Taylor Brown and other Valley news

Taylor Brown is becoming a fan favorite, and consistently putting up good numbers.
Here's a comparison of Taylor's scoring numbers alongside similar numbers of other good scorers in the Valley's recent history.

Taylor Brown is averaging 16.8 points per game and is only 6 games into his sophomore season. He has played a total of 42 games and 605 minutes in his career, so he's still very early in his playing career at Bradley and still developing and improving.
Here's a comparison of how various players at this same point in their careers were doing........
These are/were the per game scoring averages of some of the better recent Valley players just a handful of games into their sophomore season...

Taylor Brown 16.8
Andrew Warren 13.2
Sam Maniscalco 12.6
Osiris Eldridge 15.8
P'Allen Stinnett 12.5
Josh Young 15.9
Kevin Dillard 14.8
Jamaal Tatum 12.3
Kyle Korver 14.6
Tarise Bryson 15.5

So if Taylor can keep up the current average or improve on it, he will have one of the better years scoring-wise in the MVC in the past year...perhaps even the best such year.
But Taylor also adds rebounding, defense, and a certain energy to the equation.

If you look at the current MVC stats, and add points per game plus rebounds per game, the the Valley leaders look like this...

Osiris Eldridge 23.6
Taylor Brown 23.0
Colt Ryan 20.8
James Haarsma 20.6
Jordan Eglseder 20.3
Kyle Weems 20.1
Kenny Lawson 20.0
Dinma Odiakosa 20.0
Adam Koch 19.8
Toure Murry 19.5
Dwayne Lathan 19.4
Kwadzo Ahelegbe 19.2
and nobody else in the league is even close to 20 in this tally.


Here are a couple other stats that are nice to see so far this year...
--Bradley has only 97 total turnovers, 12 per game...
the past two seasons the average has been at about 15 turnovers per game

--BU's average of 16.5 fouls committed per game is also way better than recent seasons and so we are sending them to the line much less.

--BU's 3-pt shooting pct. is improved this season

--BU's assist to turnover ration is way better this year than last year

--areas we need improvement...shooting pct, FT shooting, and rebounding!
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-Pepperdine lost last night at home to California Baptist, a small NAIA school! Oddly, due to the differences in the rules between NCAA and NAIA, California Baptist was unable to count this as a regular season game, thus it is officially an exhibition game for them - and they cannot count this win over an NCAA Division I team as an official win!
However, Pepperdine can and does count this as an official game, so it is a bad loss in their books!
http://www.pepperdinesports.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=90183&SPID=10851&DB_OEM_ID=18500&ATCLID=204847288
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Creighton's Chad Millard is trying to come back from a lot of setbacks this season.
http://creighton.rivals.com/content.asp?CID=1026541
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Creighton's Anthony Tolliver is tearing up the D-League and might be making a statement that he deserves another shot.
http://my.nba.com/cms/104343/gatorade_callup_outlook_128
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Drake's freshman David Smith tore ligaments in his left foot and will be out at least a month.

Missouri State starting center Will Creekmore was injured in their last game, played only 15 minutes and is in a walking boot. No official word on condition.

SIU's Jack Crowder has a broken collar bone and is out at least a month.

ISU's Zeke Upshaw has seemingly confirmed on his social network page that he's going to redshirt.

Nice story on Dinma, he has worked himself into a reliable guy in the paint.
http://pantagraph.com/sports/college/illinois-state/article_8ca8dc32-e5f5-11de-97a9-001cc4c002e0.html

The last couple years Butler beat most of the top BCS teams they played, but this year they are losing all those games (Minnesota, Clemson, Georgetown).

After Missouri lost recently to Richmond and Oral Roberts, the St. Louis Post Dispatch has anointed Missouri State as the best team in the state!
http://www.stltoday.com/blogzone/bernies-extra-points/bernies-extra-points/bernies-5-minutes/2009/12/mason-conklin-best-blues-tandem/

Time Magazine has a list of "Worst Team Names" and one Valley team, the Evansville Purple Aces, make the list.
http://www.courierpress.com/news/2009/dec/09/time-magazine-dubs-purple-aces-among-10-worst-team/

Here's the whole list, and I'd have ranked the Dirtbags #1...

1. UC Santa Cruz Banana Slugs
2. The University of Hawaii Rainbow Warriors
3. The NYU Violets
4. The MIT Engineers
5. Pace (University) Setters
6. St. Louis College of Pharmacy Eutectics
7. The Long Beach State Dirtbags
8. Grays Harbor College Chokers
9. The University of Evansville Purple Aces
10. Evergreen State College Geoducks
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/completelist/0,29569,1898998,00.html#ixzz0ZO1HCJKN