A summary of the Redbirds noncon is simple. Slow, slow, slow, slooooooooow starts. Fought back in every game during the second half but as Muller says, "It's easy to come back, it's difficult to comeback and win." The team shows glimpses here and there but overall their youth and lack of physicality from everyone except Dusan will be their Achilles heal all season. The team got to go home yesterday and is on a five day break before returning to Normal to begin preparation for their conference opening double header against the new "preseason favorite" Loyola.
With the Birds' inexperience coupled with coming off a long break going against a team that plays 5-6 seniors who didn't take a break, those first two will likely be ugly. Birds should be 15+ dogs in both games.
That said, I'm excited for conference play to start. I'm the most excited to see how SIU (de-facto MVC team with my dude Tony Wills on the staff and I really like Domask) and Drake have developed. SIU gets a little taste this week of what the back-to-back games will be like with their series vs North Dakota. Nice scheduling by Mullins. I do think with the format of conference games being back-to-back, we're going to see some surprises. Who knows, maybe Valpo or Evansville steal the second game against Bradley or Loyola?
Despite how "down" the conference is, as some like to say, it's always fun and competitive basketball. Good luck to all of the teams (except Bradley
) in the final week of noncon. I wish you all great health so we can see the best possible product on the court in 11 days.