Early Missouri Valley Conference Trends

(St. Louis, MO) – Two games into the conference season and already so much has happened, and there are important trends emerging. Wichita State is still very good, Evansville is better than we thought, and Northern Iowa is swimming up stream.

Northern Iowa has not finished below .500 in the ten years of Ben Jacobson’s coaching the Panthers, but UNI (5-8, 0-2) has lost four straight games and their first two in league play. Perhaps more concerning is UNI’s lack of depth.

With the ankle injury to junior guard Wyatt Lohaus, Jacobson has been commanding a team that in two Valley games, has been limited to five players playing 25 minutes or more, and no other players getting more than a dozen minutes.

Shooting percentages at Northern Iowa are at uncharacteristic lows. Normally, one of the Valley’s top three-point shooting teams, the Panthers haven’t made more than 27% of their long distance shots in their two conference games. So far, the UNI attack has amounted to Jeremy ‘Captain’ Morgan and no one else.

Jacobson says his team needs junior Klint Carlson to grow into an offensive threat if the Panthers are going to succeed.

 

 

Wichita State (12-3, 2-0) is shooting 50% from the field, they don’t commit turnovers and Gregg Marshall runs waves of talented and athletic players on the floor. Ten players average double digit minutes of participation and nine of them average more than five points per game, with no one averaging as much as 13 points.

Marshall told goshockers.com that having so many quality players creates a healthy level of internal competition.

“We share the minutes, we share the depth, we share the ball. In the end, these guys accept it. They don’t beef about being pulled,” said Marshall. “For instance, Zach Brown plays 18 minutes today. Darral Willis plays 19 minutes. He hasn’t won player of the week. He probably won’t win player of the year. But it’s hard for him to put up the numbers. So many people that don’t see us play see his numbers and compare it to somebody else’s numbers who’s putting up 20-something shots a game and say – ‘that guy’s better.’ But I beg to differ.”

Evansville (10-5, 1-1) hadn’t defeated Northern Iowa since January 1, 2015 and had lost six of their last seven games with the Panthers, prior to their New Year’s Day conquest of UNI.  Non-conference wins over Murray State, Middle Tennessee State and Boise State alerted us to the positive potential of this team.

League watchers knew Jaylon Brown would be good, and that newcomer Ryan Taylor would contribute, but no one knew how good those two would be. Brown has led the league in scoring (20.9 ppg) and Taylor’s 15.5 scoring average has come with five games where he has topped the 20-point mark. The 6’6 sophomore dropped 38 on Norfolk State. Brown has scored 17 points in each of their conference games, and has blown by the 30-point mark twice this season.

Head Coach Marty Simmons says Brown’s work last season at the point guard position, gave him the confidence to step into the scorers role this year.

 

 

It may be the Purple Aces’ defense that people are overlooking. UE is yielding four fewer points per game as compared to last season, and in two MVC contests they are second to Illinois State in scoring defense (60.0) and defensive field goal percentage (.381). Simmons says the explosive offensive abilities of Brown and Taylor and improved defense is a winning math equation.

Simmons says his team hasn’t really changed their defensive strategies.

“We’re not really doing anything differently,” said Simmons. “We’ve kept the same principles and we’ve been a little fortunate.”

All ten teams play Wednesday night with two undefeated teams facing off when Missouri State (11-4, 2-0) visits Illinois State (10-4, 2-0). The Redbirds have won three straight games and six of their last seven.

Also, two winless teams, Northern Iowa (5-8, 0-2) and Loyola (10-5, 0-2) meet in Chicago. So, by Thursday morning the Valley, will have no more than two undefeated teams, nor more than two without a conference victory.

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