Making a move to stay out of Thursday's game in the 'Lou?

[shockerfan]

I know, I know, one game at a time. But with the recent surgence and sense of urgency by the Shox here at home it's possible to once again THINK about. Most of the bottom half teams have it worse this week then we do. It's a good week for us to keep trying to climb out of the "abyss" and avoid Thursday in St Louis.

Rankings 6-10 as of right now:

6. Evansville (4-4)
7. SIU (4-5)
t-8. Missouri St (2-6)
t-8. WSU (2-6)
10. Indiana St (2-7)

Now, if we go 2-1 this week (I'm not picking us on the road until we prove it) then we will be at a record of (4-7) by the end of the week. And Drake seems to be pretty up and down so I do think that is a winnable game AT HOME.

Evansville - is @ WSU today, @ Drake and then home against an improving SIU team. That's 2 tough road games and a SIU team that has started clicking a little more. Very possible they go 0-3 during this week. That puts them at (4-7) along with us by the weekend.

SIU - I say they go 2-0 this week. 1 win against Evansville and the other at home against Missouri St. That puts them at (5-6) after the week is through.

MSU - Probably the toughest week out of the bunch. They are getting healthy so who knows, but I could see them 0-3 after this week also. They play UNI today, while MSU could very well beat them somehow UNI just keeps getting it done. I'm a UNI fan today. Then they play @ SIU and @ Creighton. Creighton may be slumping, but hard to pick against them at home too many times. That would put MSU at (2-9) at the end of the week. Even if they pick up 1 win (maybe the most they could get) that still puts them only at (3-8) so I'll just leave them with that record.

Indiana St - They are showing their true colors now. After seeing them on tv yesterday, they may be somewhat athletic...but they are pretty horrible. They are @ Creighton and then home against UNI. Both losses IMHO. That would put them at (2-9) by the end of the week.


So, this is what I predict for the bottom of the Valley in the "War to avoid Thursday" after this week.

6) SIU (5-6)
t-7) WSU (4-7)
t-7) Evansville (4-7)
9) MSU (3-8)
10) Indiana St (2-9)

[WuDrWu]

The question becomes can we pass either SIU or Drake for 6th place and knock one of those 2 teams into the play-in game.

I'm not sure how we can get that accomplished without going AT LEAST 6-4 the rest of the way. Doable, but not a very good chance of that given our inconsistency so far.

I think we have to go 7-3 and get to 9-9 to avoid the playin game. That's going to mean sweep the home schedule and beat indiana State (something we have been unable to do for 3 years now :rant: ) there and pick up one 1 more game somewhere....most likely Evansville. Getting swept by SIU (which seems nearly certain now) makes it highly unlikely we can pass them....so we need to focus on Drake.


That being said, none of this matters if we cannot win this afternoon. Let's go get the Aces.