Opening week games

[MissouriValleyUnite]

One team I don’t see much of a ceiling for is Indiana St. They made only 8 2s. They needed 13 3s just to lose by a Larry Bird to FAU.

If they can’t find a way to generate scoring inside, and aren’t a good 3-point shooting team on top of it, they might be at a dead end offensively.

[Birdfan2018]

Illinois St with a brutal loss to UT Martin at home

Tennessee-Martin won the OVC last year. Their 2024-25 roster is made up of 13 new players. So we will not know how good/bad they will be this season and how brutal of a loss this was. Illinois State lost by 2 (had a game tying layup missed at the buzzer).
The Redbirds played without 2 players who would have changed the outcome of the game:
Boden Skunberg (foot in a boot) would definitely had added scoring and defense over the inept replacement that was in his place.
Brandon Lieb is a big story. Hearing he has a serious injury to his hand that may have him out for a lengthy time, possibly out for the season. His not being available last night meant that sophomore Chase Walker was the Redbirds only post player (which lead to the bad shooter’s chucking up a ton of bricks from beyond the arc).
The Birds will definitely struggle with the loss of Lieb. Chase Walker can probably only give 20-25 minutes a game, and that will not bode well with no proven replacement for him when he is on the bench.
Did like what I saw from JR Landon Wolf (10 pts 4 rbs, Sophomore Ty Pence (12 pts 6 rbs 3 assts), Sophomore Chase Walker (13 pts 7 rbs), and Freshman Jack Daugherty (15 pts 4 rbs)
Not a good night for Kinziger, Banks, Poindexter, and Davis: combined 3-26 (1-19 from 3)

[BCPanther]

I think the Valley might drop considerably this year in conference rankings. When the best players from every team are poached by P5, it is hard to be good. A lot of lower ranked leagues probably did not lose as many players as they weren't in demand by P5 schools. Does any Valley team return it's best players? Title is completely up for grabs. At least we shouldn't have as many players poached this year.

The Valley will stay in it's traditional range and might even move up some. The portal isn't all doom and gloom, it gives and it takes. We're taking the best kids from the levels below and getting kids that didn't have a good fit above us.

The teams that got beat yesterday are the teams no one expected to be very good. Nothing earth shattering happened to make us think anything new. Lets let UNI, Murray, Drake and Belmont play a DI game before we start making big assumptions.

[IllinoisState]

Illinois St with a brutal loss to UT Martin at home

Tennessee-Martin won the OVC last year. Their 2024-25 roster is made up of 13 new players. So we will not know how good/bad they will be this season and how brutal of a loss this was. Illinois State lost by 2 (had a game tying layup missed at the buzzer).
The Redbirds played without 2 players who would have changed the outcome of the game:
Boden Skunberg (foot in a boot) would definitely had added scoring and defense over the inept replacement that was in his place.
Brandon Lieb is a big story. Hearing he has a serious injury to his hand that may have him out for a lengthy time, possibly out for the season. His not being available last night meant that sophomore Chase Walker was the Redbirds only post player (which lead to the bad shooter’s chucking up a ton of bricks from beyond the arc).
The Birds will definitely struggle with the loss of Lieb. Chase Walker can probably only give 20-25 minutes a game, and that will not bode well with no proven replacement for him when he is on the bench.
Did like what I saw from JR Landon Wolf (10 pts 4 rbs, Sophomore Ty Pence (12 pts 6 rbs 3 assts), Sophomore Chase Walker (13 pts 7 rbs), and Freshman Jack Daugherty (15 pts 4 rbs)
Not a good night for Kinziger, Banks, Poindexter, and Davis: combined 3-26 (1-19 from 3)

They will struggle more due to poor coaching and decision making on the court than by the missing players.

At one point in the 2nd half they had out scored us by 14 points. 12/14 of our first shots in the 2nd half were missed 3 pointers. The two that went in were layups.

[Birdfan2018]

Illinois St with a brutal loss to UT Martin at home

Tennessee-Martin won the OVC last year. Their 2024-25 roster is made up of 13 new players. So we will not know how good/bad they will be this season and how brutal of a loss this was. Illinois State lost by 2 (had a game tying layup missed at the buzzer).
The Redbirds played without 2 players who would have changed the outcome of the game:
Boden Skunberg (foot in a boot) would definitely had added scoring and defense over the inept replacement that was in his place.
Brandon Lieb is a big story. Hearing he has a serious injury to his hand that may have him out for a lengthy time, possibly out for the season. His not being available last night meant that sophomore Chase Walker was the Redbirds only post player (which lead to the bad shooter’s chucking up a ton of bricks from beyond the arc).
The Birds will definitely struggle with the loss of Lieb. Chase Walker can probably only give 20-25 minutes a game, and that will not bode well with no proven replacement for him when he is on the bench.
Did like what I saw from JR Landon Wolf (10 pts 4 rbs, Sophomore Ty Pence (12 pts 6 rbs 3 assts), Sophomore Chase Walker (13 pts 7 rbs), and Freshman Jack Daugherty (15 pts 4 rbs)
Not a good night for Kinziger, Banks, Poindexter, and Davis: combined 3-26 (1-19 from 3)

They will struggle more due to poor coaching and decision making on the court than by the missing players.

At one point in the 2nd half they had out scored us by 14 points. 12/14 of our first shots in the 2nd half were missed 3 pointers. The two that went in were layups.

Making baskets make Coach look good, missing baskets make Coach look bad.
With no inside game the birds were forced to chuck up (and miss) 3’s.
I agree that there were some coaching mistakes, but the horrendous shooting is on the players.

[IllinoisState]

Tennessee-Martin won the OVC last year. Their 2024-25 roster is made up of 13 new players. So we will not know how good/bad they will be this season and how brutal of a loss this was. Illinois State lost by 2 (had a game tying layup missed at the buzzer).
The Redbirds played without 2 players who would have changed the outcome of the game:
Boden Skunberg (foot in a boot) would definitely had added scoring and defense over the inept replacement that was in his place.
Brandon Lieb is a big story. Hearing he has a serious injury to his hand that may have him out for a lengthy time, possibly out for the season. His not being available last night meant that sophomore Chase Walker was the Redbirds only post player (which lead to the bad shooter’s chucking up a ton of bricks from beyond the arc).
The Birds will definitely struggle with the loss of Lieb. Chase Walker can probably only give 20-25 minutes a game, and that will not bode well with no proven replacement for him when he is on the bench.
Did like what I saw from JR Landon Wolf (10 pts 4 rbs, Sophomore Ty Pence (12 pts 6 rbs 3 assts), Sophomore Chase Walker (13 pts 7 rbs), and Freshman Jack Daugherty (15 pts 4 rbs)
Not a good night for Kinziger, Banks, Poindexter, and Davis: combined 3-26 (1-19 from 3)

They will struggle more due to poor coaching and decision making on the court than by the missing players.

At one point in the 2nd half they had out scored us by 14 points. 12/14 of our first shots in the 2nd half were missed 3 pointers. The two that went in were layups.

Making baskets make Coach look good, missing baskets make Coach look bad.
With no inside game the birds were forced to chuck up (and miss) 3’s.
I agree that there were some coaching mistakes, but the horrendous shooting is on the players.

They are much better inside the 3 point line that outside. Pedon gets most of the blame because he allows the play to continue. It was like a disaster in slow motion.

[MissouriValleyUnite]

Illinois St was one of the worst 3-pt shooting teams in the country last year. That is not a team who should be shooting twice as many 3s as 2s, especially when they have the talent advantage (12.5-pt favorite) and are shooting 48% from 2 and 19% from 3.

[TylerDurden]

Tennessee-Martin won the OVC last year.

UT Martin lost to Prairie View A&M last year, too...and Evansville...and Eastern Illinois...and Western Illinois

It's a bad loss.

[Adunk33]

Tennessee-Martin won the OVC last year.

UT Martin lost to Prairie View A&M last year, too...and Evansville...and Eastern Illinois...and Western Illinois

It's a bad loss.

I'm not defending that it isn't a bad loss, cuz it is. But, UT Martin has a new coach with only one returning player who didn't play against ILST. They essentially brought in the FL JUCO All-Star team.

[Drakey]

Tennessee-Martin won the OVC last year.

UT Martin lost to Prairie View A&M last year, too...and Evansville...and Eastern Illinois...and Western Illinois

It's a bad loss.

I'm not defending that it isn't a bad loss, cuz it is. But, UT Martin has a new coach with only one returning player who didn't play against ILST. They essentially brought in the FL JUCO All-Star team.

They really cleaned up in the JUCO and European markets. Looks like a lot of talent. Way more than I would ever suspect from a school like that. Coach must be a master recruiter.