Looks like at least the MVC portion of the schedule will come out tomorrow.
Staring at the Floorboards just came out with their MVC Preview. Not too high on SIU, having them finish 4th in the MVC, behind Drake, Bradley and Belmont. In summary, they note SIU's historical offensive limitations, both from a personnel adn overall standpoint, as a main factor from ranking them higher.
MISSOURI VALLEY 2022-23 SEASON PREVIEW | Staring at the Floorboards (wordpress.com)
Staring at the Floorboards just came out with their MVC Preview. Not too high on SIU, having them finish 4th in the MVC, behind Drake, Bradley and Belmont. In summary, they note SIU's historical offensive limitations, both from a personnel adn overall standpoint, as a main factor from ranking them higher.
MISSOURI VALLEY 2022-23 SEASON PREVIEW | Staring at the Floorboards (wordpress.com)
I really don't buy Belmont being that good. I think they'll be decent but think they'll have a tougher adjustment to the Valley than Murray State will have.
Bradley will underachieve as usual in the regular season and then be a total bitch to play in St. Louis.
Staring at the Floorboards just came out with their MVC Preview. Not too high on SIU, having them finish 4th in the MVC, behind Drake, Bradley and Belmont. In summary, they note SIU's historical offensive limitations, both from a personnel adn overall standpoint, as a main factor from ranking them higher.
MISSOURI VALLEY 2022-23 SEASON PREVIEW | Staring at the Floorboards (wordpress.com)
Completely reasonable to be skeptical about the Salukis' offensive output until proven otherwise. A few things that stood out to me about the analysis:
- Referred to Xavier Johnson as "mercurial" and referenced some past turnover issues. Hope that doesn't prove to be the case because I think the idea is for him to help steady the waters in the backcourt and run the offense more smoothly than when Jones ran the point.
- No mention of Ebube, who I would guess, after a redshirt year, has more chance to impact this season than Hornecker, at least defensively. Quite interested to see how the competition for PT among the four bigs plays out.
- The author didn't put much stock in D'Amico, and that's understandable given modest stats as a freshman, but I'm hoping he develops further into a very useful Swiss army knife/Southern's version of Sturtz.
Fun to see some of the season predictions start to pop up ... 50 days til a big season for the program tips.
I'm admittedly not as high on D'Amico as many were on here last year. His size and court vision do give him a high ceiling but I felt like he struggled with lack of quickness and defense. I think he will continue to add value to the team, but I would be really surprised (pleasantly) if he became as valuable as Sturtz.
SIU comes in at #3 in the Busting Brackets MVC preview:
https://bustingbrackets.com/2022/10/06/mvc-basketball-preseason-power-rankings-2022-23-season/11/
Most rankings I've seen have Drake and Bradley ahead of SIU.
Mullins ranks #233 in Busting Bracket's head coaching rankings:
https://twitter.com/hoops_mvc/status/1577359054816497664
A lot of this is predicated on past success
Any list having lottich higher is not valid
I'm admittedly not as high on D'Amico as many were on here last year. His size and court vision do give him a high ceiling but I felt like he struggled with lack of quickness and defense. I think he will continue to add value to the team, but I would be really surprised (pleasantly) if he became as valuable as Sturtz.
FWIW (like everything else posted on here), in an interview last season, Ben Coupet was asked which current player had the potential to make the biggest future impact. His answer was D’ Amico.
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James Madison
https://twitter.com/realColeBair/status/1582086314798682112
More bad health news for Phyfe and UNI. He's had a really rough go.
https://twitter.com/realColeBair/status/1582086314798682112
More bad health news for Phyfe and UNI. He's had a really rough go.
Seems like every year UNI loses players and plays very poorly during the non conference season and then gets players back just in time for conference. They bring a bad net/rpi rating into their mvc schedule and then tear up the league during conference play. Sure wish they would be healthy and play better in non conference. Best wishes to Phyfe.
https://twitter.com/realColeBair/status/1582086314798682112
More bad health news for Phyfe and UNI. He's had a really rough go.
Seems like every year UNI loses players and plays very poorly during the non conference season and then gets players back just in time for conference. They bring a bad net/rpi rating into their mvc schedule and then tear up the league during conference play. Sure wish they would be healthy and play better in non conference. Best wishes to Phyfe.
They've had some years where they've had some big non-con wins (over #1 UNC comes to mind) and some where, as you say, they've scuffled early. But one thing they do is play a tough schedule just about every year, which I wish was more of the norm at Southern and elsewhere around the league.
