Primarily a collection of news links about all 12 Missouri Valley League teams on a daily basis, culled from online newspapers, school athletic websites, the conference website, and school newspapers, plus some other content from time to time.
The 2022 Baha Mar Hoops Nassau Championship will include San Jose State, Missouri State, North Texas, Ball State, UNC Wilmington, Vermont, Long Beach State, and Oakland. They will spend Thanksgiving Week in the Bahamas in what is being announced as the largest College Basketball Event in 2022 featuring 20 schools in total. Baha Mar is also hosting an eight-team Women’s event (Pink Flamingo Championship) and the four-team Bahamas Championship featuring Oklahoma State, UCF, Santa Clara, and DePaul. The 2022 Tournament is set for Friday through Sunday, November 25-27.
MISSOURI STATE vs. UNC WILMINGTON (APPROX 2:30PM ET) - Missouri
State is coming off of a season where they finished Top 70 in KenPom
and competed all year for the MVC title. The Bears under Dana Ford will
have a new look in 22-23 as 10 newcomers are joining the team after a
flurry of activity that included Isaih Mosley transferring to Mizzou and
Assistant Coach Corey Gipson leaving to take the Northwestern State
coaching job. Don’t fear Bears fans, Coach Ford has reloaded the roster
with vets like Bryan Trimble, Jr., Kendle Moore, and Matthew Lee, plus
Donovan Clay returns. UNC Wilmington was one of the best stories of the
2021-22 season by winning a surplus of games where they trailed in CAA
play. The Seahawks finished a remarkable 15-3 in the league and one game
away from the NCAA Tournament. They used the momentum to win the CBI
Championship. Shykeim Phillips, Trazarien White, and Jamahri Harvey are
all back to lead UNCW even further. This could certainly be the best of
the Quarterfinal games on the 25th.
A former Missouri Valley Conference standout, Jake LaRavia was selected by the Minnesota Timberwolves
before a subsequent trade sent him to Memphis. After being selected as a
MVC All-Freshman for the Sycamores, LaRavia would see a huge uptick in
production under head coach Steve Forbes averaging 14.6 PPG, 6.6 RPG,
and 3.7 APG as a 2021-22 All-ACC honoree.
The Scout: One of the best pull-up artists in all of
college basketball has hit the portal. It’s tough to be a bigger
scoring threat than Mosley is, a lethal scorer from all three levels
that just put up one of the most efficient high-volume scoring seasons
of the last decade in college basketball. He scored 20 points per game
on 50 percent shooting from the field, 42.7 percent from 3 on about five
attempts per game, and 90 percent from the line. The last person to put
up a 50/40/90 season while averaging 20 points per game? How about we
try this on for a Matt Norlander and Gary Parrish-style Trivia Time:
Luke Babbitt at Nevada
back in 2009-10 (shout out Larnell). He’s a professional scorer, one of
those guys who would be able to get buckets no matter the talent level
against him. He had two 40-point games this season, including in an
absolutely sensational duel with a guy right below him on this list in
A.J. Green. Mosley has some work to do on defense and could stand to be a
slightly better distributor. But there is not a better scorer in the
portal. He should be chased by every single team in the country. He has a
case as the best transfer available in the country right now given how
much you know you can trust him to just step on the floor and get
buckets from Day One.
The Fit: Mizzou just got interesting. Dennis Gates
needed to upgrade the talent in a major way and he’d already had a good
spring by plucking the best off his old roster and a few nice grabs like
former Northern Iowa wing Noah Carter, Clemson guard Nick Honor and two of the top juco prospects. That’s on top of keeping Kobe Brown
in Columbia and holding onto four-star incoming freshman Aidan Shaw.
Now he has a true star to build around in Year One in Mosley, a hometown
guy who Mizzou somehow looked past when he was in high school. Mosley
gets the opportunity to show he can produce on a bigger stage, which if
he can will likely get him drafted next summer. It’s not easy for the
mid-major guys to make the leap to the high-major level, but Mosley and
Carter are two guys we’d bet on no matter where they landed. This is a
major, major win for Gates.
The Scout: Roberts was the Missouri Valley’s
Newcomer of the Year last season, a first-team all-conference player for
Bradley who is lightning in a bottle offensively. He’s electric with
the ball, capable of creating something out of nothing on offense in a
flash. His handle is terrific, and he’s an explosive athlete who can get
where he needs to go out of isolations. He averaged nearly 15 points,
five rebounds and four assists this year, and hit 34 percent from 3 on a
steady diet of tough pull-up shots. He makes some really impressive
live-dribble passing reads, but the critical part of his game that he’s
going to have to clean up will be turning it over. His
assist-to-turnover ratio was very close to the 1-to-1 mark, and he makes
some choices both in terms of shot selection and distribution that will
worry high-major coaches. But above all, this is a high-major athlete
at the guard spot with enough size to not be a liability on defense and
enough handle to genuinely break down opposing teams.
The Fit: Well, Georgia needs just about everything
as it transitions from the Tom Crean era to the Mike White era. As a
first-year building block, Roberts is a terrific lead guard option who
will absolutely perform well in the SEC. That league tends to be among
the most athletic leagues in the country every year, and Roberts’ quick
first step and explosive change of pace ability will fit right in as a
terrific option. We’ll see who White and company surround him with to
get a better feel for how Georgia could compete this year.
34. K.J. Williams | 6-10 big | graduate | Transferred Murray State to LSU
The Scout: The Ohio Valley Player of the Year this past season, Williams joined wing Tevin Brown
and guard Justice Hill to form the nucleus of a 31-3 Murray State team
that went to the Round of 32. Given the accolades, though, Williams was
the centerpiece. He is an inside-out big who can punish smaller players
on the block just as easily as he can pick-and-pop from distance. He hit
just 30.4 percent from 3 this year, but over his career he’s made 35
percent of his 219 attempts. Because of that inside-out skill, he’s a
fit almost anywhere at the collegiate level. He’s definitely more
offense-first than defense, but he averaged 18 points and eight rebounds
and is good enough on offense and versatile enough to play at the
high-major level as a difference-maker. His coach at Murray State, Matt
McMahon, is now the LSU head coach, so that could be a real fit.
The Fit: As predicted, Williams is headed to play
for his former coach and he has all the opportunity in the world to
prove himself at the high-major level, since McMahon essentially started
from scratch with this roster. He now has three of his best players at
Murray State in place and has quickly filled nine scholarship spots.
Williams should be the star, and knowing how he would be featured had to
be a big attraction.
40. Noah Carter | 6-6 forward | junior | Transferred from Northern Iowa to Missouri
The Scout: Carter is a high-IQ, big-bodied, 6-7,
undersized forward who makes it work with pure feel for the game. He
averaged 15 points and four rebounds in a slow Northern Iowa system,
doing a little bit of everything. But above all, Carter just never
really stops moving. He’s constantly searching for little creases and
openings in the defense, hunting for ways to leverage his opponent to
use his strength at 230 pounds to seal his man away from the rim. He was
second-team All-Missouri Valley this year and moves people around at
his position pretty easily. The worry with Carter at the high-major
level is his footspeed and ability to defend against the most athletic
guards. On top of that, Carter did only hit 29 percent from 3 this
season, but his touch is excellent around the rim and from the foul line
and he gives reason to believe that he has room for growth there.
The Fit: Carter’s best position is a small-ball
four, and that’s the one spot where Missouri is actually in decent shape
with Kobe Brown. But the Tigers really, really, really need skill and
scoring, and so Carter is a great fit there. He immediately becomes
Mizzou’s most skilled player. The one worry in the SEC is whether he can
hang defensively, especially if he’s guarding perimeter players. “It’ll
be interesting to see how he fares defensively,” an SEC coach said. “It
looked like (on film) he wasn’t the most explosive athlete laterally or
vertically. So what his identity on the floor is defensively should be
interesting to see. But he’s definitely a really skilled offensive
player.”
The Scout: Key missed this entire season at Indiana
State following shoulder surgery, but he is a multi-time first-team
All-Missouri Valley Conference player who is about as terrific a scorer
as you’ll find at that level. He’s very polished and poised, a
ground-bound player for the most part who gets by with terrific footwork
and strength to bump guys off their spot. Indiana State back under Greg
Lansing would even use him as a pseudo-post-up/mid-post option where he
could use those drop steps and spin moves to score. Plus, prior to the
shoulder injury he could really step away and knock down shots. That
percentage took a bit of a dive in his senior season in 2021, but the
hope is that he can get back to the level he was at previously, where
there were few more efficient high-volume scorers at the high mid-major
level. There are some questions here with him returning from injury,
which is why he falls below guys like Reeves and Carter from the
Missouri Valley. But at his best, he’s very much in their group and
maybe even better.
The Fit: Key goes to a spot where the coach likes a
good post-up, and that’s where he thrives. Rick Barnes is usually
feeding a bigger player like Grant Williams, but he’d be smart to invert
the floor with Key. The question marks here are whether Key can find
his jump shot again — he shot 41 percent from 3 during his sophomore and
junior seasons — and whether he’s athletic enough to hang in the SEC.
His skillset should diversify Tennessee’s offense. The Vols had speed
and shooting on the perimeter last season but didn’t really have an
isolation scorer like him who could work in the mid-range.
Three current Missouri Valley Conference assistant coaches were
honored. Bradley’s Drew Adams, Southern Illinois’ Brendan Mullins and
Drake’s Marty Richter.
Adams has been a staple on Brian Wardle’s staff and now enters his
eighth season at Bradley. During their time in Peoria, the Braves have
won two MVC ‘Arch Madness’ titles.
After spending two years at the Valley’s Illinois State, Mullins
joined his younger brother Bryan’s staff at SIU. The Mullins brothers
are beginning their fourth season in Carbondale.
During Richter’s first four seasons assisting Darian DeVries, the
Bulldogs have amassed a record of 95-40 and tied for the Valley’s 2019
regular season championship. Drake played in and won a game in the 2021
NCAA Tournament.
Josh Schertz,
who enters Year 2 in Terre Haute, had a busy two-week stretch early
this offseason, adding four players via the transfer portal: Jayson Kent
(March 28), Courvoisier McCauley (April 4), Cade McKnight (April 7) and
Trenton Gibson (April 9).
McCauley is a name
that jumps out to Indianapolis-basketball fans who may have followed
his high-scoring exploits at Manual. McCauley started his collegiate
career at Lincoln Memorial, where he played under Schertz, and then
moved on to DePaul, where he played in 29 games last season,
averaging 5.7 points and 2.4 rebounds.
McKnight
was a two-time All-American at Division II Truman State, Gibson scored
more than 1,600 points at Division II Tusculom and Kent started 15 games
at Bradley, averaging 6.9 points.
The
Sycamores were 11-20 in Schertz's first season, including a 4-14
Missouri Valley Conference mark. Reinforcements are welcomed.
9. Evansville fires Todd Lickliter and hires David Ragland
It's
been a mess for Evansville basketball lately. Todd Lickliter was fired
two months after the season's end and two weeks into new athletic
director Ziggy Siegfried's tenure.
Lickliter
went 15-53 in two-plus seasons after taking over for Walter McCarty, who
was fired in January 2020 over allegations of sexual misconduct that
violated Title IX.
Change felt inevitable. So
enter Ragland, who was a finalist for the job when McCarty was hired. An
Evansville native, Ragland was the lone assistant coach Thad Matta retained
after taking the Butler job earlier this offseason. He has a tall
task. The Purple Aces have not made an NCAA Tournament since 1999 and
have finished last in the Missouri Valley Conference three times in the
past four seasons.
In
rare company as one of just three players in the last 30 years to
average 20 points per game while shooting 50% from the field, 40% from
three and 90% from the free throw line, Mosley is perhaps the best pure
scorer changing teams this offseason. He picked Missouri on Monday over
Mississippi State, staying in-state after three years at Missouri State.
The fit here makes a lot of sense: Mosley is a pure isolation
scorer that slots in better as an offensive focal point for a team like
Missouri than just as a cog in a larger machine at some of the blue
blood programs that reached out earlier in the process. Plus, he gives
Dennis Gates a much-needed talent injection in his first year as head
coach of the Tigers.
Illinois State transfer Sy Chatman will head to the MAC and play at
Buffalo in his final year of eligibility. Chatman, who began his career
at UMass, spent two seasons at both of his previous stops. The 6-foot-8
forward improved significantly in his senior season, averaging 13.5
points and 6.1 rebounds on 54.9 percent shooting.
Following a four-year stint at UNLV, 6-foot-3 guard Marvin Coleman is
transferring to Evansville. The Las Vegas native appeared in 60 games
over four years with the Runnin’ Rebels, tallying a 6.9 points and 4.8
rebounds in 2020. Coleman is a career 40.9 percent shooter, while
connecting on 75.0 percent of his free-throw attempts.
Evansville gained its second portal pledge of the day in the form of
Alabama State transfer Kenny Strawbridge. The Rockford, IL native spent
two seasons with the Hornets, averaging 10.5 points and 5.7 rebounds per
game. Strawbridge appeared in 48 games, tallying 46 starts and 29.9
minutes per game.
Darius Burford, Bolingbrook (Elon to Illinois State)
A
huge addition for first-year coach Ryan Pedon at Illinois State. The
jet-quick guard is dynamic in the backcourt and fresh off averaging 13.4
points, 4.1 rebounds and three assists as a sophomore this past season.
Antonio Reeves, Simeon (Illinois State to Kentucky)
Following
a season where he averaged 20.1 points and a three-year career where he
scored nearly 1,200 career points, Reeves was one of the most coveted
players in the transfer portal.
The shooting he provides is a
premium in the game today, and Reeves made 76 three-pointers as a junior
while shooting a very respectable 39 percent from beyond the arc.
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