Q: Technical fouls and ejection? 21-point rally? Fights? Why does this mostly nondescript rivalry produce such wacky moments and what can we expect tonight?
A: It really hotted up last year, didn’t it? In my experience, last season’s 21-point rally was second only to the mother of all bizarre ISU-Wichita games, the 1989 brawl.
I was there. I was a high school student in Indianapolis at the time and my dad randomly got tickets from the Pepsi distributor in Terre Haute for the game. I had no connection to Indiana State, no connection at that time to Terre Haute (it was my first visit), and it was the first college basketball game I ever attended. In some ways, it was the one of the worst and one of the greatest moments in ISU history all wrapped into one. To this day, I’ve never seen anything like Indiana State’s second half rally. I still have the ticket stub somewhere, I remember my buddies at school thought I was lying when it re-told it the next morning.
I don’t expect anything like that tonight. What will be interesting is that you have a young, confident team trying to prove itself on the road against a young team utterly lacking confidence trying to scrap something together at home. I think it will produce a good game, but the Sycamores need to prove they can pull a close one out, something they’ve failed to do after six home losses in games they led, three after having squandered double-digit leads.
Q: Indiana State freshman Jordan Printy seems to be one positive story for the Sycamores. What is behind his recent performances?
A: Printy was inserted into the staring lineup in mid-January so the Sycamores could come to grips with their turnover problems. He’s done a reasonable job in that department and it was always known that he could shoot. His confidence has been better in recent weeks and his shooting percentage has been better along with it.
Q: How would this season be different with Marico Stinson and Harry Marshall in uniform from gavel to gavel for ISU?
A: I think Indiana State would have won a few of the 50/50 games they had in the non-conference season, if for no reason than Marshall would have run the team with less confusion. Stinson would have shot the team to a win or two. On the other hand, Stinson also shot ISU out of plenty of games too and Marshall still would have been dependent on teammates early in the season that have been inconsistent at best for the entire schedule. ISU would be better than 4-18, but many of Indiana State’s flaws would not have been mitigated by their presence, so they probably would have been sub.-500 in any case.
Q: Pick your MVC Player of the Year.
A: Every time I think I have a choice nailed down, something happens. Illinois State’s Osiris Eldridge went into a funk mid-season. Illinois State’s Champ Oguchi and Creighton’s Booker Woodfox got dinged up. Creighton’s P’Allen Stinnett is mercurial. Conference leader Northern Iowa is the epitome of team basketball, point guard Kwadzo Ahelegbe is the closest thing they have to a MVP, but is he good enough for league honors? I’m not ready to pull the trigger yet, though I may see it differently by the end of the month.
Perhaps it should be Evansville’s Shy Ely. He reminds me of David Moss ‘06, but unlike Moss, he’s having an all-everything year (and he’s stayed healthy) during a season where no one is stepping to the fore. He leads the league in conference-only scoring and is fourth in rebounding. If the Aces finish in the top half, he has to be considered.
Until then, I’ll just vote for Wu-Shock to pander for a cheap atta-boy out of the Shockwaves readers.