Happy Birthday Will Egolf, toning UP the rhetoric and some Valley notes

Happy Birthday Will Egolf! (22nd)

Even thought we are being told to tone down the rhetoric, I will pay no mind to that as our rhetoric here is polite, yet important and necessary.
So -- here are two important rhetorical questions....answer for yourselves, but I am quite certain I already know the answers.

In the past two years the administration at Bradley has made MANY major changes.
They have canned or replaced..

-One Athletic Director plus a couple assistants in the department

-SIX head coaches (baseball, Cross Country, Tennis, Women's Golf, Volleyball, softball)

-and at least a dozen other different assistant coaches (including at least TWO and depending on what you believe, three basketball assistants).

Then here are the questions...

A) Despite the wholesale tinkering and changes.....are any of the programs consistently better or moreso heading in the "right" direction?
Keep in mind, the one reasonably successful softball season was due to all the great senior holdovers from the prior staff.

B) And despite all the personnel that have had the carpet yanked out from under them and the general lack of any feeling of security by anyone still there from before a couple years ago -- are any of the fans (or message board posters) any happier about ANYTHING than they were before all these massive changes and overhauls?

In other words....the very people whining and calling for changes have gotten plenty...and yet none have helped yet and none have even caused a minute or temporary stoppage in the caterwaul of complaining!

Hey -- I'm not against change if someone can show me the person doing the changing or the changes that have made to this point have, at any time, given anyone any benefit!

Or are people just simply so chronically miserable that "change" just for the sake of change is the only thing that they hope for? Seems like the last election proved a lot of people who clammor for change never bother to contemplate or put any thinking into what the impact of those changes might be or the fact that change alone can sometimes lead NOWHERE -- or worse, can lead to far less satisfactory end results.



A few Valley notes.......

-Indiana State lands verbal from a Class of 2012 player very similar to Just Gant (who's going to Indiana State next year).

Rhett Smith is a 6-7 forward who likes to shoot outside. He also had an offer from Gardner-Webb.
http://is.gd/Wrxd2f

One target of BU, Phillip Greene who was at IMG and was a teammate last year at Chicago Julian of Walt Lemon, verbaled to St. John's.
St. John's head coach Steve Lavin will have an interesting year next year as their recruiting class for next fall brings in NINE new players!
http://is.gd/up6off

After Missouri State's loss to Indiana State Wednesday -- both Kyle Weems and head coach Cuonzo Martin had some negative things to say about the officiating..
Kind of a little unsportsmanlike!
http://is.gd/1jcKaB


With 2 minutes to go in the UNI win over Wichita State, JT Durley injured his ankle and left the game.
He did not return to the game and there's been no word on whther he will miss any games due to the injury.
He was taken for XRays and the report was there are no fractures.
Durley commented on his Facebook that he had suffered a bone contusion, which is sometimes quite difficult to get over in any short span.
Durley has been to this point, arguably, the Shockers' most valuable player as Toure Murry has struggled at times, and Kyles has lost his starting spot.
Demetric Williams is also injured.

The Shockers, who were cruising at the top of the MVC, have now lost their last TWO home games, and they host Indiana State Saturday night.

one other Shocker note...
the weather was bad for Wednesday's game but not entirely horrible, and yet literally HALF the seats in the arena were empty as anyone could see who may have caught the game on Comcast.
http://is.gd/lYNAR2


Here's acomment from one of the Illinois blogs -- if I was Max I'd take this as an insult. They don't really seem to want Max, they seem to just want to be sure he doesn't land elsewhere and that maybe his presence even as a walk on might raise the GPA of the Illini -- that's kind of an insult!

Here's the quote:
"More and more, Illinois is warming to the idea of taking Peoria Notre Dame's Max Bielfeldt, if he will have them, in 2012. We'll see. But that is a better possibility now than, say, a month ago. If nothing else, he would raise their team GPA."

Illini fans on their boards universally really don't want him -- they are bummed about even the possibility that he'd take a scholarship away from a better player and would be a 4-year project or a redshirt that wouldn't help them until he was a senior..

Meanwhile over on the Hoosier board, the IU fans and even their beat writers celebrate that they stayed within 10 pts of Wisconsin.
Kind of a sorry state of affairs for the once proud Hoosier fan base!
BUT -- Wisconsin doesn't have the home court prowess as much as they used to -- three of Wisconsin's four home games in the Big Ten have been within 10 and the other one (16 pt over Michigan) was closer than the final indicates.

Arizona State gets blown out again -- Brandon Dunson didn't even play..

Robert Covington (Tenn St.) has had three consecutive great games..
18 pts/15 reb
13 pts/14 reb
20 pts/10 reb
...and we used the last ride that year on Dyricus...

ACC standings show some surprises...
Remember UNC was ranked Top 10 in the preseason and Virginia Tech, NC State, and Maryland all also got mentioned in early rankings...

BUT -- at this point Duke and also FSU & BC are at 4-1
UNC at 12-5 is in 4th place, then VT, then Clemson, Ga Tech, Miami, NC State, Maryland & Va are all at or below .500 and huddled in the lower half of the ACC - all with 5-8 losses!