get and then keep a superior coach -- wouldn't it have been nice to be able to pay up to keep Matt Painter? -- and (b) that Chris lowery, who seemed to be on the right track for several years, then completely ran off the rails once forced to rely on his own recruits.

I'm a huge fan of Marshall and WSU, as are most of us here, but I really don't have any problem with the choice of Hinson His team overachieved its forecast pretty significantly, and not just against the embarrassingly weak nonconference schedule he manufactured. They overachieved in the Valley as well. Marshall's team was dramatically superior, and I think he's a better coach, but I don't think WSU overachieved this year, and considering the preseason expectations for them, I don't know that they would have even if VanVleet and Grady hadn't been hurt. (Maybe if Shamet had stayed healthy too, but I don't know that it's realistic to expect a team to go all season without any significant illness or injuries, and especially one that practices as hard as WSU does.) Granted, looking at it that way probably handicaps Marshall vs. the rest of the MVC coaches, because now that his machine is really cranked up, it likely will always be harder for him to overachieve than for pretty much anyone else. But I still think Hinson deserves some credit.

As for your goofball beat writer who's now apologizing for being an idiot, yes -- he was. But he only cost Marshall the award if the alternative to ignoring him would have been to put 3G first, in which case Marshall and Hinson would have tied on points. If he had made a plausible top choice other than Marshall -- although I'm frankly not sure who that would have been (Simmons seems farfetched, given the presence of Mock, Balentine, and Brzoja, who should have been enough to produce a top-two or top-three team; and Muller and Jacobson's teams both had to come back strong to avoid significantly UNDERachieving) -- and put Marshall second, Hinson still would have squeaked by. So Hefferman may have been the most public and egregious violator, but he really didn't give Marshall the shafteroo all by himself. Someone else said that Marshall only appeared on 35 ballots? If so, that's the real travesty, and a pox on all of their houses to those who found an excuse to ignore him.

[ShockerRadio]

Current ESPN Insider article titled "50 Best Coaching Performances of 2015-16" by John Gasaway. 3.3G Ranks #16. Didn't See Barry on the list. Or any other Valley coach, for that matter.

[Walker]

He really isn't a solid coach. He is a solid soundbite. In game, he is a mediocre offensive coach and one of the worst when it comes to making defensive adjustments. He is a very poor recruiter(SIU without Beane is a roster with very little talent) and an awful scheduler.

That's a good point, and it's pretty obvious SIU had an inflated win column thanks to a pathetic non-con schedule although I think he did exceed expectations and is better than Lusk. Either way, no justification to give him COY over 3G.

[Eric]

Perhaps the WSU players will be pissed enough to make a statement for their coach this weekend.

[1972Shocker]

I'm a huge fan of Marshall and WSU, as are most of us here, but I really don't have any problem with the choice of Hinson His team overachieved its forecast pretty significantly, and not just against the embarrassingly weak nonconference schedule he manufactured. They overachieved in the Valley as well.

Just curious about what your expectations for SIU in the Valley were on January 8th when they were 14-2 overall and 3-0 in the Valley getting ready to take on the Shockers? Average RPI of SIU Opponents at that point was 228.

Or, alternatively, what were your expectations on January 25th when SIU was 18-3 overall and 7-1 in the Valley? Average RPI of Opponents season to date at that point improved to 216.

SIU clearly exceeded expectations to that point. Whether that was due to good coaching or something else such as the way schedule worked out is arguable I suppose.

Average RPI of SIU opponents over the last 10 games was 169. Not great but a noticeable step up from what they had faced to that point. I suspect that SIU fell short of consensus adjusted expectations (based on more complete input) over the final 10 games of the season heading into those final 10 games. I doubt many folks were expecting they would finish 11-7 and in the 4th place in the Valley at that point.

OTOH what did 3G and the Shocks do after his team imploded in the 2nd half at Illinois State and then played very poorly on offense in the home winning streak breaking loss to UNI 2-games later and everyone and his brother was saying the Shocks had no clue how to attack a zone. They promptly ripped apart every zone they saw over the next 5 games and produced wins by an average MOV of 26.4 points.

One of those finishes is what you would expect from the league's Coach of the Year.

[stldog]

Just curious about what your expectations for SIU in the Valley were on January 8th when they were 14-2 overall and 3-0 in the Valley getting ready to take on the Shockers? Average RPI of SIU Opponents at that point was 228.

Or, alternatively, what were your expectations on January 25th when SIU was 18-3 overall and 7-1 in the Valley? Average RPI of Opponents season to date at that point improved to 216.

SIU clearly exceeded expectations to that point. Whether that was due to good coaching or something else such as the way schedule worked out is arguable I suppose.

Average RPI of SIU opponents over the last 10 games was 169. Not great but a noticeable step up from what they had faced to that point. I suspect that SIU fell short of consensus adjusted expectations (based on more complete input) over the final 10 games of the season heading into those final 10 games. I doubt many folks were expecting they would finish 11-7 and in the 4th place in the Valley at that point.

OTOH what did 3G and the Shocks do after his team imploded in the 2nd half at Illinois State and then played very poorly on offense in the home winning streak breaking loss to UNI 2-games later and everyone and his brother was saying the Shocks had no clue how to attack a zone. They promptly ripped apart every zone they saw over the next 5 games and produced wins by an average MOV of 26.4 points.

One of those finishes is what you would expect from the league's Coach of the Year.

You mean as opposed to finishing 4-6 down the stretch, including beat-downs st the hands of any Valley team with a pulse?

This outcome is beyond absurd.