Who Are The Emerging Big Men?

(St. Louis, MO) – College basketball coaches scour the countryside to find a true ‘big man’. Kentucky seems to have four or five of them, but the rest of the teams struggle to find a true post player.

Missouri Valley Conference coaches are no different and hope to land that quality 6’10”, 6’11” or 7’ player that can be a true difference maker. There are two such players in the Valley this year and perhaps more on the way.

Evansville’s Egidijus Mockevicius has been at the top of the national double-double race all year long. The 6’10 junior from Lithuania has doubled his pleasure 15 times this season. That figure is tied for the third most by a Valley player in the last 20 years.

Mockevicius’ head coach Marty Simmons says that his twin-killing machine is highly motivated and has worked very hard on his game.

 

 

Mockevicius shoots better than 82% from the free throw line and has been able to avoid foul trouble. Those two factors alone have made him better, but Simmons says he has a greatly improved body too.

The only player that could rival Mockevicius is Illinois State’s Reggie Lynch. The 6’10” sophomore has already set ISU records for blocked shots by a freshman and by a sophomore.

This season he has battled some back issues, but his offense has improved and he too is doing a better job of staying out of foul trouble. Lynch’s numbers (8.8 & 5.4) are not nearly as good as Mockevicius’, but his shot-blocking ability makes him a valuable asset on the back end of Head Coach Dan Muller’s defensive alignments.

While Lynch has improved some parts of his game, Muller has been cutting his playing time. Muller says Lynch has not been rebounding the ball effectively enough to warrant more playing time.

 

 

Lynch and Mockevicius will meet twice (including this Tuesday night) in the final eight games of league play. Since both teams are 6-4 in league play, how they handle each other could go a long way to deciding which of those two teams finishes in the top four in the Valley race.

There are some other ‘big fellas’ in the MVC, but like Lynch, they are all young. Missouri State’s Tyler McCullough is a 6’11” sophomore that is making big strides late in the season. His coach Paul Lusk says taller players develop more slowly and McClullough seems to be figuring things out.

 

 

That holds true for 7’ Jacob Enevold Jensen from Drake. Like Lynch, he’s a sophomore averaging more than eight points and five rebounds per game. His head coach Ray Giacoletti says Jensen is learning what it means to be a college basketball player in the tough Missouri Valley.

 

 

Wichita State has two 6’11” players (Rauno Nurger & Tom “Bush” Wamukota) who don’t play a lot of minutes, but Gregg Marshall has high hopes for their futures.

The game between Evansville and Illinois State (on ESPN3) will be worth the watch. Two talented teams that each have a legitimate big man. Game time is 7 pm Central time. Don’t miss that one.

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