The Sporting News Preseason College Basketball issue is out...and ...Who is Transfer U.???

The Sporting News Preseason College Basketball issue is out...

and I can save you all the time and trouble if you're interested.......
other wise...go and get it....but it is basically a carbon copy of the Lindy's and Athlon guides.

It has little new and even stuff from August is lacking....like the blurb on Bradley says they'll be going to Brazil but mentions no scores nor results whatsoever, so was likely compiled back in July.

Anyway- the main part is stuff all about Calipari as if he's a god (about 6-7 pages) and the usual drooling over Kansas, Duke, and UNC...

The Valley, like all the non-BCS conferences is relegated to the deep part of the magazine and gets a grand total of about 4 pages.
There's one page each for UNI and Creighton as if they are at least teams worthy of people knowing about....
then ISU & SIU split a page, then all the rest of the Valley get about a single page.

Their predictions say only one Valley team will make the NCAA..UNI will be a 10th seed...but they also have Northwestern as a 12th seed so they are really going with the long shots.

The overall Top 25 has Kansas #1, Butler #14, Illinois #21, Dayton #23....and the rest are about the same as everyone else has them.

Even their Valley section made me check the cover a couple times, as I thought I was reading Lindy's or Athlon again...
I can't figure out why if this issue comes out a FULL MONTH after Lindy's why can't they have at least a LITTLE info that's newer than those other guys but they don't.

Even their preseason picks in the Valley are not much to please a Bradley fan...

They pick the Valley to go like this...
UNI, CU, ISU, SIU, WSU, BU, InSU, DU, UE, MSU...
so yet another issue that picks Bradley 6th...

Their single All Valley team is--Kwadzo, Eldridge, Koch, Stinnett, and Josh Young.
They do have EIGHTEEN "BESTS"....like best scorer, best rebounder, best shooter, best penetrator, best NBA candidate, best team player, etc....etc...

and guess how many of the BESTS are Bradley players??

well, if you answered ZERO, you win...they really don't think Bradley has anyone worth mentioning.

The Best Coach to place on the HOT SEAT, thankfully isn't JL, it's Gregg Marshall of Wichita State.

Their short 1/6th of a page on Bradley still says James Robertson is on the team and has a short mention of how Jim Les was on the 32-3 team in 1985 that went to the NCAA (I guess they mean 1986), and they do mention that Sam M had a decent year last year. Otherwise, nobody else is mentioned except in the roster but they do mention Prosser is a good "back to the basket" center (they must have read it somewhere.
Warren & Egolf are simply labeled as returning redshirt players.....


a couple more facts...they pick WIU to finish 8th out of 10 in the Summit
Saint Louis is picked 11 in A-10, Dayton #1, Xavier #2.
Big East - DePaul is picked 15th ahead of #16 Providence (ouch - I bet that hurts Keno!!)
Illinois is slated as #4 in Big Ten.

that's all that was worth mentioning....I didn't buy it, just sat there and read the whole thing and took notes...
It really read like an issue that was written by someone who had just read the Athlon and Lindy's and taken notes...but I guess there isn't much money for those guys to sink into reporting on the Valley....so they mostly hung with the topics on the bigger conferences.
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.....Transfer U????
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Here are the transfer players on each roster...I am not primarily counting the standard juco-to-D-I kids, as virtually every program has some of those, this is only counting the kids that leave or get booted from other programs and then land at one of the Valley schools. Keep in mind that a couple of the main reasons kids transfer are either they aren't happy and become disgruntled with either the coach or the playing time, or they are discipline problems or ball hoggers and are sent packing.
In order to help you decide on whether any of these kids fit these descriptions, I have added a couple simple stats...


Bradley-
--has NO transfers and only two juco kids

Creighton-
--Chad Millard from Louisville - after shooting only 35% in 2007-2008, his playingn time droped significantly under Dana and in 2008-2009 he didn't even get 10 minutes per game. Over his career he has generated only about one pt. per shot attempted. At Louisville in 2005-2006, in 12.2 min per game, he averaged 2 pp, on 2 shots per game and 0.3 assists per game. His shot attempted per assist ratio is almost 6 : 1.
--plus four juco kids

Drake-
--Jordan Clarke from Vermont - in 22 games at Vermont, he avg. 1 ppg, 1.5 rpg.
FG% was 35%, and shots attempted to assist ration was 12.3 : 1
--Ryan Wedel from Arkansas State - in two years at Arkansas St., avg. 12.8 ppg, shooting 600 shots...nearly 1/5 of the entire team's total in that interval...
he avg. 2.2 assists per game.
--Adam Templeton a forward from UC-Irvine - in 2 years at UC-I as an Anteater, he avg 6 ppg, and as a soph took 154 3-pt attempts.
--plus one juco kid

Evansville-
--Brian Bouchie from Valparaiso - in his only season at Valpo avg 7 ppg, 3 rpg, 0.7 apg. he had nearly a 10 : 1 asst to shot att. ratio.
--and no jucos

Illinois State-
--Trey Blue from Fordham - in one season hit 32% of 155 shots and only 31% of 3-pointers 8 ppg, 1.3 apg
--Blake Mishler from East Tennessee State - in two seasons at ETSU, 2.5 ppg, 1.4 rpg, 70 shot attempts and a grand total of only two assists. (35:1)
--and five jucos, plus their leading scorer in 2008-2009 (Oguchi) was also a transfer, and they had two other D-I transfers (Odzic, Shipley) as well and both were sent packing before their eligibility was up.

Indiana State-
--Josh Crawford was at Iowa for a year where he scored 6 pts total in 11 games,
--Dwayne Lathan came from Louisiana Tech where he avg 8 ppg on 88-213 shots, and 14 assists (ratio 15:1) and a 29% 3-pt shooter.
--Jake Kelly is the highly touted transfer from Iowa, he was their top scorer on 212-492 (43%) and as a soph was 36% from 3-pt range and took 20% of his team's shots & accounted for 1.3 pts per shot taken (for comparison Andrew Warren as a soph was at 1.4 pt/shot att. Kelly is listed as a point guard and has a career 2.5 assists per game.
--also Jordan Printy verballed elsewhere before coming to InSU but in his 1st year nailed 37% of his shots for 6 ppg
--two are jucos

Missouri State-
--Adam Leonard from Eastern Kentucky - in two years at EKU, 12.2 ppg, 40.6% FG shooting and a whopping 458 3-pt attempts in 62 games played (almost 8 per game).
His 614 total shot attempted in those two seasons amounts to 20% of his entire team's totals,
--Caleb Patterson from Colorado - played 14 games at CU, 1.4 ppg, 23% FG shooting - even tried 12 three-pointers, making just one (8.3%) and had 3 assists (not 3 per game)
--Will Creekmore from Boston University - was a 27% shooter at Boston U, didn't have a single assist, and last year at MSU avg 7.7 ppg on 45% FG shooting.
--two more are jucos

Northern Iowa-
--Adam Rodenberg from UC-Irvine - avg 6.8 ppg as a freshman there but only played 6 games, mostly end-game settings, and last year with UNI got 1.4 ppg, and 1.0 rpg
--and one juco

SIU-
--Tony Freeman from Iowa - in 3 years at Iowa 7.5 ppg, but 13 as a junior.
37% shooter, and 35% from 3-pt range. 2.7 apg,
--plus 3 jucos

Wichita State-
--Gabe Blair from east Carolina - in two years at ECU avg 6.5 ppg on 42% shooting. He was 0-14 from 3-pt range, and a 62% FT shooter.
--plus two jucos


So it is indeed a very tight battle between ISU, Drake, Indiana State, and Missouri State as to who really deserves the moniker of Transfer U.
MSU and InSU are rebuilding and dno't do the transfer thing year after year - so this is just an aberration.
While Drake's D-I transfers aren't really being asked or expected to be the centerpiece of the entire program even when they have only a single year of eligibility remaining, as is the case at ISU and SIU.
Add to that the large number of other transfers whose names are also linked and who ISU always seems to be after as well...even when they are booted elsewhere for criminal activity, and the fact that even in the Porter Moser era they still went after all the disgruntled transfers and made them starters (Guidry, Planck, etc..)!!!
....then I'd confidently have to give the award of...
Transfer U. to the Illinois State Redbirds !!!!!
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Here's a column about juco kids and their impact, specifically in the Big East. Very few juco kids really have any impact there, and in the past FIVE years...the writer finds only four who had any impact (Kentrell Gransberry, Rodney Epperson, John Williamson, and Jihad Muhammad) ...and even then, I doubt anyone reading this can even tell me who they play for - proving those decent juco kids would be far better off going to a mid-major and possibly being All-League!!
Dwight Buycks are you listening??
http://www.crackedsidewalks.com/2009/10/jucos-in-big-east.html
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More on the brawls and riots at Kansas last week....seems there were crimes that occurred and the Kansas authorities obviously tried to whitewash the whole thing.
Now the police are involved and arresting people!
http://bradleyfans.com/vb/showthread.php?p=141326#post141326post141326
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I guess I am not surprised and even a little pleased that Bradley is getting no respect in the preseason...benig rated in the 5-6th range in many of the preseason guides.
We have five guards returning and strong, all of whom could start at many if not most other schools in the valley (McCain, Maniscalco, Roberts, Dunson, Warren).
And Bradley's frontcuort should be at least as trong and stronger than last year with TB, WE, AT, SS, JP, and MK!
I got a kick out of a thread on the Saluki board in which one guy predicts that Bradley wil be playing Thursday night along with Indiana State.
And one ISU board thread has the audacity to criticize Bradley's non-conference schedule!!
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Anyone notice that with all the NCAA actions, and all their pronouncements, and all the schools being hit with violations...

They still haven't uttered a word on the Reggie Bush cheating at USC (nor the OJ Mayo freebies) and they have totally sidestepped and ignored all those cheatnig phone calls at UConn by Jim Calhoun!
It's been 5 years since the Reggie Bush cheating became obvious to the world...and going on a year since the cheating at UConn was revealed.