Deep Valley Teams

How Coaches Deal With Deep Rosters

(St. Louis, MO) – Is it possible to have too much talent on a basketball roster? Some deep Valley teams are learning how to balance fragile athletic egos with winning games.

MVC coaches are tasked with evaluating talent, work ethic, skill sets and compatibility of their players. Team members earning playing time, carving out their unique roles and staying healthy are ingredients to each coach’s choices.

Philosophies on how many players play and how many minutes are distributed to whom is the challenge for each Valley head man. As the ‘portal pandemic’ has forced many teams to remake their roster on a regular basis, the learning and experimental process for coaching staffs seems to last longer than ever.

Missouri State and Murray State each have radically different rosters than they fielded last season. With coaching changes at Evansville and Illinois State, those teams are also drastically different. Even at ‘steady Eddie’ Northern Iowa, two starters left and two more are injured so Ben Jacobson is toying with his lineup too.

Deep Valley Teams – Familiarity

While not as dramatic as Missouri State and Murray State, Illinois State has a new coach and six new players. First year coach Ryan Pedon brought in those new players, but also didn’t know the holdovers. So, for Dana Ford, Steve Prohm and Pedon this has been a season of getting to know their players and growing in familiarity.

Every Missouri State player has started at least one game and eight of them have started at least four. Not only is coach Ford trying to learn about his players, but he wants them to earn their minutes and starts by what they do in practice.

Ford is looking for those players that can do what he’s looking for. He says he’s looking for players that are ‘hooked up’.

 

 

Preseason all-Valley forward Donovan Clay failed to start two straight games and the team’s leading scorer Chance Moore has started only twice. Bryan Trimble started the team’s first ten games and hasn’t seen a minute of playing time since.

Wednesday night, Murray State’s Quincy Anderson became the fourth 1,000 point scorer on Prohm’s team. None of the four scored the bulk of their points with the Racers and only two of them, Rob Perry and Jamari Smith typically start. Smith was out with a sickness and the third member of the 1,000 point-club, Brian Moore saw extended playing time and Wednesday recorded his personal Racer scoring best of ten points.

Prohm says Anderson is a typical Murray State type of player and the coach is still getting to know his team.

 

 

Deep Valley Teams – Matchups & Growth

Indiana State (12-4, 5-0) is off to its best start in many years. Second year coach Josh Schertz tinkers with his lineup. Like a mad scientist in search of the right chemical compound, he may change his lineup based on the opponent or what he’s hoping to achieve in a given game.

After not starting the team’s first 13 games, guard Julian Larry was inserted into the opening tip lineup. Larry suddenly looks like he wants to win the league’s MVP award named after another Sycamore. During those three games he is averaging 16.6 points and five assists. He was a perfect eight for eight against Evansville and a perfect seven-for-seven Wednesday against Illinois State.

Schertz says he wants to effectively utilize his players and says the Christmas break was a time when he started to better understand who needed to play.

 

 

Ten different Sycamores have started games this season and four Sycamores reached double figures during Wednesday’s win at Illinois State. The team’s leading scorer, Courvosier McCauley was out with a bout of sickness.

SIU’s Wednesday win over preseason favorite Drake saw just one Saluki score in double figures. Player of the Year candidate Marcus Domask score 21 points and grabbed eight rebounds. While Domask and Lance Jones are the Saluki headliners, coach Bryan Mullins’ ‘center-by-committee’ has been working well.

With the return from injury by J.D. Muila the post position has become a strength. Muila just played in his seventh game of the season and in the last two, he has played over 20 minutes for the first two times this year. During those two, he has grabbed nine and ten rebounds.

The combo of Muila, Clarence Rupert, Troy D’Amico has been solid. This ‘three-headed-monster’ combined for 17 points and 17 rebounds against Belmont and ten and 17 against Drake.

Mullins says Muila is improving all the time and his team’s post play has become a strength.

 

 

Coaches deal with deep rosters different ways, but these deep Valley teams are building for a deep Arch Madness run.

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