Bradley's 2nd game vs. SEMO

Bradley's 2nd game is vs. Southeast Missouri State on Wednesday November 16.
I may not get a chance to review all the early teams but we actually hear a lot about SEMO so this game intrigues me.

The Ohio Valley Conference is 27th in strength out of 31 conferences, and SEMO finished 8th ahead of EIU (who some have been saying for years is right on the verge of a breakout - and are going to be good- yeah ...right), and Jacksonville State.

SEMO's RPI was 306 & SOS 295...with their only decent win being over Murray State and just about any other game they were within 20 points of their opponents was a game against someone in the RPI 300 range.
SEMO lost to both SIU and UMKC...
They started the season with 10 consecutive non-conference losses, but built their record up again once they got to play their hideously weak conference schedule.

They have a couple players of note...

Their best player by far is RS senior Leon Powell...at times dominating opponents...
Powell, a one time Bradley recruit out of St. Louis Vashon HS who then went to Indian Hills CC then had to redshirt 2009-2010 with a knee injury. In 2010-2011, Leon averaged 14.1 ppg and 7.7 rpg, but had several games of 20 points or more and then this game - Link - where he scored 36 points and had 8 rebs.

Leon lead the nation (D-I) in field goal percentage - 63%
http://gosoutheast.cstv.com/sports/m-baskbl/spec-rel/051111aaa.html

Also on their roster is Zach House, a 7-foot senior center originally from Rock Falls, IL, who started his career at Evansville - redshirted there then left and went to Sauk Valley CC.
In 2010-2011 Zach still barely made an impact with just 1.8 ppg & 2.6 rpg despite playing in all 32 games, starting nine of them and averaging 12 mpg.
His FG percentage of 30.3% is quite possibly the worst in college basketball for a 7-footer who takes all his shots from within a foot of the hoop.

Marcus Brister is a RS senior who bounced from high school to high school then to Iowa State (under Greg McDermott) then was booted and landed at juco (Eastfield College)...now at SEMO going into his final year.
He averages 5 ppg but is one of their prime players at 24 mpg.

Practically the entire rest of their roster are juco players...they had 10 juco kids last year plus 3 D-I transfers.
This coming season they will have no less than NINE juco kids....

SEMO also has two highly rated (3-Star) talented freshman kids out of Memphis on their team this fall. They should definitely have one of their better years and should finish higher in the OVC than any recent year. They will surely do better than EIU -- who I have read someone repeatedly claim is going to have a breakout year..

A recent article says that SEMO is getting paid $70,000 as a guarantee payment for this game -- LINK

That article also points out that SEMO's schedule contains TWO different NAIA teams, Harris-Stowe & Hannibal-LaGrange.