My second angry rant of the season...

So the SIUE Cougars are not off to a great start at starting great. In all three regular season losses, the Cougars dug themselves into deep holes going into the locker room before rallying to a decent second half.
Last night's game was flat out embarrassing. It was the Cougars biggest loss of the season, and it was against the one team they had a legitimate chance of beating. Here are the numbers.
SIUE is being outscored by their opponents 68-133 in the first half.
SIUE is being outscored 121-107 in the second half.
What a difference a 15 minute break does for this team. I don't know what it is. Coach Forrester has been stressing all along in his post-game press conferences that the team needs to play an entire 40 minutes. It is one thing to say it and another to do it. Who knows what it is. Whether it is nerves, inexperience, pre-game preparation or just a lack of urgency out of the gates something needs to be addressed by the Cougars coaching staff. Something has to be done to make this team score early, and it starts from the inside out.
The rebounding game has got to be better, and it's not the players fault, we don't have the tools to compete with some of the bigger athletes. Many of you saw the game against Illinois State, the Cougars were dominated in the paint. The same happened at Illinois. Last night, Evansville out-rebounded the Cougars 49-23. Those are eye-popping stats. the Aces grabbed 26 more rebounds than SIUE. You cannot win basketball games doing that. Mark Yelovich grabbed seven boards to lead the Cougars, followed by Aamir McCleary's four. McCleary leads SIUE averaging five rebounds a game. Your offensive minded team leader and GUARD cannot lead your team in rebounds. This is spawned by the Cougars weak inside game, Nikolo Bundalo and Dob Mavrik shared time against Evansville in the paint, with 18 and 19 minutes respectfully. Mav had 2 rebounds and 2 points, while Nik had 3 rebounds and 4 points. There is no production from inside the paint. Zeke Schneider is finally sitting on the bench, he played just three minutes last night.
For the Cougars, the inside game and establishing some physical presence should be a priority. Whether it is feasible with this cast of players remains to be seen.
On the bright side, help is on the way for next season. Mike Messer, a shooting guard has committed to SIUE, he is the first of SIUE's three commitments for next season to be evaluated by Scouts Inc. and he comes in with an 85 ranking, which in english terms means he is a "mid major prospect," expected to start for 2-3 seasons. They say "Messer is a smooth and skilled wing that competes on both ends of the floor. He has a terrific work ethic that allows him to be productive on a regular basis. In transition Messer runs the outside lane for the spot up jumpers or displays his ability to handle..." on the ESPN website.
That's great, now get us some help in the paint.
The three point shooting needs to settle down. SIUE was 2-15 from long range, take Cody Rincker out of the equation and they were 0-13.
SHOT SELECTION
SHOT SELECTION
SHOT SELECTION.
needless to say, it hasn't been smart.
Next up for SIUE is Ball State. the Cardinals are 1-0 after a 10 point win over Valparaiso. Ball State had six players in double figures, and all eight players on the floor scored. Jarrod Jones provide the size that the Cougars have not proved they can stop, measuring 6"9. He led them with 19 points in the game and had six rebounds.
The Cardinals can rebound, kind of scary, considering SIUE cant.
Thats all for today kids.

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The time I blogged from my phone

posting from my cellphone listening to the game on the radio in the car and this is just a flat out embarrassing performance for siue. evansville picked last in the mvc this year and siue is making them look like northern iowa. cougars are down 21 and i am making myself finish listening to the game. cougars came out flat for the third straight game and went to the break down by 20 plus again. playing the aces about equally in the second its typical 2009 siue basketball. no rebounding and sporadic shooting. siue being outrebounded by 15 and outscored by 20 with less than 10 minutes left. forgive my capitalization and punctuation not as easy to do those things on a phone. anyways ill write more after a trip to lovejoy. go cougars...

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A little overly optimistic (SIUe basketball 2009-2010 preview-archive)

As hard to believe as it may be, the college basketball season tips off in less than two weeks.
It's awesome baby.
SIUE begins its second season in Division I play Nov. 4, with an exhibition game against MacMurray College. Having never heard of MacMurray before, it should be quite the exhibition. I wouldn't bet against us putting 100 on the scoreboard in this one.
This is the greatest time of the year, for me, as far as work goes. The Alestle sports team will be with the Cougars for two early-season road match-ups, Nov. 13 against Big Ten conference power Illinois, and again on Nov. 18 when the Cougars take on former head coach Marty Simmons and his Evansville Purple Aces of the Missouri Valley Conference.
The first week of regular season basketball gets even better with a visit by MVC power Illinois State to the Vadalabene Center on Nov. 15.
We may be in for a throttling against Illinois to open the season. That is almost expected of coach Forrester's bunch. As long as half the SIUE campus wearing orange isn't celebrating afterward I'll be okay with that.
Bruce Webber's bunch seems primed to make a run this season. They managed to squeak into the NCAA tournament last year as the #5 seed, only to lose to #12 Western Kentucky in a 12/5 upset anyone could have picked with their eyes closed. Although the Illini were not expected to do much last season, this year is different. Illinois has a solid class of three freshmen, highlighted by DJ Richardson and Brandon Paul to go along with a slew of returning players like Mike Tisdale, Mike Davis and Demitri McCamey. If there is one place the Illini are going to be weak this season, it's going to be post play, with an inexperienced group of big men. At 6'9, Davis is probably the Illini's biggest rebounding threat, but nonetheless SIUE is going to have their work cut out for them against an Illini team preparing likewise with two exhibitions under their belt, against Quincy, (Division II, Great Lakes Valley Conference) and Missouri Southern (D-II, MIAA.)
PREDICTION: Illinois 89 SIUE 55
U of I is too powerful for the Cougars, it's going to be bad, but not a complete embarrassment.
The home-opener has potential for trouble as well, but the one saving-grace the Cougars have is home court. This means the Vadalabene Center has GOT to be packed. If we can squeeze 4,000 fans into that thing, it is going to be loud, and a hostile environment could shake up Illinois State, who last season played just three non-conference road games, and although they won all three, they were against lesser opponents and they narrowly escaped each one.
Here's how ISU played non-conference away from Redbird Arena last year:

ISU 69 Wright State 61 (18-12, 12-6 Horizon League)
ISU 84 Southern Methodist 73 (9-20, 3-13 Conference USA)
ISU 72 Central Michigan 69 (11-18, 7-9 Mid American Conference)

ISU started the season 14-0, and finished the regular season at 22-8, but thanks to their weak non-conference schedule, had to settle for the NIT after an overtime loss in the championship game of the MVC tournament.
ISU lost two of their four biggest weapons from a year ago. Champ Oguchi averaged 15 points a game. He is gone. Emmanuel "All Day" Holloway's day is done, and he put up ten a game.
ISU is not going to be nearly as good as they have been, and there is upset potential to this game, especially being at home for the Cougars. At Redbird Arena I would almost immediately write us off, but not here. Why ISU coach Tim Jankovich scheduled this game I have no idea. It remains that Osiris Eldrige is one of the most exciting college players I have seen in person, however, and Dinma Odiakosa is back after averaging eight and seven and a half playing the post for the Redbirds, but the Cougars have a fighting shot here. Lloyd Phillips could also do some damage for ISU.
Ultimately, ISU is the safe bet to win this game, but don't hold that to heart, and if we win, everyone better be on the court afterward.

PREDICTION: Illinois State 61 SIUE 57

The third game of the season brings all the exciting story-lines we should already be used to. It is a tale of two schools with so many coaching connections you would think they branched off of each other to form two different schools. Or it's just some stupid coincidence. Anyways, it breaks down like this.
Marty Simmons - Played at Evansville from 1986-1988

Lennox Forrester - Transferred to Evansville in 1990, injuries kept him from playing, was a student assistant with the team.

Marty Simmons - Assistant Coach at Evansville from 1990-1996 and 1998-2002.
Lennox Forrester - Joined the staff at Evansville after graduating in 1992, was an assistant with Simmons from 1992-2002, before moving on as an assistant at Bradley from 2002-2007.
Marty Simmons - Head Coach at SIUE from 2002-2007. Led the Cougars to the D-II Elite Eight in 2006.
Lennox Forrester - Replaces Simmons as SIUE Head Coach in 2007.
Marty Simmons - Named Evansville Head Coach in 2007
Mark Allaria - 2002 graduate of Evansville, Cougars assistant under Simmons 2002-2007, retained by Forrester. Started at Evansville from 2000-2002 with Forrester and Simmons on the coaching staff.

Ben Wierzda- Assistant Coach at Evansville. SIUE Alumnus (2000) Hired as an assistant at SIUE under Simmons from 2006-2007, and went with Simmons to Evansville in 2007.
It's basically a college hoops soap opera in the twilight zone.
Evansville is a team on the rise under Simmons, although they will have to do a little bit of re-tooling after losing four starters. Pieter Von Tongeran is the only returning starter for the Aces, but he did play impressive against the Cougars last year, with 17 points and eight rebounds. Kavon Lacy scored 14 off the bench in Evansville's 89-58 win on Dec. 2 last season. He is back as well.
This year it is going to be closer. We are better than we were last year, and Evansville, for all intensive purposes until they can show something without Shy Ely (who absolutely torched the Cougars last season, and was impressive in the MVC tournament against ISU) is worse.
For now, safety says the Aces win and drop us to 0-3.
PREDICTION: Evansville 83 SIUE 71

So, when do we get our first win? Mark your calenders, I am making a guarantee.
A bold guarantee.
November 21st at Ball State. (game four)
Last season, the Cardinals beat the Cougars by 12 WITHOUT leading scorer Mark Yelovich. This year with Yelovich the Cougars will go into Muncie and get a win. Last season, the Cougars first win also came against a team from the MAC in Western Michigan. The Cougars start the season with three tough games, Ball State starts with Valparaiso. Bottom line, Cougars win in Muncie before coming home and beating Lipscomb and IPFW back to back to start the season 3-3.
Final record: The Cougars will go 11-15.
This is a manageable schedule. We can play with North and South Dakota, IPFW is not the greatest team in the world, neither is Kennesaw State, and there are teams on the schedule we have beaten in the past in UMKC and SEMO. SEMO is just a sad team to boot.
This may be a little optimistic, but if all goes well, we could be looking at a .500 season once we are eligible for the OVC.
* The Feb. 20 bracketbuster game is not included in the 11-15 prediction.

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