One point I would like to add about this seasons Dawgs. Last year Bryan had 4 players stay from the previous coaching staff. Those players were Eric McGill, Aaron Cook, Brendon Gooch, and Sekou Dembele. Eric McGill (1023 minutes) was the only player of that group that played more than 200 minutes all season. This season Bryan has 5 players returning that contributed 2,687 minutes to last years games, plus Ben Harvey that practiced full time with the team last year. Those contributing players were Marcus Domask, (1,116 minutes), Lance Jones, (824 minutes) Trent Brown, (659 minutes), Sekou Dembele, (79 minutes) Will Keller, (9 minutes). That is just under 42% of last seasons total game playing time in Bryan's system returning plus Harvey.
I do expect the Dawgs to finish higher than 5th place!
Mullins coaching thrives on his playing style, play hard, and defend harder.
Building on last year, we will be in the top 3 if we stay healthy.
Trouble is UNI, Loyola and Bradley have good teams too this year. Them plus SIU makes a tough top half the valley. Right now lets get lots of non-conference wins and get the MVC back to a 2 bid conference.
I would love to see 3 or 4 MVC teams in the top 30 all season.
For a follow up on an earlier post on minutes played last year. I reviewed each Valley team’s statistics from last season and compiled the number of minutes played by players returning for this season. The results in the table show the returning percentage of minutes played from last season.
I want it understood that I am not picking this order of finish for the Valley though!!
| LUC | 91.4% |
| DU | 65.3% |
| UNI | 64.6% |
| VALPO | 63.9% |
| INST | 63.0% |
| EU | 53.8% |
| BU | 52.9% |
| ILST | 46.8% |
| SIU | 41.8% |
| MSU | 30.2% |
Returning Scoring:
| LUC | 93.8% |
| UNI | 72.8% |
| INST | 64.9% |
| DU | 61.2% |
| VALPO | 58.6% |
| BU | 50.9% |
| ILST | 48.2% |
| EU | 46.3% |
| SIU | 42.1% |
| MSU | 33.0% |
Returning Rebounding:
| LUC | 88.6% |
| UNI | 63.2% |
| INST | 62.7% |
| VALPO | 57.9% |
| BU | 53.7% |
| DU | 49.7% |
| EU | 44.4% |
| ILST | 44.2% |
| SIU | 33.4% |
| MSU | 26.5% |
Factor in Coaching motivation and those percentages change.
Mullins, like Bruce Weber and Matt Painter can get a 120% performance out of a player, vs the C-low 50% or Hinson 75% performance.
Lowery could recruit top players, but could not get top performances out of them, Weber can take average guys and get top performance, Painter could take good players and get better, Hinson would make BBQ sauce and talk about his wife.
Lowery hands you a turd you want to wash your hands, Hinson or Watson hand you the same turd they would talk you into being grateful they handed it to you, Weber and Painter would toss the turd over their shoulder and have you convinced you need to pick it up.
Mullins wins close games, something that lesser coaches struggle with.
Very good analogies!
Exactly why I wrote that I was not picking this order of finish for the Valley!
