Our good friends Wichita...

[MissouriValleyUnite]

Most all fan bases are made up of 98% good hearted fun fans, and 2% a-holes. Wichita does have some good posters here I enjoy reading, but the problem is that many of the 2% from Wichita came on here to post. It is just that the jerks make it hard to cheer for their team. All of our fan bases have them, it is just that we get a chance to read from quite a few Shox fans on here. (Of course, Championz may have had about 5 screen names). I did meet so many many nice fans from Wichita in STL (although I did have a couple run ins with a two percenter). I can't say I blame them for leaving if they thought it was the right move, but their exit comments is what drove everyone nuts. I am sorry, but in my opinion, Gregg Marshall is just easy to root against.

GO RAMBLERS!!!

Agreed. Shocker fan base is a tale of two cities. Unfortunately the 2% seems to live its life behind a blowhorn.

[Redbirdgrad]

"Better to Remain Silent and Be Thought a Fool than to Speak and Remove All Doubt..."


Shocker fans, a word of advice... I'd be silent right about now.

[Old School MVC]

No problem with Creighton moving to Big East or Wichita moving to American. Realignment will exist until end of time. Programs taking advantage of lucrative opportunities will exist until end of time. That’s life. Unless your name is Holy Cross and you’re declining the Big East, 350 programs in the country will do the same thing.

I am mixed on the Shockers. I root for them because they brought good memories through the years and always had positive interactions with Shox fans in STL and Carver.

But when they lose to Marshall, I can’t help but think of the keyboard warriors who’ve gone out of their way onto MVC boards to mock and taunt everything about the MVC and their fan bases. I think that is so low - like Gregg Marshall belittling BU publicly for no reason - and I am going to bump the (in)appropriate posts as a reminder of where they came from and the just desserts served to those individuals. Of course, those posters are cowards and nowhere to be found now.

It’s especially hypocritical when many of those same posters complain about how KU fans and Phog.net and P5 fans talk down to Wichita, yet they turn around and do the exact same thing to the Valley and gleefully (and incredibly delusionally) declaring the league’s death certificate. Look, if I cared about who’s “trying” or spending the most money, I’d root for P5 schools and buy apparel at Wal-Mart. I don’t respect people who sneer at the less fortunate and attach self-worth to the team they root for.

But my responses are directed entirely at the assholes. That’s why I only bump their posts. Lance, And, Play Angry, etc. have never been like that and are now thrust into answering for assholes they have nothing to do with. I don’t think the board should be an MVC echo chamber. I like hearing from the rational WSU posters, Murray posters, other schools posters (we’ve even had an SMU and WKU fan pitch in once in awhile), etc. But the trolls will get what they give. Simple.

Nice Post

[uniguy]

Yeah, the interesting thing about the AAC is that its best schools are all of the mindset that Wichita was when they were in the MVC. If there is another reshuffling and schools like Cincy, UConn, Memphis, UCF and Houston get the chance....they're gone. Then WSU would be left with a league that looks an awful lot like the one they just bailed from, if not worse.

I really don't wish them ill will in general. But I did really enjoy watching them get beat last Friday. They were usually competitive, but weren't dominant in the MVC until the last half-decade or so. If Marshall ever leaves and they don't get the next hire right, they could be very mediocre in that league.

I really like where the Valley is at right now without the elephant in the room. Yeah, they brought our numbers up, but getting rid of them brought the league as a whole new life. It is competitive again.

[Rambler63]

Wichita State was overrated. We were horrendous on defense all year and faced a bad matchup. That’s why it’s so funny to me when comparing AAC/MVC results. We miss the tournament if we were in the MVC this year. We have Marshall’s worst team in a 6 years and we get a 4 seed, the second best seed in Marshall’s tenure.

Cincy and Houston were a coin flip from making the Sweet 16. Loyola was a coin flip from getting bounced in the first round. Sometimes the bounces go your way, sometimes they don’t. Losing a coin flip doesn’t make you overrated. Virginia and UNC = overrated. I wouldn’t say Tennessee or Miami were overrated. You might.

OK, AndShock-- you're a pretty smart poster who seems to know how to translate from Shockernetese to English-- How is this "Marshall's worst team in 6 years"? It's the same team as last year, only older. All of us here were told many times that you're just going to get better and better because Player X and Player Y are only sophomores, and recruiting is fantastic and now you finally have REAL competition because nobody in the MVC tries. We've heard that 75 times from about 12 different posters.

How is it NOW Marshall's worst team? How do you miss the tournament if you're in the MVC this year? If I didn't mind going through a couple hundred posts that say WSU is so much better than the MVC to list 100 of the most persuasive, I would. But let's just say that the logic used and accepted by Shocker fans five weeks ago is COMPLETELY THE OPPOSITE of what you're saying is now accepted and obvious fact.

Lost Chris Jans (coach of NMSU, lost a close one to Clemson who is absolutely dismantling Auburn right now) and Greg Heiar (future HC, soon). Markis McDuffie was injured half the season and was not his normal self when he came back. Rashard Kelly took a shot at the “younger players” in his last postgame interview, possibly revealing some chemistry issues which has also been hinted at by people in the know.

I also mentioned this point a few weeks ago but I don’t think I ever got a response. Wichita State went from the #13 KenPom defense to the #109 defense with the same players. KenPom adjusts for opponents, so you have a couple different options here. Is KenPom flawed? Is the Valley so incompetent offensivley that they made a bad defense appear as an elite defense. I choose column 3:

Wichita State with Chris Jans: #13
Wichita State without Chris Jans: #109

NMSU without Chris Jans: #124
NMSU with Chris Jans: #16

First, if your success depends on assistant coach Chris Jans, why are you paying Gregg Marshall $3 million? Second, Chris Jans has been in and out of your coaching staff during various periods over the past few years, including not being there during a Sweet 16 run as a 7 seed in 2014-15. Third, you didn't have very good things to say about Porter Moser's term at Illinois State, where Chris Jans was an assistant from 2004-2007. Fourth, if there are chemistry problems, that also goes to the head coach.

So perhaps instead of saying its "Marshall's worst team at Wichita State," maybe you should say this year was Marshall's worst job performance at Wichita State. How your team performed this year was not something that "happened" to Marshall, it was mostly within his ability and responsibility as the exceptionally highly-paid leader of the men's basketball program. On injuries you can cut him a little slack, but a coach doing a truly exceptional job would have found a way around it, right? I'm just saying that the same strict responsibility WSU fans impose on other programs might require you to evaluate this season differently.

[AndShock]

OK, AndShock-- you're a pretty smart poster who seems to know how to translate from Shockernetese to English-- How is this "Marshall's worst team in 6 years"? It's the same team as last year, only older. All of us here were told many times that you're just going to get better and better because Player X and Player Y are only sophomores, and recruiting is fantastic and now you finally have REAL competition because nobody in the MVC tries. We've heard that 75 times from about 12 different posters.

How is it NOW Marshall's worst team? How do you miss the tournament if you're in the MVC this year? If I didn't mind going through a couple hundred posts that say WSU is so much better than the MVC to list 100 of the most persuasive, I would. But let's just say that the logic used and accepted by Shocker fans five weeks ago is COMPLETELY THE OPPOSITE of what you're saying is now accepted and obvious fact.

Lost Chris Jans (coach of NMSU, lost a close one to Clemson who is absolutely dismantling Auburn right now) and Greg Heiar (future HC, soon). Markis McDuffie was injured half the season and was not his normal self when he came back. Rashard Kelly took a shot at the “younger players” in his last postgame interview, possibly revealing some chemistry issues which has also been hinted at by people in the know.

I also mentioned this point a few weeks ago but I don’t think I ever got a response. Wichita State went from the #13 KenPom defense to the #109 defense with the same players. KenPom adjusts for opponents, so you have a couple different options here. Is KenPom flawed? Is the Valley so incompetent offensivley that they made a bad defense appear as an elite defense. I choose column 3:

Wichita State with Chris Jans: #13
Wichita State without Chris Jans: #109

NMSU without Chris Jans: #124
NMSU with Chris Jans: #16

First, if your success depends on assistant coach Chris Jans, why are you paying Gregg Marshall $3 million? Second, Chris Jans has been in and out of your coaching staff during various periods over the past few years, including not being there during a Sweet 16 run as a 7 seed in 2014-15. Third, you didn't have very good things to say about Porter Moser's term at Illinois State, where Chris Jans was an assistant from 2004-2007. Fourth, if there are chemistry problems, that also goes to the head coach.

So perhaps instead of saying its "Marshall's worst team at Wichita State," maybe you should say this year was Marshall's worst job performance at Wichita State. How your team performed this year was not something that "happened" to Marshall, it was mostly within his ability and responsibility as the exceptionally highly-paid leader of the men's basketball program. On injuries you can cut him a little slack, but a coach doing a truly exceptional job would have found a way around it, right? I'm just saying that the same strict responsibility WSU fans impose on other programs might require you to evaluate this season differently.

The players have something to do with it. Having FVV, Ron Baker, and Tekele Cotton probably didn’t require figuring out a way to mask inefficiencies because there weren’t any. Anyone who watched our games this year would quickly notice we had zero players who could keep their assignments in front of them. Maybe our players got slower. Maybe we had coaches who could cover up our speed deficient players. Maybe the Valley didn’t ever truly test our defense. I choose to believe it was the coaches, I could easily be wrong. Most people say it was the conference change but I put a lot of trust in KenPom.

Gregg did get a lot of flak this year. Anyone who visited ShockerNet would certainly have seen that many were unimpressed with many aspects of Gregg’s coaching decisions throughout the year. That’s why many have been begging Gregg to make some different staffing decisions. We have Donnie Jones who was obviously brought on to recruit and a coach from Sunrise who seems to be hired just so we can plant recruits at Sunrise for a year.

All that said, we were a basket away from winning the conference, we received a 4 seed in the tournament, and never left the top 25. We didn’t meet expectations but that’s a fine season and it’s a testament to Gregg that we are able to “complain” about it. If you offered me a 4 seed every year I would take it without question.

As for Porter Moser, I have no idea why he’s succeeding at Loyola but failed at ISUr. I don’t really know how Jank is succeeding at SMU either. Maybe ISUr is just impossible to succeed at. I jest, sort of.

[tribecalledquest]

AndShock--

Would you agree that the program is at a bit of a crossroads? I don't mean like, will drop off bigtime, but if Landry goes pro there will be significant rebuilding to do correct? What's the feeling on him leaving?

[AndShock]

AndShock--

Would you agree that the program is at a bit of a crossroads? I don't mean like, will drop off bigtime, but if Landry goes pro there will be significant rebuilding to do correct? What's the feeling on him leaving?

Next year is a big rebuild even if Landry stays. General consensus is we’re probably a bubble team next year. There really isn’t that much worry about Landry right now, I’d say 70-80% of Shocker fans expect him to be back.

This might be a look into the mindset of Shocker fans but there’s a much bigger meltdown going on involving Alex Lomax (incoming freshman) rather than Landry Shamet (future draft pick). Lomax is viewed as our savior and FVV incarnate of the next 4 years. Lomax is very close to Penny Hardaway and Memphis fans (notoriously crazy and unreliable) are 100% convinced Lomax will not be a Shocker.

[LanceShock]

The local beat writer asked some scouts what they thought would be the best decision for Landry. They generally thought it was best for him to go ahead and declare for the draft. It might depend on how things go at the combine and where it looks like he will land.

[LanceShock]

As for Porter Moser, I have no idea why he’s succeeding at Loyola but failed at ISUr. I don’t really know how Jank is succeeding at SMU either. Maybe ISUr is just impossible to succeed at. I jest, sort of.

Could just be that they have improved as coaches.