Day 1 results

[isumvc1]

Winners

Missouri State
Indiana State
Loyola
Wichita State

Losers

Bradley

some shaky starts for sure, but most prevailed

[Play Angry]

Glad the Trees pulled away in OT.

[rlh04d]

WSU looks great. MoSt (well, Marshall) looks very good. Indiana State looks like they're going to be in trouble. And Bradley looks like a dumpster fire.

*Edit: Drake didn't play today, but I just watched the "All about that Drake" music video, and they now qualify as a dumpster fire as well. Good God Drake. Get yourselves together.

[pafan]

It may be time to start the "how many Valley teams does IUPUI beat in 2014?" parlor game.

[GarH]

Be very afraid Valley, the Shockers are not going to miss a beat from last year.

[Wufan]

Huge games from the "honorable mention" crowd in pre-season Valley awards.

Marcus Marshall with 30 something points and Khristian Smith with nearly 30. Should be fun to watch these two juniors.

Other Valley juniors: VanVleet, Baker, Balentine, Mock, Bohannon, Beane

Absolutely loaded class!

[Cdizzle]

Huge games from the "honorable mention" crowd in pre-season Valley awards.

Marcus Marshall with 30 something points and Khristian Smith with nearly 30. Should be fun to watch these two juniors.

Other Valley juniors: VanVleet, Baker, Balentine, Mock, Bohannon, Beane

Absolutely loaded class!

None of them will win MVC POY this year.

[PowderBlue]

WSU looks great. MoSt (well, Marshall) looks very good. Indiana State looks like they're going to be in trouble. And Bradley looks like a dumpster fire.

Did you actually get to watch the game, or are you just going off the box score?

It wasn't pretty in any way, but I really didn't expect it to be after losing all that experience. The 'for sures' right now are that Gant, Kitchell, and Smith are going to play big minutes. Smith played off the ball a lot of the night, but did get some time running the offense as well, which was really interesting to see. I still think that ideally one of Bennett, Scott, or Brown run the offense the majority of the time...to me Bennett running the offense with Brown playing a combo and Smith on the wing could be pretty exciting. Personally, I think this may be the most athletic set of guards and wings that the Sycs have ever put together with Smith, Brown, Bennett, and to a lesser extent Scott and Etherington able to create off the dribble. The shots just need to go in.

Defensively there is some work to do...

Our reserve bigs have slow feet, and it's clear that these guys are still getting used to playing together as there were quite a few slow rotations and missed switches throughout the night. Those things need to be cleaned up quickly, but I have no doubt that they will be.

I expected to see Prusator get some floor time, but I heard a rumor from a couple guys near the program that he's not going to see major floor time until he figures out how to play defense.

This isn't a top 3 team in the Valley (no one here expected it to be), but I'd like to think it's a team that will stay clear of the Thursday games if they can get more comfortable on the defensive end.

[rlh04d]

I did not watch the game, since I was watching WSU. It took a 23 free throw advantage for ISU to barely squeak by a team consistently at the bottom of college basketball over the last few years. That is not good.

[jturner38]

Ok so? The refs werent that great even though it swung in our favor. Shots just werent falling in. Who says IUPUI will suck this year? Eastern Illinois wasnt good last year and Mo st had to come from behind. This group is getting use to not having JO run the floor.