How Do You Replace Legends?

(St. Louis, MO) – Some of the very best players in Missouri Valley Conference have graduated and the Southern Illinois and Evansville basketball teams are trying to replace legends with legions.

Evansville was 25-9 behind the outstanding play of all-time greats D.J. Balentine and Egidijus Mockevicius. Undoubtedly the best inside/outside combination in UE history retired as the highest scoring (Balentine) and leading rebounder (Mockevicius) in program history. The Purple Aces eclipsed the 20-win plateau three times in their four year career. Evansville has only achieved that feat one other time in the program’s Division 1 history.

SIU’s 22-win season was sparked by one of the program’s most prolific scorers, Anthony Beane. The Salukis hadn’t topped 20 wins since 2007. Beane finished his career with 1,917 points, good for third in the Saluki’s legendary history.

How do you replace all-time greats? How do you replace legends? Evansville head coach Marty Simmons and SIU leading man Barry Hinson will replace legends with legions. Both coaches believe this year’s quantity of players have a chance at overcoming the loss of the quality of some great players.

Boo Returns ~ Ryan Arrives & Six Seniors

As good as UE was last year, what if their starting point guard had played more than four games? Duane ‘Boo’ Gibson missed the entire season with a knee injury. In 2014-15, the explosive Gibson led the team in steals and was second in assists. After averaging 5.1 points per game during his sophomore year, Gibson was poised to run the Purple Aces’ ship and spear head their defense. Gibson is healthy is huge part of the puzzle Simmons is putting together.

Red-shirt sophomore transfer Ryan Taylor is the kind of player that can jump into the line up and be an upper echelon MVC player. Taylor started 28 games during his freshman campaign at Ohio University. The 6’6 wing averaged 8.1 points per game for the Bobcats with a shooting percentage of 43.3 %.

There are six returning seniors in this year’s squad, and Simmons says that combination keeps him optimistic after the departure of those two great players.

 

 

Leading that group of seniors are guard Jaylon Brown and forward Blake Simmons. Both players were content to defer to Balentine and Mockevicius last year, but will be expected to play major roles this year. Brown was the team’s third leading scorer (10.8) and led the Aces with 37 steals. Simmons was sixth in scoring (5.9) and has been one a solid three-year performer for his father/coach.

Committee Members ~ Dunks

Beane was the dominant player during the rebuilding of Saluki basketball under Barry Hinson. How does SIU replace Beane, whose father is an assistant (Anthony Beane Sr) with the team? Hinson says, like Evansville, his team will have to do it with a collection of talented players.

 

 

The top three scorers (after Beane) return to this year’s team. Senior Sean O’Brien (12.1) was second to Beane in scoring and to departed Bola Olaniyan in rebounding (6.0) and to Mike Rodriguez (2.0) in assists. His overall game and leadership are a key to the success of this year’s collection of Egyptian Dawgs.

The 5’10 Rodriguez was named to the Valley’s all-newcomer team while scoring 8.3 points per game, and he will be joined in the SIU backcourt by a Valley all-bench member, Leo Vincent (8.1 ppg). Those two lifted some of the ball-handling duties from Beane last year and will be one of the few all senior backcourts in the MVC.

Waiting in the wings are sophomores Armon Fletcher and Sean Lloyd who are both skilled and athletic. Fletcher (5.1 ppg) scored 30 points over the final three Saluki games. The 6’4 Fletcher and 6’5 Lloyd are both skilled enough to play shooting guard, and their length and athleticism allows them to move to the wing. Hinson has some interchangeable parts.

O’Brien, three-point specialist Tyler Smithpeters and newcomer Thik Bol will be the key pieces to the frontcourt. Bol is a 6’8 dunking and shot-blocking machine who transferred to Carbondale from Iowa Western Community College. Hinson says he can dunk on anyone and blocking shots comes to him very easily. Seniors O’Brien and Smithpeters are four-year players that are trusted members in the Hinson regime.

Smithpeters made 47 three-pointers last season, connecting on over 40% of his long distant attempts.

Whether these hold-overs and newcomers can offset the loss of super-star players is yet to be seen, but Hinson and Simmons are optimistic that their teams will be more athletic and be more multidimensional, and maybe, just maybe these brand new teams will approach the success levels sparked by their former stellar performers.

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