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If Marty insists on sticking with "everybody screens for Balentine" and doesn't have a number of pick and roll sets for Mockevicius, then Marty could lead E'ville into this spot. I can't believe Marty could be so ignorant as a coach to not have a number of plays that look like screens for Balentine, but are designed to go to Mockevicius down low.

I'll be going with E'ville in the top half of the league, but starting to discuss E'ville in this thread is legitimate based on the way Marty has been playing the game.

glm38 wrote:

Wufan wrote:

jackwagon wrote:Hell no. Des was one of the most underrated players in recent memory. Far from perfect but he took a ton of heat from siu fans. Imo that heat was not warranted. He could defend multiple positions and had the total focus of opposing defenses. Beane will surely miss him bc now he will be the sole focus for the opponent.

Since it was an either/or question, I'm going to mark that as one vote for Des.

My vote is for Odum. I really didn't care much for Desmar as a player. I know he could play but he always struck me as somewhat selfish. He definitely didn't make his teammates better as Odum did.

To be fair, the fightin' Odums had a pretty established tendency to pee down their leg every time they were actually playing for something. Odum was a solid, steady PG who played a ton of minutes and put up solid, rounded numbers. But did he get better over his career? Did his team get better?

Cdizzle wrote:But did he get better over his career? Did his team get better?

ISU was 20-14 his freshman year
19-15 his sophomore year.
18-15 his junior year.
23-11 his senior year.

His stats, like his team, were consistently decent…one auto bid NCAA, two NITs and a CIT.

Wufan wrote:

Cdizzle wrote:But did he get better over his career? Did his team get better?

ISU was 20-14 his freshman year
19-15 his sophomore year.
18-15 his junior year.
23-11 his senior year.

His stats, like his team, were consistently decent…one auto bid NCAA, two NITs and a CIT.

Over the past 3 years, when it got down to playing for something at the end of the season, InSU went 2-4, 2-9, 2-5. As soon as they found themselves in a position to play for something, you could count on a meltdown.

They lost all 4 of those post-season games, only the CIT game by less than 16. I'm not trying to berate the program, I'm just not sold on Lansing, but I wasn't sold on Odum either. I'm curious to see the direction Lansing takes the style of play going forward.

Cdizzle wrote:

Wufan wrote:

Cdizzle wrote:But did he get better over his career? Did his team get better?

ISU was 20-14 his freshman year
19-15 his sophomore year.
18-15 his junior year.
23-11 his senior year.

His stats, like his team, were consistently decent…one auto bid NCAA, two NITs and a CIT.

Over the past 3 years, when it got down to playing for something at the end of the season, InSU went 2-4, 2-9, 2-5. As soon as they found themselves in a position to play for something, you could count on a meltdown.

They lost all 4 of those post-season games, only the CIT game by less than 16. I'm not trying to berate the program, I'm just not sold on Lansing, but I wasn't sold on Odum either. I'm curious to see the direction Lansing takes the style of play going forward.

Nobody has underperformed compared to expections as much as Illinois State over the past few years. They were headed for 2nd or 3rd in 2012, unknown in 2013, and seem solid for a top-half performance in 2014-- but every time they've looked to make a move they've imploded.

Nobody has underperformed compared to expections as much as Illinois State over the past few years. They were headed for 2nd or 3rd in 2012, unknown in 2013, and seem solid for a top-half performance in 2014-- but every time they've looked to make a move they've imploded.

Is this serious? I think most would argue that the Birds have been the team that has OVER performed in the past 2 seasons right? Nothing quite amazing to write home about but I'm pretty sure we were picked for Thursday the past 2 years...

Reggie's Friend wrote:

Rambler63 wrote:Nobody has underperformed compared to expections as much as Illinois State over the past few years. They were headed for 2nd or 3rd in 2012, unknown in 2013, and seem solid for a top-half performance in 2014-- but every time they've looked to make a move they've imploded.

Is this serious? I think most would argue that the Birds have been the team that has OVER performed in the past 2 seasons right? Nothing quite amazing to write home about but I'm pretty sure we were picked for Thursday the past 2 years...

While I don't necessarily share the previous sentiment as it is also off-base, I think it would be fair to say that IlSU under-performed, and perhaps vastly under-performed 2 years ago. That was the team that had Carmichael and Brown as seniors. They were voted 2nd by the media in the preseason poll, even gaining a couple of 1st place votes (all others went to a T25 Creighton). Instead they stumbled to a 18-15 record, only 8-10 in the Valley, good for 6th.

Last year's team probably performed about as well as they should have, bolstered in the league standing perhaps by a weak league. They were picked 7th preseason and finished in a 3-way tie for 4th.

Definately underperformed two years ago. The early talk was that Jank and Moore (?) wouldn't be missed. Not sure about Jank, but you needed a PG and didn't have one.

Last year, many were predicting "dumpster fire". That obviously didn't happen. The original post was off base slightly more than the retort.

Cdizzle wrote:While I don't necessarily share the previous sentiment as it is also off-base, I think it would be fair to say that IlSU under-performed, and perhaps vastly under-performed 2 years ago. That was the team that had Carmichael and Brown as seniors. They were voted 2nd by the media in the preseason poll, even gaining a couple of 1st place votes (all others went to a T25 Creighton). Instead they stumbled to a 18-15 record, only 8-10 in the Valley, good for 6th.

Last year's team probably performed about as well as they should have, bolstered in the league standing perhaps by a weak league. They were picked 7th preseason and finished in a 3-way tie for 4th.

This was the team that we were most excited about. Expectations were a possible ncaa tourney bid. When Moore left that was a huge loss for us as they could just not guard hill or keane when we were on offense. But even with them we shouldve beat Louisville who won it all and should've beat wsu (famous jackie "chan" carmichael" game) who went to the final four so there still wasn't an excuse for how we played in conference, we had more than enough talent. That season still hurts knowing what couldve been if moore had stayed

Tre Bennett will take over at PG for JO and be just fine. Indiana State will NOT be playing on Thursday night. Wichita State will run the table again (In MVC Play) and the rest is pretty unpredictable. Greg Lansing is just too good of a coach to let this program slip that quickly.