Official 2014-15 MVCfans.com Prediction - 5th Place

[Play Angry]

Like others have said, 3 through 5 are pretty much interchangeable in this year's preseason poll. I picked Evansville but can certainly understand why folks would go with ISUr or MSU.

The MVC needs that trio to step up big in the OOC to regain respectability. Of equal importance, however, is that those three achieve some separation from the bottom half and win 11 or 12 games once league play begins.

I have nothing against Drake and friends (in fact some of my favorite MVC teams are projected to be terrible this year), but I will be rooting very hard for the OOC achievers to stomp their brains out as the new year rolls over. Too much anklebiting has really hurt the league in recent seasons.

[hot nuts]

I'm actually a Marty believer and still picked them 5th. Scares me that E-ville will seemingly rely very heavily on 2 guys for offense. MSU and ISUr seem to have more options to pick up the slack when the leaders have off nights.

[glm38]

Evansville for me. I think Evansvilles system can win big individual games ( short term) but it's not a system to win consistently over the course of a season. I also think Marty will continue to insist on playing his son big minutes and I think that's a mistake.

Mock and Ballentine are very talented but I'm afraid Mock's potential in particular will be wasted.

[glm38]

I certainly don't disagree with questioning Marty's ability to coach. But neither Lusk or Muller has shown any ability yet either. I will vote ISU Red here only due to my thought that UE may have a little more talent. Certainly these three can be mixed however you wish.

I'm with you guys, if Marty fails to win this year, there can't be a next.

I partially agree with you about Muller and Lusk. I think both of them have proven they can take a rag tag bunch of players and over achieve or at least beat initial expectations. But neither one has proven (yet) that they can consistently win when they have the right talent. I think both (particularly Lusk) have quite a bit of talent this year. It will be interesting to see if they can make that next step.

[bleach]

I picked the Redbirds for one reason alone......the chaos factor. Seems like a continual tumult since Muller arrived.

[pafan]

There is some real difficulty at this point because there's quite a bit of question about who the contributors will even be for the top-vote getters so far.

IlSU returns 4 of their top 5 scorers, and 7 of top 8 from 2014. Still some question in my mind about who starts and who plays a major role off the bench, because this seems to be a guard-heavy team.

UE returns everyone, and adds a couple of JuCo transfers plus a D1 transfer who is now eligible. Lots of questions about who starts, besides Balentine and Mockevicius. UE fans seem to be hoping the new guys get lots of time.

MSU has the most losses to graduation of any of the above. I suspect they'll be able to fill Gulley's spot pretty easily, but the question is who the the role players will be, the ones who have a couple of big games through the season.

My plan is to vote in the above order -- 5, 4, 3 -- if you all will agree.

[sixth ace]

Going with IlSU too much commotion on the team They may settle late in the season and be a'we don't want to play them' but too late

then MSU ... too much lost from the roster. Again too long to adjust to new players and the system.

If Marty fails this season I don't see him get another. The new AD probably won't give him the opportunity to coach the senior team. The AD's reputation would be on the line, the firing would be expected and he could bring his guys in. If he has 20+ win season and at least a NIT bid he'll coach 2015-16 Aces season.

UE has a RS transfer player who can play 1-4 Two JUCO all Americans...a PG and PF

not to mention
http://splashurl.com/l8g8xs9
even at that the success of last season was 6-12 for 9th place.
I'll take the experience and the new players and watch what Marty does. UNI in 3rd

[ACECARD]

The Aces may be the toughest team in the Valley to predict. They will have two of the best players in the Valley, but then a lot of question marks. What happens if Mock fouls out, or gets hurt, or DJ breaks a foot. The Aces season will depend how good Wiley, Stafford, and Mislav adapt to MVC play, and how much the sophs., Brown, Gibson, and Simmons have improved over the off season. There are just too many questions to pick the Aces much better than fifth at this point. Now, if everybody stays healthy, and the newcomers are good as we HOPE they are, it's possible the Aces could challenge for fourth, or maybe, even third, but that, of course, remains to be seen.

I would have to agree that if Marty loses more games than he wins this year, it would be hard to believe that he would be asked to coach another. And one more thing. His son was the best freshman we had last year, and showed the most progress during the season. Marty wasn't the most imposing player on the court when he played, but did the little things that made him a great player. Blake is the same kind of player, and will play an important roll on this years team.

[Aargh]

Muller showed me what he was mde of when he coached the Jackie Carmichael team to a dismal finish. That team had some serious talent, so Muller takes the credit for the poor performance. Then Muller did a lot of risky recruiting and the team has some potential for chaos. I don't know if Muller has the experience to handle team disruptions, which tend to follow recruiting risks. Anybody remember P'Allen Stinnet?

I see talent on the IlSU roster, but until Muller shows he can both coach a team and handle the personalities he recruits, I'm going to peg IlSU a few notches below where I think their talent level should put them.

[Wufan]

The Aces may be the toughest team in the Valley to predict. They will have two of the best players in the Valley, but then a lot of question marks. What happens if Mock fouls out, or gets hurt, or DJ breaks a foot. The Aces season will depend how good Wiley, Stafford, and Mislav adapt to MVC play, and how much the sophs., Brown, Gibson, and Simmons have improved over the off season. There are just too many questions to pick the Aces much better than fifth at this point. Now, if everybody stays healthy, and the newcomers are good as we HOPE they are, it's possible the Aces could challenge for fourth, or maybe, even third, but that, of course, remains to be seen.

I would have to agree that if Marty loses more games than he wins this year, it would be hard to believe that he would be asked to coach another. And one more thing. His son was the best freshman we had last year, and showed the most progress during the season. Marty wasn't the most imposing player on the court when he played, but did the little things that made him a great player. Blake is the same kind of player, and will play an important roll on this years team.

If Wiley and Stafford can step in and start and two starters from last year can come off the bench, UE really does have the look of a contender. The questions all revolve around coaching.