Connect with us

Great Lakes Valley

UMSL Ready To Tip

(St. Louis, MO) – Bob Sunvold believes UMSL’s basketball team has a chance to be good again this season and Saturday night they proved it in an exhibition game with Southern Illinois Carbondale.

Despite losing to the Salukis 71 to 66 they took the Division 1 school to the wire. Harris Stowe was supposed to play SIUC and had to decline, so the Tritons jumped at the chance to play some high level competition.

Sunvold is in his first year as the Head Coach at UMSL.  When Steve Tappmeyer resigned last spring, Athletic Director Lori Flanagan acted quickly in hiring the veteran coach. Sunvold has won over 100 college games, having coached at Central Missouri and UMKC. He was a long time assistant with Norm Stewart at Missouri, Charlie Spoonhour at Missouri State and recently with Charlie’s son Jay at Eastern Illinois.

One of the cues of the off-season was the signing of Femi John as a key recruit. Coach Sunvold told me John still has some adjustments to make.

Apparently John doesn’t have as many things to work out as Sunvold thought.  The McCluer North graduate and former Saint Louis University player scored 22 points, grabbed six rebounds and handed out three assists in the Tritons’ loss to the Salukis.

It is just the latest strong performance by a Great Lakes Valley team against Division 1 competition. McKendree played a great first half against Illinois and Drury led Duke by four points at the half of their recent exhibition and Lewis defeated the MVC’s Loyola-Chicago!  The GLVC will continue to make noise on a the national level this season.

The Tritons open their season with a two day, two game event in Michigan November 9th and 10th.

Do Good

Click to comment

Conference Statistics

Twitter Feed

Congrats @julian_larry214! We miss you in @ValleyHoops and root for you and @20Jkent_25 to succeed in Texas. I know @CoachLansing & @JoshSchertzSLU are super proud of you. Do Good

Two #MTE trophies could be coming to @ValleyHoops. @BradleyUMBB & @DrakeBulldogsMB are in championship games tonight. We review yesterday's action and preview todays at @BustingBrackets.

Thanksgiving Week #MTEs start today for @ValleyHoops as @MoStateMBB tips off the Cayman Islands Classic. More coming this week. Here's our @BustingBrackets preview!

Load More

More in Great Lakes Valley