Shocks Host Arkansas Little Rock

[1972Shocker]

I don't follow the other Valley teams, so I don't know how tough their schedules were/are. However, just looking at their current records, the Valley sucks big time. WSU is the only team with a winning record. The other teams are a combined 21-50. Our younger players may have more of a chance at increased playing time in league play than OOC. Feel free to correct me as I'm just looking at the surface.

At this point I can't really disagree with you. I anticipated coming into the year that this would be down year for the Valley but so far it looks even worse than I thought it would be. Right now the Valley is rated 17th out 31 leagues. The Shocks RPI is currently 93 with about the only opportunity to strengthen that is with the upcoming Wisconsin-Green Bay game. Right now RealTimeRPI has us losing to Wisconsin-Green Bay by 8 then reeling off 20 consecutive wins to finish the regular season including 18-0 in Valley play. I'm not really buying that will happen but that gives you an idea how weak the Valley is currently perceived.

The bottom 5 teams in the league have RPI's ranging from Loyola's 202 to SIU's 333. In SIU's most recent game they were pounded on the road 72-50 at 2-8 Southeast Missouri State. SEMO has an RPI of 303. SIU's only win was a 39-37 snooze-fest over Central Arkansas.

Bradley, with the 5th best RPI (198) in the Valley, lost its last game by 71 points (126-55) at Missouri.

The bottom line is you are right as rain and the Valley is very clearly a one-bid conference this year as far as NCAA invites go.

Coming into the year I thought Jody might have an outside chance of passing Linda Hargrove for most career wins by a Lady Shocker's Coach but now it looks like that is very likely to happen absent any unforeseen circumstances. Jody could have 115-120 wins by the end of this season (her 6th) passing Hargrove's 113 wins accumulated over 9 seasons. Jody already owns the highest career winning percentage. Considering the state of the program that Jody inherited this is quite an accomplishment.