My pick for the auto bid in St Louis is Missouri State and my reason is simple. Check out what happened to the last 4 schools (Loyola, Wichita, Creighton, Tulsa) that left the conference. It's basically a tradition at this point.
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2024-25 Around The Valley
- Thread starter Jason Svoboda
- Start date
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No they will be in the bottom if not dead last.
Context matters.
Loyola, Wichita State, Creighton, and Tulsa were all good going into their final year. Loyola had 3/5 tournament appearances going into their final Valley year, WSU had 6 straight, Creighton had 7/13, and Tulsa had 3 straight.
Missouri State hasn't made the tournament since 1999.
Gotta LOOOVVEEEE that Lunardi is willing to dump worthless 2025 Big Dance brackets like THIS... released 24 Sept 24
https://www.espn.com/espn/feature/s...logy-2025-march-madness-men-field-predictions
Bradley is the MVC aq -- #13 seed
https://www.espn.com/espn/feature/s...logy-2025-march-madness-men-field-predictions
Bradley is the MVC aq -- #13 seed
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treeman
The Menser Level
If you squint your eyes and turn your head you might be able to find 5 guys that would be MVC preseason 3rd team.
So many unknowns throughout this conference. Weakest preseason team maybe ever
I'm trying to figure out if you were a media member how would you vote when you look up and see guys who avg 1.8 ppg at their previous stop. lol
embrace the roulette wheel...
randomly assign a player one of the 36-roulette wheel pockets and start spinning the wheel
did he say Andrew Graves?
"One of my favorite conferences is the Missouri valley so let me go out and butcher both of my guests names."
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Thanks for posting this.
I have to say, though, I very much disliked Graves' final few comments. He's going to have to stop with the self-deprecating commentary and start pumping the base up a bit. Constantly calling us a work in progress isn't endearing anyone. No matter what, expectations are higher than usual after the success we've experienced. Don't squash that before we even get a chance.
He definitely did. And he called Coach Wardle "Wardelle," and said he was the coach of Marquette. A very rocky start to the interviews!
Unfortunately I have to agree.
Work-in-progress a week into the job? An understatement, to say the least.
Work-in-progress 5 months in? Some of that's on you.
We lost our entire team, except for three players on the bench. Like every team in the country, we are very much and probably will be for a while into the season, a work in progress. Lots of teaching, cultural expectations, chemistry building, etc. that is still happening. I would rather him be honest than set the expectations up to win 30 games again, because that sets him and his team up for failure.
While we might not like it, he has to protect the guys and there's nothing wrong with saying the team is a work in progress. That's honestly a pretty vague statement that can be interpreted in a lot of ways, so no reason to take it and worry about it yet!
There is absolutely a way to answer that question honestly while still firing up your fanbase. You can say we'll be a work in progress, but you can also say no matter what the fans can expect to see a team that plays hard, tough, fast and will be good in the classroom. What you don't have to say is how we were kicking the ball all over the court the first few practices, but now we can actually dribble without drooling. That's effectively what he said. We were really bad, but now we're just kinda bad!
I get what he's trying to do, and I'm not going to lose any sleep over it; however, even if we are hitting the reset button a bit he still has to sell this program to the fans and future recruits.
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I get what you are saying but I disagree. He doesn't need to sell recruits they already doing that and using last year's success for that. Fans are already bought in and the season ticket sales reflect that. With Wardle on the interview with him, he could be underselling the team on purpose. But like you said it's not anything to lose sleep on.
Lou Holtz was famous for saying that he wasn't sure his team could be beat XXXX team. Even when ND was the best team in college football. Under promise, over deliver!!!
and 95% of all of the experts would laugh and roll their eyes at Lispin' Lou and his poor-mouthing of every opponent
always remember, never forget Lou put Every College Team He Coached On Probation - E-V-E-R-Y T-E-A-M
ISU should be able to win at least 15 games with the Charmin ultra-soft non-conference schedule they have.