Evansville Preview

Just a few quick thoughts about Evansville...

The Aces are being picked to finish in the top 4 or 5 this year in the Valley - but I have to believe that trend is not based so much on the Aces' STRENGTH as it is on the perceived weakness of the other teams that get rated below Evansville.
A top half finish might be a bit optimistic.

Here's what Evansville has this year...

This is Marty Simmons' 5th year at Evansville and his overall record there is 51-72 and Marty has never finished about .500 in the Valley.
They are coming off a 14-15 year but as in most other years - when the chips were down - over the final six games, the Aces lost five of them -

Of course their best scorer Colt Ryan returns, but I have always said that Ryan gets his points at the cost of being a gunner and a bit of a ball hog and that hurts the team's play. They'd definitly be worse without him but I contend his numbers are deceptive.....Ryan plays a lot of minutes, takes a lot of shots, but helps the team very little in all the other ways...
He's not much of a passer or ballhandler, only 2 apg despite being among the Valley leaders in minutes played and probably leading the Valley in touches of the ball....
He also led the team in turnovers, and among the bigger guards in the league, he gets only 3 rpg....recall Andrew Warren hauled down almost 6 rpg.
Ryan's production fell off in league play and he didn't even finish among the top 15 in the MVC in 3-pt shooting pct.
He only averaged 1.7 3-pointers made per MVC game compared to 2.4 for Warren.

Last year nobody else on the team averaged over ~8 ppg...but their real weakness will be their frontcourt...
they do not have a single player over 6-6 who returns with any experience at all!
Juco transfer Kenneth Harris and guard-turned-forward Denver Holmes are really the only players even over 6-4 who return or has more than 8-9 minutes per game playing in the frontcourt...and neither is going to be able to defend the average post player on their schedule.
They list Harris as a guard but he'll have to log some minutes as a forward given that they don't have anyone else except a couple really inexperienced freshmen.

One new player is a kid I like, Jordan Nelson from Lincoln High School in Lincoln, IL. he's a good shooter and might get some playing time...but Evansville's deepest position is already shooting guard.

They're schedule has Indiana & North Carolina - so we'll see if they can beat those guys with guards!

Given the bottom 6-8 teams in the Valley this season all have weak spots, Evansville might surprise, but I'd pick them for bottom half -- and I think the Valley teams have seen enough tape now on Colt Ryan that his production will stall at about 14-15 ppg.