Official MVCfans 2011-12 Prediction - 5th Place

[BirdmanBB]

I don't know about you guys, but I am voting for Indiana St. in the next poll just to piss those Odom lovers off.

[ACECARD]

I don't know about you guys, but I am voting for Indiana St. in the next poll just to piss those Odom lovers off.

Good idea, count me in. It's amazing what one appearance in the big dance can do to a persons head.

[Ace Dad]

The college coach does not know how good a Freshman/JUCO is or will be until the Freshman/JUCO plays against the upper classmen. If he does not compete well and does not improve, a Redshirting decision is made. If he looks good in practice, the college coach then waits for the Exhibition games to make another assessment. If he looks good in Exhibitions, the college coach then waits for the non conference games to get a "feel" for the player. Last, it is the conference season, after 3-4 games, before we know if a Freshman will contribute. In other words, I would never, ever predict a Freshman/JUCO being a future All MVC player, unless he is a Top 100 national sort of guy.......................

[ACECARD]

The college coach does not know how good a Freshman/JUCO is or will be until the Freshman/JUCO plays against the upper classmen. If he does not compete well and does not improve, a Redshirting decision is made. If he looks good in practice, the college coach then waits for the Exhibition games to make another assessment. If he looks good in Exhibitions, the college coach then waits for the non conference games to get a "feel" for the player. Last, it is the conference season, after 3-4 games, before we know if a Freshman will contribute. In other words, I would never, ever predict a Freshman/JUCO being a future All MVC player, unless he is a Top 100 national sort of guy.......................

Gosh, I didn't know all of that. I guess after 60 years of looking at high school, and college, and pro basketball players, the average person can't look at a player and be able to assess whether that person can play the game or not, unless he's a college coach. Looks like you are never to old to learn.

[MoValley John]

I kind of have to side with Ace Dad on this one. Not that only college coaches know talent, but until you see kids in practice against their peers, you really don't know. What a kid did in high school is an indicator of talent. It also could be the athlete's ceiling. Until that talent shows up at the college level, practices with the team and can perform in a real college game, you simply have potential and opinion. It is a huge step not only from high school, but even from juco to the D-1 level. How the athlete adapts, adjusts and grows is different from player to player. Even if you have seen a player in the summer pick up games, or summer league, you really don't know. These games, although sometimes spirited, really are nothing more than exercize and highlight reels. Not until the kid attends his first real practice will even the coach know for sure where the kid is at. And it takes more than one practice. Yes, you can form an opinion from all the summer league crap, and often some or most of it will translate to play at the college level. But wheter or not that play comes out in the freshman, sophomore or junior year has yet to be determined.

[uniftw]

Uh yeah guess I forgot UNI ended up what 5th in the conference last year? Poor choice of words. Clever caption you put in there pafan.

4th

http://kenpom.com/conf.php?c=MVC

Or tied with Creighton at 10-8 in conference play for 4th? But wasn't CU seeded above UNI in the tournament by virtue of the better overall record? I can't remember for sure. Not that it really matters that much either way in the grand scheme of things.

No. UNI got the 4 seed by virtue of wining the tie break....uni wore white in the mvc tourney

[UE 71]

I kind of have to side with Ace Dad on this one. Not that only college coaches know talent, but until you see kids in practice against their peers, you really don't know. What a kid did in high school is an indicator of talent. It also could be the athlete's ceiling. Until that talent shows up at the college level, practices with the team and can perform in a real college game, you simply have potential and opinion. It is a huge step not only from high school, but even from juco to the D-1 level. How the athlete adapts, adjusts and grows is different from player to player. Even if you have seen a player in the summer pick up games, or summer league, you really don't know. These games, although sometimes spirited, really are nothing more than exercize and highlight reels. Not until the kid attends his first real practice will even the coach know for sure where the kid is at. And it takes more than one practice. Yes, you can form an opinion from all the summer league crap, and often some or most of it will translate to play at the college level. But wheter or not that play comes out in the freshman, sophomore or junior year has yet to be determined.

You got that right MVJ (and Ace Dad). As a parent of a son who was an athlete in the PAC-10 (12), the jump is tremendous and the coaches at that level will tell you that they can only project what they think will happen. Some peak early, some late and some not at all. If you need confirmation, look at the bench sitters at the top tier of teams who were recruited but didn't pan out. No coach wastes a scholarship on a player they think will just sit the bench. Most of them were the stars of their respective HS teams and we all hope they will be the stars of their college team.

[Aargh]

Some of the posters in this thread aren't nearly optimistic enough.

Not only are Carl Hall and Jake White destined to be All-Valley in their careers, WSU has a walkon, Ron Baker, who will be the next Emmenecker. Yes, WSU has a really strong recruiting class this year, but the gem of the class may be a walkon.

Now that's optimism. You gotta project your walkons to be potential POY's before you're really going out there and supporting your recruiting class.

I picked UNI. After O'Rear went down, they had nothing. I don't see where they have anybody coming in or an improving returner that can offset their absolute collapse without O'Rear.

I know UNI has some ways to offset O'Rear's loss. Last year after O'Rear was injured, UNI played like an 8th-9th type team. Picking them as 5th is giving a lot of respect to Jacobsen and the incoming players and returning players.

[Kyle]

5th is probably a realistic prediction for UNI.

We are a team that will improve throughout the year, a lot like the 08-09 UNI team. A big factor will be the play of the 6 freshman. If some can contribute right away with a couple standout performances we might be able to contend for the 3-4 spot, but if they can't, we might be looking at the 6-7 spot.

[uniftw]

There was only one game, after O'Rear went down, that UNI wasn't in the game/had a chance to win late in the second half (vs WSU).

By the time the injury happened it wasn't worth pulling the red-shirt off of any of our post players that were using it. Had UNI had a certain 6'7 post player there would have been almost zero drop in the program.

With that said, O'Rear is "easier" to replace than Kwadzo. Thankfully the one place we have experience is at guard.

UNI has the bodies, and talent, to finish top 4 or 5. However, how quickly the talent matures will decide that.