Evansville at Northern Iowa

[Aces1982]

They are making a much more conscious effort to get him shots than they were early in the season...

One thing I noticed during the UNI game is that he is very good as doing a flop/flail/whatever coming off of his 800 screens trying to make it look like he is being held, pushed, tripped, etc... That got him a ton of whistles the other night. He shot 21 free throws (making 19)...the rest of UE shot 11 free throws combined (going 6-11). He took 40% of their shots and had their only 3 point makes.

I wouldn't be surprised to see WSU hold him down though.


Ballentine will be exactly like Colt...Marty will run the ever loving s*** out of him. He'll put up a ton of points but the team will have a very low ceiling because no one around him is going to develop enough to be a consistent threat. They may have a good game occasionally but a team simply can't win with just 1 player taking 40% of the teams shots and scoring 35-50% of the teams points. UE will be lucky to get their first season over .500 in league play in YEARS using this type of game plan

I love how people just post things on here and they make up their own facts. They don't do any research before posting.

I may be wrong, but I am pretty sure UE was 10-8 just last year with this exact offense.

[rlh04d]

I love how people just post things on here and they make up their own facts. They don't do any research before posting.

I may be wrong, but I am pretty sure UE was 10-8 just last year with this exact offense.

I love that last year gets to be the example of this style of offense "working." Six years into the Marty Simmons' era, Evansville broke .500 by one game ... clearly this offensive style is successful.

You're right that he was wrong on that one sentence. But 10-8 with one of the best players (the best?) in Evansville history isn't impressive. His point about Evansville's offense is right. It's not an offensive style that can lead to any large measure of success.

[uniftw]

Oh...1 season above .500 7 years into your coaches tenure...Sorry I failed to see the greatness that is what Evansville is doing.

How is it Evansville can have 2 of the most prolific scorers (1 in Colt and the other in Ballentine still to be completely seen) in conference history yet only once crack the .500 barrier?

It's because your system is completely flawed. Great, you have a great scorer. That should open up all kinds of space and shots for every one else. Problem is the system isn't designed that way. It's designed for DJ, or Colt, to put up as many shots as possible.

UNI had 9 players score the other night, with 4 in double figures. Only 2 players attempted more than 10 shots - Deon took 12 (6-12 and 4-7 from 3 for 20 points..also had 6 assists and just 2 TO) and Bohannon was 6-10 (6-9 from 3 for 19 points with 2 assists and no TOs). Tuttle scored 20 on 7 shots, Washpun scored 11 on 5 shots.

Since 1996 Evansville has 3 season over .500 (2 of which were before 2002) and 5 at .500...I'm sorry I failed to see the greatness that is Purple Ace basketball. On the flip side UNI hasn't been below .500, or in the PIG, since the 02/03 season.

I would bet that none, maybe 1, of the conference champions/good teams in the Valley have all been balanced teams that don't rely on one person for offense.

10-8 is now a bragging point for a program...a 10-8 season in year 6 of your coaches tenure...a 10-8 season with the best player in program history...a 10-8 season in which you still didn't finish higher than 4th in the conference...a 10-8 season with the one of the greatest scorers in the conference (maybe history..at least "recent history")proving your offense works and yet you were still 5th in the league in points per game and 5th in scoring margin...and 7th in shooting %


If you are satisfied with that being the keystone season for your program 7 seasons into a coaches tenue...then...well.....

[Aces1982]

Not one time in my post did I say UE was great. That Marty was great. That the system was great. I never bragged about being over 500. I simply pointed out the non factual in the post, it isn't rare. People make up stats all the time on the site without checking them first.

[Play Angry]

Because only a jerk or total retard would say something that isn't true on a message board, like, say, chirping endlessly and making a large, public bet, then welching on it...amirite?

[sixth ace]

Oh...1 season above .500 7 years into your coaches tenure...Sorry I failed to see the greatness that is what Evansville is doing.

How is it Evansville can have 2 of the most prolific scorers (1 in Colt and the other in Ballentine still to be completely seen) in conference history yet only once crack the .500 barrier?

It's because your system is completely flawed. Great, you have a great scorer. That should open up all kinds of space and shots for every one else. Problem is the system isn't designed that way. It's designed for DJ, or Colt, to put up as many shots as possible.

UNI had 9 players score the other night, with 4 in double figures. Only 2 players attempted more than 10 shots - Deon took 12 (6-12 and 4-7 from 3 for 20 points..also had 6 assists and just 2 TO) and Bohannon was 6-10 (6-9 from 3 for 19 points with 2 assists and no TOs). Tuttle scored 20 on 7 shots, Washpun scored 11 on 5 shots.

Since 1996 Evansville has 3 season over .500 (2 of which were before 2002) and 5 at .500...I'm sorry I failed to see the greatness that is Purple Ace basketball. On the flip side UNI hasn't been below .500, or in the PIG, since the 02/03 season.

I would bet that none, maybe 1, of the conference champions/good teams in the Valley have all been balanced teams that don't rely on one person for offense.

10-8 is now a bragging point for a program...a 10-8 season in year 6 of your coaches tenure...a 10-8 season with the best player in program history...a 10-8 season in which you still didn't finish higher than 4th in the conference...a 10-8 season with the one of the greatest scorers in the conference (maybe history..at least "recent history")proving your offense works and yet you were still 5th in the league in points per game and 5th in scoring margin...and 7th in shooting %


If you are satisfied with that being the keystone season for your program 7 seasons into a coaches tenue...then...well.....

Found your mouth after 2 1//2 years!... Interesting ... What part did you play in all of this other than opening your pie hole

[sect.3purple]

Anyone ever give a thought to the possibility that UE is developing/recruiting better offensive players to help Balentine? His 43 pts. against UNI came in a game where we needed every one (and more). Right now I would say Marty is trying to get much more offense out of the other players. I know we are seeing more in Mock's contribution. Simmons will continue to improve offensively. We are hoping the guards do also as they gain experience. We desperately need defense to stop the competition's threes....and we need better rebounding effort, although we did out rebound UNI. I do know that IF we had the shooters that UNI had, we would have been going to them. So, we got points where we could...and against the Panthers it was Balentine, who was on fire.

The game against UNI was called super close, both ways, but it hurt us more because Mock got 2 fouls during the first 3 minutes and had to sit. That caused us to have to double down on the post, freeing the UNI 3-point shooters. We did not do a good job of guarding the perimeter...thus all those shots made. We have to get better defensively...and offensively....there's nothing newsworthy about that. Marty has a difficult job ahead, but the potential is there with this young group.

I don't know what will happen against the Shockers, but I hope my Aces play with energy and with confidence. This may not be the time for this young team to win, but I hope they give it a good try.

[bleach]

Anyone ever give a thought to the possibility that UE is developing/recruiting better offensive players to help Balentine?

You guys just contnue to ignore the fact that Martys offense won't allow any help. You could have the best 5 in the country and ONLY 1 will have good stats. Ballentines numbers are a result of Martys one player scores philosophy rather than Ballentine not having help.

[UNIFanSince1983]

Anyone ever give a thought to the possibility that UE is developing/recruiting better offensive players to help Balentine?

You guys just contnue to ignore the fact that Martys offense won't allow any help. You could have the best 5 in the country and ONLY 1 will have good stats. Ballentines numbers are a result of Martys one player scores philosophy rather than Ballentine not having help.

This! There is a reason Ballentine leads the league in minutes. Heck he played all 40 on Wednesday.

[uniftw]

Anyone ever give a thought to the possibility that UE is developing/recruiting better offensive players to help Balentine?

You guys just contnue to ignore the fact that Martys offense won't allow any help. You could have the best 5 in the country and ONLY 1 will have good stats. Ballentines numbers are a result of Martys one player scores philosophy rather than Ballentine not having help.

Exactly this.

Colt didn't have "all conference" players around him BUT he had some talent. That talent was never actually allowed to do anything because the entire offense was get Colt as many shots as possible.

Last season UE had Colt, Ballentine and Cox....Colt missed 2 games during the season and still averaged 30% of Evansville's total shots on the season EVEN WITH missing two complete games. He also still played the most minutes by nearly 100 minutes. His junior season he took 28% of the teams shots, no one else was above 14%. His sophomore season he took 24% of the teams shots, and no one else was over 12%. His freshman year he took 25% of the teams total shots. Over his career Colt played with some pretty decent guys in Cox, Harsma, Holmes yet he took roughly 25-27% of the total shots Evansville took during his 4 years there. Clearly there was enough talent there to develop another player or two into much better than they were. Evansville could have been MUCH more dangerous had Marty had the balls/intelligence/time away from a buffet to look at the players he had and go "Maybe if we move Colt from 25% of our teams shots to 18-20% of our teams shots and boost Holmes and Cox up we will be harder to defend because we will have 2 or 3 serious options instead of 1 with a couple of guys who could be real good but don't need serious attention from the other team because we don't use them".

Right now DJ is at 31% of UE's shots on the season, and 46% of the 3s, and growing as the season goes on. The next closet in total shots is still 184 shots behind Ballentine - IOW DJ could not take a shot the rest of the season and not be caught in total shots. YET Out of the players with at least 100 shots on the season there are 3 players with a better FG % than Ballentine and a 4th just .006 points behind him. Adding the bench into it there are 4 more players with a better FG% than him.

It's pretty clear what UE's offense is going to be the next 2.5 years with DJ there. If you are 7 years into your coach and you are just hoping he can develop a role player or two you have the wrong coach...or very low expectations.

The players behind DJ won't develop much more than they are right now if the offense continues to play as it is. Anyone that isn't a blind UE homer can see that.