2013-2014 Valley WBB

[oldtimewomen's hoopcoach]

Another source of WBB RPI is from Collegiate Basketball News. Both they and Warren Nolan have the Shocks with an RPI of 69 after the weekend games. (Of the Valley teams, Drake is next at 145.) CBN, however, does not project standings, future RPI, etc. like Warren Nolan and RealTimeRPI. OTOH, RT has not updated their calculations since Saturday noon. :(

An interesting question: Who will be the first to lose a conference game, the men or the women? Can they both go through the conference undefeated? (Okay, two questions.)

I'm predicting they both sweep the Valley.

[1972Shocker]

Another source of WBB RPI is from Collegiate Basketball News. Both they and Warren Nolan have the Shocks with an RPI of 69 after the weekend games. (Of the Valley teams, Drake is next at 145.) CBN, however, does not project standings, future RPI, etc. like Warren Nolan and RealTimeRPI. OTOH, RT has not updated their calculations since Saturday noon. :(

An interesting question: Who will be the first to lose a conference game, the men or the women? Can they both go through the conference undefeated? (Okay, two questions.)

Going through the Valley undefeated is a worthy goal and, this year in particular with the Valley looking to be down for both the men and women, a goal that is not necessarily unreasonable. That said I have no idea regarding the answer to either of your questions. Of course, if those answers were clear you wouldn't need to play the games.

[1972Shocker]

Another good win. The bench got good minutes. Great defense. 9-2 is a nice start. Three road games in the Valley. I believe we'll be 3-0 heading to home. This is a nice team. I think this team is better than last year's team. I also believe we should go 18-0 in the Valley. This year's team expects to win!

If the Shocks do lose a game in the Valley a good candidate would be their Valley opener at Missouri State. Missouri State is playing their best basketball of the year right now. They have won 3 in a row at home including a 67-53 win over Missouri.

Furthermore, the Shocks will have not played a game for 2 full weeks come January 5th when they head to Springfield. Missouri State warms up for the Shocks and Valley play with a road game at North Texas on December 29th.

I would feel much better about our chances of navigating this 3 game road swing if MSU was the 3rd game of the bunch and not the 1st game after a long layoff.

An interesting set of circumstances for the Lady Shocks to deal with in opening Valley play.

[1972Shocker]

SIU is the only Valley team in action today playing UT-Martin earlier this afternoon in Carbondale with SIU losing 85-55 on its home court.

SIU is playing short-handed as their leading scorer Cartaesha Macklin and center Alexus Patterson are out for the season and guard Rishonda Napier is also out for an extended period of time. Sophomore walk-on Hannah Shores started at the point for SIU but she was under the weather with flu-like symptoms.

Those personnel issues were readily apparent as SIU made only 5 assists in the game and turned the ball over 36 times.

At this point I think SIU's chances of going winless in the Valley are probably better than the Shock's chances of going undefeated.

[oldtimewomen's hoopcoach]

SIU is the only Valley team in action today playing UT-Martin earlier this afternoon in Carbondale with SIU losing 85-55 on its home court.

SIU is playing short-handed as their leading scorer Cartaesha Macklin and center Alexus Patterson are out for the season and guard Rishonda Napier is also out for an extended period of time. Sophomore walk-on Hannah Shores started at the point for SIU but she was under the weather with flu-like symptoms.

Those personnel issues were readily apparent as SIU made only 5 assists in the game and turned the ball over 36 times.

At this point I think SIU's chances of going winless in the Valley are probably better than the Shock's chances of going undefeated.

Jody won't say it and almost slipped when she said it is not fair to compare teams, but I think she believes this is her best team. As do I.. Layoffs, etc. won't bother this team. They are geared for winning. I stand by my prediction and greatly appreciate the logic of 1972. There is no logic; this team is a winner. I played on two of those in college. No logic, we just knew we would win.

[1972Shocker]

Jody won't say it and almost slipped when she said it is not fair to compare teams, but I think she believes this is her best team. As do I.. Layoffs, etc. won't bother this team. They are geared for winning. I stand by my prediction and greatly appreciate the logic of 1972. There is no logic; this team is a winner. I played on two of those in college. No logic, we just knew we would win.

I certainly hope you are right in your assessment @oldtimewomen's hoopcoach:. That would be an outstanding accomplishment.

I might be more inclined to jump on your bandwagon if the Shocks had played a tougher schedule. RealTimeRPI ranks the Shocks SOS at 163. That is worse than all but 2 other Valley teams -- Evansville at 238 and SIU at 319 have the lowest SOS rankings in the Valley. The Shocks have 1 quality win @ Green Bay.

Missouri State at 49 has the best SOS ranking in the Valley, followed by UNI (62), Loyola (66), ILS (93), Bradley (112), Drake (126) and INS (134).

With all the newcomers and inexperience on this team a weaker schedule in the non-con may have been what was needed.

However, I do wonder if the Lady Shocks are sufficiently tested to withstand the rigors of conference play without at least a few stumbles along the way. Only time will tell for certain.

[oldtimewomen's hoopcoach]

I certainly hope you are right in your assessment @oldtimewomen's hoopcoach:. That would be an outstanding accomplishment.

I might be more inclined to jump on your bandwagon if the Shocks had played a tougher schedule. RealTimeRPI ranks the Shocks SOS at 163. That is worse than all but 2 other Valley teams -- Evansville at 238 and SIU at 319 have the lowest SOS rankings in the Valley. The Shocks have 1 quality win @ Green Bay.

Missouri State at 49 has the best SOS ranking in the Valley, followed by UNI (62), Loyola (66), ILS (93), Bradley (112), Drake (126) and INS (134).

With all the newcomers and inexperience on this team a weaker schedule in the non-con may have been what was needed.

However, I do wonder if the Lady Shocks are sufficiently tested to withstand the rigors of conference play without at least a few stumbles along the way. Only time will tell for certain.

I just don't see choke in this team as I did from time to time in past teams. I will admit St. Joe's was a choke, but the Shox came back strong in the following games. They are also starting to get some help from the bench. We also have a bit of an outside threat, so teams can't just pack in a zone on us. Pretty outlandish prediction on my part, but this is the best team I've seen and the best coaching job I've seen since I started following the Lady Shox six years ago.

[flyingMoose]

Indiana State 70-67 Northwestern

The Lady Sycamores have a very nice win at the Tulane tournament with a three-ball with three seconds left. The team's respective records and RPIs going into the game were 4-5, 157 and 9-2, 53.

[1972Shocker]

Pre-season Valley favorite Indiana State picked up a quality win today knocking off #52 Northwestern (9-2 heading into the game) on a neutral court (Tulane) 70-67 on a 3-point shot with 3 seconds remaining in a somewhat frenetic finish to the game. Northwestern had recently dispatched Loyola (@Loyola) by a 90-57 score.

INS outrebounded NW 45-27 including a 23-7 advantage on the offensive boards resulting in INS getting 21 more FG attempts than NW.

That gave the Valley only its 4th quality RPI win of the year:

INS over #52 Northwestern 70-67 (neutral court)
Drake over #53 Creighton 62-55 (in Des Moines)
UNI over #74 North Dakota 61-56 (in Cedar Falls)
WSU over #75 Green Bay (in Green Bay)

The only remaining opportunity for a non-conference quality win comes Monday with #37 DePaul visiting Bradley.

Looks to me like Wichita State, Indiana State and Missouri State are playing the best ball heading into conference play. The scary thing about the today's Indiana State win over NW was their domination of the boards, which happens to be one of the Shockers weaknesses.

[1972Shocker]

Results from Sunday, December 29th:

Missouri State wins 85-79 @ North Texas and Drake beats a poor Milwaukee team by 22 in Des Moines.

Bradley loses at home by 24 to a good DePaul team. Indiana State falls 45-51 @ Tulane.

[1972Shocker]

Results From Monday December 30th:

@Evansville 90 - Toledo 80

Morehead State 59 - @Southern Illinois 50

Denver 67 - @Illinois State 60

Two home losses to not exactly powerhouse opponents. In fact, Denver was 1-10 going into its game with the Redbirds.

In other action, Green Bay (beaten by the Shocks @ Green Bay) had a 14 point lead at Wisconsin with 15 minutes to plays and gave it all back in regulation and lost to the Badgers 61-65 in OT. Eliminate that collapse with the Shocks own collapse at home vs St. Joe and the Shocks RPI would be sitting in pretty good shape. As it is their RPI has drifted down to 72 during this recent layoff.

[The Mad Hatter]

Top 3 going into conference play:

WSU - only returning NCAA team and best non-con

Indiana State - expected contender that has underperformed somewhat.

Missouri State - surprisingly good and firmly moving into top 3 contention.

Tell me, am I talking about the MVC Women or MVC Men?

[1972Shocker]

Top 3 going into conference play:

WSU - only returning NCAA team and best non-con

Indiana State - expected contender that has underperformed somewhat.

Missouri State - surprisingly good and firmly moving into top 3 contention.

Tell me, am I talking about the MVC Women or MVC Men?

Yes.

[The Mad Hatter]

Yes.

Good answer.

[oldtimewomen's hoopcoach]

Good answer.

listened to the Adams radio show tonight; we have a confident team. Another reason I believe we'll sweep the Valley.