Primarily a collection of news links about all 11 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.
#55 Belmont (-1) at #98 Illinois State, 5 PM ET, CBSSN.
This season finale for Belmont is more or less meaningless, save for
building out an at-large case that I wish would gather more steam than it
seems to be gathering. You want me to prefer 18-10 TCU (50th
KenPom) or 19-9 Missouri (51st) over 26-4 Belmont (55th)? Well, I’m not
going to, so quit asking.
Anyway, this carries some meaning for Illinois State depending on the
results of other games. If all favorites win in the other MVC games this
weekend, Illinois State either finishes fourth (win) or sixth (loss) in the
league. If Valpo loses to Evansville AND Indiana State beats UIC (around a
12% chance), I think Illinois State can finish as high as third with a win.
In any case, they are very likely to finish somewhere from fourth to sixth
with an extreme outside shot at third. You can read all of these scenarios
here.
Based on the way these two match up, I’d initially think of this as a points
explosion and a game that simply comes down to whichever’s defensive
weakness is less weak. The first game kind of got there - Belmont won 80-69
mostly because they hit so many shots that Illinois State’s huge rebounding
edge got washed out - but it was also an anomaly where two great offenses
had to take significantly more midrange twos than they’re used to. (Also,
this was Snowmageddon in Nashville, so the crowd was thinned out.) I don’t
trust much of anything about how Illinois State defends ball screens, and
almost any scenario involving a screener favors Belmont on offense to me.
The Bruins dumped an absurd 1.53 PPP on ISUred in Nashville in P&R sets,
partially because the Redbirds just…never adjusted. Even pick-and-pops were
left wide open:
0:00
/0:09
P&R isn’t a huge feature of Belmont’s offense but I’m not really sure
how ISUred plans on guarding any sort of screening action when 1) Belmont is
among the nation’s very best in dribble handoffs and 2) Illinois State runs
the same basic, laissez-faire drop coverage against those too. The good news
here is that matching up a weak two-way rebounding unit with arguably the
best two-way rebounding team in the MVC certainly favors the Redbirds. This
Belmont team is far better defensively than the Belmont teams of old, but
they’ve had major struggles in overcommitting on drives to the paint,
allowing an absolutely monstrous amount of kickout threes this year. It
allows them to wall off the rim exceptionally well, but they’re going to be
vulnerable to a huge shooting day from Boden Skunberg and/or Landon Wolf.
Bonus points if this is the day Johnny Kinzinger hits threes. Whichever
offense blinks first loses. - Will Warren
C Games
#115 Murray State at #127 Bradley (-4), 2 PM ET, ESPN+.
I think it’s possible for the loser here to fall out of the top 5 in the
Valley, and thus lose out on a bye spot in Arch Madness, but I’m not
entirely certain of the tiebreaker scenarios. First meeting between these
two saw Jaquan Johnson struggle to his worst offensive game of the season,
shooting 2-12 against Murray State drop coverage. Johnson has been on an
offensive tear to close out the regular season however, and Bradley
desperately needs his ball screen and dribble creation in the rematch in
Peoria. The Racers were in the middle of racing out to an 8-0 Valley start
when they first met the Braves back on January 4, but since that blazing
start they’ve gone 4-7 with truly awful perimeter defense. Since that 8-0
start, the Racers have played like the 192nd best team in the country, with
the 293rd defense. Yes, a -11% 3PT% delta in that stretch is brutal, but the
rim defense has been just as bad, sitting at 310th in 2PT% defense in that
span. If Johnson plays like he has of late on the ball and the Racers defend
on the ball like they have of late, the Braves should finish out with a home
win and an Arch Madness bye. - Jordan Majewski
-Belmont @ Illinois State (Missouri Valley) – Belmont has
already wrapped up 1st place and should be positioned to end up on about
the 12 line if they can win out through the conference tournament.
This will be a bit of a test on the road tonight.
40. Belmont (26-4): Arch Madness will be a zoo, but Belmont is the top-shelf team in the Missouri Valley. Big man Drew Scharnowski
hammers dunks left and right, and there's size and shooting everywhere.
Belmont's offense ranks No. 1 in effective field goal percentage, and
this is one of the best shot-blocking teams that coach Casey Alexander
has ever had.
Scariest team on each of the top-12 seed lines
68.
12 seed: Belmont. This mid-major roster doesn't look like a typical
mid-major roster. Too big. Too much shooting. Too many real players.
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