Future

[ShockerPrez]

Program wise, I would agree we are more solid. However, the teams over the past 2 years have been pretty even.

[another shocker]

Laugh if you want, but they beat us twice last year...

they also beat north carolina, iowa state and stephen f. austin.

of course, wichita state is the better program (shockers would have blown texas a&m off the floor) but, man, jacobson is one heck of a coach. uni will be good again next year.

[SHOCKvalue]

Fairly massive chasm between WSU and UNI when it comes to fan support, financial support, and program history. Almost apples and oranges; however, UNI doing well is a great thing for us and the MVC as a whole. I hope they are able to maintain.

[wufan]

Fairly massive chasm between WSU and UNI when it comes to fan support, financial support, and program history. Almost apples and oranges; however, UNI doing well is a great thing for us and the MVC as a whole. I hope they are able to maintain.

They will be just fine so long as Ben Jacobson is there. He's got 4 NCAA appearance in the past 8 years (10 total years at UNI). Also, he's never finished in the bottom half of the MVC. If we weren't within the blissful nirvana that is HCGM, I'd be thrilled to have Jacobson as my coach.

[choida]

Laugh if you want, but they beat us twice last year...

I've always respected UNI, except for some odd 44 seconds or so

[shoxtop]

Laugh if you want, but they beat us twice last year...

They also lost twice to Loyola, what's your point?

[WuDrWu]

Exceedingly well coached (and insanely fortunate) group of overachievers. They've got A LOT more to worry about in terms of falling next year than we do.

[shoxtop]

Exceedingly well coached (and insanely fortunate) group of overachievers. They've got A LOT more to worry about in terms of falling next year than we do.

I thought that last year as well...

[ShockTalk]

Laugh if you want, but they beat us twice last year...

They also beat UNC, Iowa St, SF Austin, Texas and Evansville (3x), but we also beat them by 19 and they lost to Richmond by 15, New Mexico by 19, IN St by 14, SIU, Mo St, Loyola (2x), and had the greatest 38 second meltdown in Dance history against aTm.

They were a total Jekyll and Hyde last year. Play'em on the wrong day, you got beat. Play'em on the right day you could beat them big and anyone could beat them. They couldn't "sustain success" from day to day, yet some called us out on a "maybe" situation.

I'll stack our 3 S16s or better against their 1 S16 and 11 NCAA/NITs against their 8 over the last 13 or so years for sustaining success over them any day.

So, yeah, I'll chuckle a little at their comments.

[WSUwatcher]

Laugh if you want, but they (UNI) beat us twice last year...

Careful, Prez; you may turn into JH4P. Stuff happens, and in all leagues -- two years ago, for example, Creighton blew out Villanova home and away; but they weren't better, just a tough matchup. Last season the UNIs were a tough matchup for the Shocks. And, as shoxtop points out, does anyone really want to pretend head-to-head results are that meaningful in connection with the UNIs, considering their results against Loyola?

Still, it was no accident that they finished five (!) games behind WSU in the standings, or that over the last four seasons WSU has been a total of 15 games ahead of them in Valley play, while also winning nine NCAA games and taking a trip to the Final Four. There has indeed been a time when the programs were pretty closely comparable -- even a time when UNI was better -- but that time is not now, and it hasn't been for quite a while. I'll continue to laugh at the comparison, thanks.

[ShockerPrez]

They also lost twice to Loyola, what's your point?

My point?

Why wouldn't they feel a little optimistic after taking down the champs twice?

Like I said, they have a long way to go to be where we are in terms of program strength. But it all has to start somewhere. And it may as well start with a good coach and a winning team more years than not.

[shockmonster]

They are competitive but not parallel nor will they pass us. The basic reason for this is that UNI is happy being where they are. Washpun was their equalizer. They will be trying to maintain and hope they don't lose too much ground next year.

[SHOCKvalue]

They will be just fine so long as Ben Jacobson is there. He's got 4 NCAA appearance in the past 8 years (10 total years at UNI). Also, he's never finished in the bottom half of the MVC. If we weren't within the blissful nirvana that is HCGM, I'd be thrilled to have Jacobson as my coach.

I'm not trying to pile on UNI or Jacobson because I respect them, and really have nothing against them (unlike other current and former MVC members), but two of those four NCAA appearances were "bid thief" auto-bid teams that had zero hope of making the Tournament if not for a hot weekend in STL. In BJ's 10 years at the UNI helm he's had exactly two NCAA quality teams (from a Selection Sunday perspective). Consider also that BJ reaped those results after being handed the keys to a well-tuned program.

Wichita State on the other hand has had five NCAA tournament appearances over the same exact period, with all of those teams worthy of an at-large. Only one of those five appearances wasn't actually an at-large, and that was (ironically) the undefeated team of 2014 that went into Selection Sunday ranked AP #2, and came out as a 1 seed. In contrast to BJ above, GM was handed the keys to what was once a solid program, but one that had recently been declared a total loss, and stamped as salvage.

From a purely statistical perspective, WSU MBB:

*Outspends (budget) UNI MBB by 61%
*Wins the MBB revenue battle by 92%
*Averages 109% more butts-in-seats (could be much higher, but we're tapped out capacity-wise)
*Has 63% more NCAA tournament appearances
*Has 240% more NCAA tournament wins
*Has 500% more NCAA S16's
*Has spent 570% more weeks in the AP Top 25
*Has spent 3050% more weeks in the AP Top 10

As you can see, some of those stats are hilariously skewed, and I even left out criteria for which WSU has a quantity of, but that UNI does not (E8, F4, etc).

I struggle to see a corollary between the two programs historically, but that doesn't mean UNI can't potentially equal or beat WSU moving forward.

[_kai_]

Did you know he's coming to KC in July with Drake?

[Dan]

UNI is the next best thing in the Valley but they are not consistent winners. WSU, on the other hand, has been regularly Top 25-40, or better, for quite a while now. In order to get to where we are, UNI needs to bring it every single game. I don't know if it's the system or what, but they have the tendency to lose a lot of head scratchers. WSU, on the other hand, tends to save up most of their turd laying for St. Louis.