MVC Games Week 4 2023-24

[BCPanther]

What in the world has happened to Northern Iowa? They used to be a top Valley team every year. They have a legitimate chance at starting the season 2-8. Gulp !!!! This will be 2 seasons in a row of being under .500. Is Jacobsen in danger of losing his job?

We don't have $7M just laying around so he is as safe as safe can be plus the people paying his salary are still all the way on board.

This is just what he is now. Overschedules believing it's still possible to get an at large (it's not), lack of high end talent gets him beat no matter how much better he is on the bench than the other guy, will not consider moving away from the modified pack line no matter how many teams go off from 3 against him and frankly he can't because of that same lack of high end talent, runs the most complicated offense in college basketball so it takes two months of playing games to get to the point where it rolls at a high level, tanks all of his metrics in Nov/Dec regardless of how high that SOS number is (it's 8 as of this morning) and then figures it out by mid-January pretty much every year and actively hurts the league's numbers. Then he gets into late Feb/March and has run the legs off his guys because they spent the first two months constantly playing catch up in every game.

TL;DR: He either needs to recruit better talent or go back to the slow pace he used to play. You can't play fast when every team you play is generally more talented and athletic than you are.

That sound about right?

[unipanther99]

I've never seen him in panic mode so early in a game. It was just bizarre. We've been beat bad before, but this seemed different.

That said, I have faith he will get it figured out. UNI fans don't want a coaching change, but just a slight change in how we coach/schedule.

[BCPanther]

I've never seen him in panic mode so early in a game. It was just bizarre. We've been beat bad before, but this seemed different.

That said, I have faith he will get it figured out. UNI fans don't want a coaching change, but just a slight change in how we coach/schedule.

100%. He's the guy but he needs to get back to his roots and stop taking every asinine road game he can find.

This season is already totally different if he just buys a game, or even plays another non-DI, rather than taking the game at North Texas.

The technical last night was justified. That might be the worst blown call I've ever seen. That wouldn't be acceptable in a JV game at your local 1A high school.

[bradley_townie]

I've never seen him in panic mode so early in a game. It was just bizarre. We've been beat bad before, but this seemed different.

That said, I have faith he will get it figured out. UNI fans don't want a coaching change, but just a slight change in how we coach/schedule.

100%. He's the guy but he needs to get back to his roots and stop taking every asinine road game he can find.

This season is already totally different if he just buys a game, or even plays another non-DI, rather than taking the game at North Texas.

The technical last night was justified. That might be the worst blown call I've ever seen. That wouldn't be acceptable in a JV game at your local 1A high school.

I personally love that Jacobson challenges his team early on in the hopes for an at-large and wish more Valley teams could schedule this way. It's refreshing that a coach isn't so hung up on his win/loss record. It sounds like he has a lot of leash, so it makes sense to take those types of risks without fear of being let go.

[unipanther99]

Coach Jake has earned the right to control his own future at UNI, no question. He's our all-time winningest coach, and 3rd all-time in wins for MVC coaches, and will be second by the end of this season, behind only Iba.

He's adjusted before, he will do it again. Nobody wants UNI to succeed more than him.

[VUGrad1314]

Impossible to get an at large? Can we stop with the defeatism please? Just because UNI overscheduled and couldn't handle the load they were given doesn't mean other teams shouldn't do it. Just in 2021 the MVC had two bids and both teams won a game. The freaking OVC got two bids in 2019 with teams that are currently in our league. Those two teams regularly posted at large caliber seasons where they either won the auto bid or barely missed because the rest of their conference was so bad. One of them (Murray State) WINS REGULARLY when they get to the tournament. The WCC recently got 3 teams. The Mountain West got FOUR teams LAST YEAR. The A-10 regularly gets multiple bids. Are these not our peer leagues (outside of the OVC which we are obviously ahead of) or are we really behind them? The bottom of this conference is as strong as it's ever been. Bradley has a litany of good wins if they can shake off the loss to Murray they'll be fine. Missouri State Drake and Indiana State look extremely solid and can be a factor in that discussion if they do well in conference play. There are still opportunities for these teams to build their resumes. This league CAN still get at large bids but it's going to take effort and belief on the part of EVERY Valley school to get it done. I salute Coach Jacobson for what he does every year and wish more schools would emulate it. I believe that we can revive the spirit of the mid 2000s that made me fall in love with this league. When we weren't afraid to punch above our weight and regularly did so quite successfully. Too many coaches and fanbases have gone soft (I get it I'm guilty of it too sometimes--losing a lot will do that to you). But we need to believe in who we once were--who we ARE fundamentally and who we CAN BE again!

[TylerDurden]

Impossible to get an at large? Can we stop with the defeatism please? Just because UNI overscheduled and couldn't handle the load they were given doesn't mean other teams shouldn't do it. Just in 2021 the MVC had two bids and both teams won a game. The freaking OVC got two bids in 2019 with teams that are currently in our league. Those two teams regularly posted at large caliber seasons where they either won the auto bid or barely missed because the rest of their conference was so bad. One of them (Murray State) WINS REGULARLY when they get to the tournament. The WCC recently got 3 teams. The Mountain West got FOUR teams LAST YEAR. The A-10 regularly gets multiple bids. Are these not our peer leagues (outside of the OVC which we are obviously ahead of) or are we really behind them? The bottom of this conference is as strong as it's ever been. Bradley has a litany of good wins if they can shake off the loss to Murray they'll be fine. Missouri State Drake and Indiana State look extremely solid and can be a factor in that discussion if they do well in conference play. There are still opportunities for these teams to build their resumes. This league CAN still get at large bids but it's going to take effort and belief on the part of EVERY Valley school to get it done. I salute Coach Jacobson for what he does every year and wish more schools would emulate it. I believe that we can revive the spirit of the mid 2000s that made me fall in love with this league. When we weren't afraid to punch above our weight and regularly did so quite successfully. Too many coaches and fanbases have gone soft (I get it I'm guilty of it too sometimes--losing a lot will do that to you). But we need to believe in who we once were--who we ARE fundamentally and who we CAN BE again!

This is a romanticized take on the current dynamic in college basketball and in the MVC. This isn't 2006 and, candidly, there isn't a team in this league right now that would finish in the top half of the 2006 MVC.

Punching above your weight requires teams capable of winning those games. The mid-2000s MVC teams were dogs with NBA talent on multiple teams.

Overscheduling doesn't help anyone. You need to play the best teams that you can beat and beat them.

If you look at 2005-06, Indiana State lost 11 conference games in a row, won just four league games and tied for last place. Its nonconference record: 8-1, because David Moss was a really good player. That is what you need.

You don't need to play on ESPN, you need play games you can win.

The MVC is still a good league, but the chances for at-large bids are a slim as ever.

[unipanther99]

This isn't 2006 and, candidly, there isn't a team in this league right now that would finish in the top half of the 2006 MVC.

This is a hard pill to swallow, but you're right. The conference doesn't get the caliber of player we used to get - and if by some happy accident we do, they don't stay long.

There are exceptions, but they are rare and end up being lone rangers (AJ Green for example).

[Drakey]

This is ridiculous. I went through the 2005-2006 rosters and saw one player who ever played a minute in the NBA, Patrick O'Bryant. He was a bust. (There may be others? Correct me if I'm wrong.) We did have two better programs (Creighton and WSU) but they were certainly not comprised of NBA players. The best teams now would easily compete with the best teams then. The only difference is we lose some of our best players to the P5 for their last couple of years, so we probably have less experience. The level of this league's players has not been drastically different since the early 80s.

[BEARZ77]

I don't see talent as an issue, I see lack of opportunity and a system heavily weighted towards continuing to limit those opportunities. If you think most of the teams in this league don't try to schedule better, I think that's naive. But like I've detailed , even a top level team in the MVC scheduling aggressively will get maybe 6-8 Q1 opportunities , while a mediocre P-5 will get 15-20. When that's the overwhelming criteria for at large consideration, yes it's fantasy land to think you can overcome that kind of disadvantage on any kind of regular basis. Just the way it is .