Jones to ILST, Belcher flips ISUs, Duhon Dugone

[PurpleRedbird]

Announcement official today. Replacing Duhon as expected. Major upgrades to ISU staff this off season.

[Adunk33]

Love the Belcher hire too. INST fans can correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't he the lead guy on Barnes, Key, Neese, and Scott?

I'm hoping the Birds show improvement-and I think they will from last year. It is a completely new day at Illinois State. Losing Phil Fayne is the big thing to overcome. Other than that, we'll have a whole lot of new guys who have spent the last year around the program. Attitudes and effort will be completely improved and I'm excited what Jones brings with HC experience and what Belcher brings with the recruiting.

[jackwagon]

He wasn't the lead guy on Key or Neese. He has a solid reputation in the midwest though. Good get!

[Red]

Another interesting addition for us. Glad to have him, but I can't recall any intra-conference / lateral moves for assistant coaches in the Valley.

[BEARZ77]

While I still think Illinois State has some decent talent on the roster and overall despite the problems, Muller has still been a winning coach in the MVC, it's a little hard to buy into the "completely different look and high effort, high energy" change that will happen this year. Basically they brought in 2 coaches from losing programs and are scrambling to fill a roster to facilitate this "change". Again, I think there is adequate talent to be competitive, maybe even better than that, but culture changes don't just happen easily, so we'll have to see . That's part of the reason I'm not sold on MSU being ready to challenge yet; they will have talent, but it's only year two in trying to change a competitive mindset that became complacent and unfocused over 7 years of mediocrity.

[Adunk33]

I totally get where your coming from, Bearz77. From an outsider perspective it is tough to see what I mean by change. Last season, Illinois State was led by a group of seniors who three of the four were complacent and effort level hung on if their shots went in or not. It is well documented the issues of one of the guys had off the court. Muller had no choice but to put the team in the hands of those four guys, who for the most part, did not deliver. The way Muller recruited last year with the number of guys he had sitting out (6 total after injury), this ensured the transition away from those four seniors would be much easier than starting from scratch. The type of player/person seems to have changed too. We look at a guy like Keith Fisher, who was named as a team captain while sitting out. He is a high energy, physical guy. There is a number of times where the scout team, comprised of those five guys sitting out, would whoop on the starters in practice. I don't know if the skill level is there, but the effort will be, which is something that has been missing since 2017.

All of that to say is, the core of the roster is already in place. I am not as worried as other Redbird fans about "scrambling to fill" the last three scholarships. Recruiting is happening later all over the country, in part to the new rule that allows players to declare for the draft, sign with an agent to help them through the process, and then return to school. Coaches that go through this don't know what players are going to be back until June. In addition, new transfers are still hitting the market every day. I think two of the last three scholarships will be filled by freshmen (one of them is on campus now), and the last one will be a D1 transfer.

I totally understand your hesitancy to go all-in on the Bears being competitive. Bird fans have been burned by the handful of MVC Championship losses over the last 11 years. However, I really like what I'm seeing from Dana. He's loved in Normal, even after the Buzzer beating dagger last season.

[PurpleRedbird]

I'm with aDunk33 on this one. I do think we'll see a different attitude at ISUr next year. will that translate to wins, nobody knows for sure.

The assistant coaches are a huge upgrade from last year. I'm also okay with having a scholarship or two (3 may be pushing it) open at this point given the new rules around the draft and the amount of transfer that are still on the market. I hope ISU fills 2 and pockets the other since they only have 2 seniors on the roster for next year, assuming they don't sign a grad transfer.

I definitely don't see a clear cut favorite in the Valley next year so should be another fun year.

[isumvc1]

Former UMKC head coach Kareem Richardson named the new ISU assistant coach today, replacing Belcher. He was at ISU during our glory years of the Menser-Renn era of the early 2000s. So a much better assistant coach now, hopefully will help out.