Ten Coaches on the Rise

[rlh04d]

Muahaha I think WSU has a few better players with a few more accolades to use that as an excuse.

All I'm taking out of this exchange is that, as an Illinois State fan, you think other Illinois State fans are pretty much entirely incapable of evaluating their team's talent, and any claims regarding the future should be pretty much ignored given their track record.

[Cdizzle]

Muahaha I think WSU has a few better players with a few more accolades to use that as an excuse.

Right, but in this case you are just one of the fans whose pre-season opinion doesn't matter and is obviously too high. If WSU finishes 5th it will be because they had 5th-place talent, not because Marshall did a poor job coaching.

This is the argument you are making. Yes, I realize it sounds silly when I write it down.

[mathewson10]

Muahaha I think WSU has a few better players with a few more accolades to use that as an excuse.

Right, but in this case you are just one of the fans whose pre-season opinion doesn't matter and is obviously too high. If WSU finishes 5th it will be because they had 5th-place talent, not because Marshall did a poor job coaching.

This is the argument you are making. Yes, I realize it sounds silly when I write it down.

I agree.... that you don't understand my point. Especially since you are comparing a conference champion with the same core players to a 9-9 team that had a key player taken out of the equation and finished 8-10.

WSU because they are returning players with a large amount of success. ISU did not have a large amount of success nor did they return a main core player.

[Wufan]

Here's a good quote regarding expectations for Muller in year one…found here: viewtopic.php?f=2&t=2385&p=43596&hilit=Kaza+Keane#p43596

Position by position matchups might impact the two times they play each other, but if we're talking about the league race it's different.

And that is why WSU fans are excited. On paper we match up well with every team in the Valley. The problem is that no one has seen these horses in action under Marshall and there is a high liklihood of error in evaluation. Couple that with the fact that we, as fans, are all overly enamoured with our own players and tend to discount the competition, and WSU is a real quagmeyer. Drake is also in that category where as UNI, CU and ISUr are all known and talented across the board.

OTOH, I think many have forgotten how superior CU and WSU were to the rest of the Valley last year. Five teams have third place stuck in their heads and expect to be improved, when in actuality 6 teams were incapable of finishing over .500 despite a good team on paper. Why should I believe that ISUr is any better than a 9-9 club after losing their FOY PG and HC? Why will UNI win more than they lose since they brought in no new starters?

Food for thought.

For starters, ISUr did not lose the FOY PG, because he was not FOY (Seth Tuttle was). As for the head coach goes, he may have had a great repor with the players, but Jank was a terrible in game coach. I am looking forward to someone who should be more strategic with adjustments and such rather than throw a basketball out there and let them "hoop it up" as our former PG described it. Rather than fret on what ISU is losing, you may want to look at what they are bringing back. It's not like these guys are going to get worse next year. We just have a PG to replace and we think we found someone in Kaza Keane who may not be the scorer Moore was, but he will have the court vision (is taller) and a much, much better defender.

This team, minus Moore will coming back off after putting a beating on UNI, taking out a ranked and "superior" WSU team and taking a "superior" CU team into OT in the valley championship when it was thought that they had no chance whatsoever. They then went on to Ole Miss in the NIT where they rarely lose a home game and beat them and should have beaten Stanford who ended up winning the NIT if it werent for the ref letting their PG take a timeout with the ball as he was jumping out of bounds.

I'm not worried about losing what Moore brought to the table from a scoring standpoint because we still have Tyler Brown (who is still on a 9 or so straight 3pt streak), Jackie Carmichael, John WIlkins, Jon Ekey and Bryant Allen. We should have the best depth out of any team in the valley, at least in the post. Defensively, we should be one of the better, if not best teams in the valley next year, but I also feel we will have plenty of scorers to replace what Nic brought after another off season to improve themselves.

WSU on the other hand is replacing 5 starters who do not have the same experience their predecessors had, some of which have not played any valley ball yet. Who is going to be WSU's "go to" guy? No one knows. On paper, the roster looks good, but no one will really know what WSU has until tipoff. ISU had arguably one of the best PG recruits in the valley a few years back in Terry Johnson, but he wasn't worth a lick in the college game. Same thing could happen to WSU and all of their stud recruits. At least ISU will be returning proven guys who have been there and done it.

oh wait....didn't CU just lose a stud PG to graduation? No one seems to be knocking them down a peg or two for losing their floor general. I just don't get all the redbird criticism for losing Moore.

[glm38]

Count me as a Valley fan that doesn't think Muller has proven anything yet except that he's at least a pretty good recruiter. And I think of Lusk in exactly the same way. I don't see either coach as being worthy of an "on the rise" tag yet.

[rlh04d]

I agree.... that you don't understand my point. Especially since you are comparing a conference champion with the same core players to a 9-9 team that had a key player taken out of the equation and finished 8-10.

WSU because they are returning players with a large amount of success. ISU did not have a large amount of success nor did they return a main core player.

Everyone understands your point. It's the lack of agreement you're confused by.