2025-26 Around The Valley

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I might have said it here or somewhere else…

I think moving forward you have to evaluate non-conference with this in mind especially when mids have a lot of other somewhat random mids.

Almost everyone is going to have roster turnover. So you can’t really evaluate history or even program prestige when evaluating strength of schedule.

I think you need to have intimate knowledge of the players they lost, players they have coming back, NIL budget and how the did in the portal to really fully grasp if a team or teams on a non conference schedule are bad vs good.

What was a good mid last year, 5 years ago or historically doesn’t really matter anymore - what matters is who did the lose, retain, how much money they got and how well did the spend it. Everything else that we know about most of these schools from the past 20+ years of watching them is obsolete.

*And this is information I will never be able to know or care to know about our schedule… It’s just too deep of a dive - but I don’t know how anyone can really know without this information on every school what is a good non conference schedule vs a bad one.
 
Blue Ribbon is out with their Valley picks and all league team:

1-Illinois State
2-UNI
3-Belmont
4-Murray State
5-Bradley
6-Southern Illinois
7-Drake
8-Evansville
9-UIC
10-Valpo
11-Indiana State

First Team:
Chase Walker-Ill St
Tyler Lundblade-Belmont
Isaiah Stafford-SIU
Trey Campbell-UNI
Johnny Kinziger-Ill St

Preaseason team it's whatever. Isiah Stafford being first team coming off of not playing a whole year just tells me they didn't really think that through.

The Preseason Poll is where I'm like you guys are not even serious. I bet my paycheck we will not finish dead last.
 

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Valley is always a guessing game (other than UE at the bottom), which is what makes it a fun conference to follow.

I honestly think I’m rooting for ILSU to fail more than BU this season. While the Redbirds did a great job retaining players they went 10-10 in conference last season and won the weakest post season tournament I’ve ever seen to get them over the 20 win mark. I’m just not buying the hype that they can compete at a high level for a full 20 game conference schedule. They will be one of the more talented teams; sure. But they aren’t winning this thing
 
Still think Murray State is the dark horse. If he can get the talent and new guys to gel, Racers could be good.

I also agree that we won’t finish last. Unless we have several guys get hurt or something. Otherwise, ain’t gonna happen.
 
For what it's worth, here are last years Blue Ribbon predictions compared to actual finish

  1. Bradley (2nd)
  2. UNI (3rd)
  3. Drake (1st)
  4. Illinois State (5th)
  5. Belmont (4th)
  6. Murray State (7th)
  7. Southern Illinois (8th)
  8. Valparaiso (11th)
  9. Evansville (10th)
  10. Indiana State (9th)
  11. UIC (6th)
  12. Missouri State (12th)
 
Bluethunder said:
Still think Murray State is the dark horse. If he can get the talent and new guys to gel, Racers could be good.

I also agree that we won’t finish last. Unless we have several guys get hurt or something. Otherwise, ain’t gonna happen.
Click to expand...

Yep, they bought a pretty impressive roster.
 

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previous MurrayState offense: dribble-dribble-dribble-dribble-dribble-dribble-dribble-dribble-dribble-dribble - clang.
 
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