Forde: The weakest Missouri Valley champion in years

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Jason Svoboda

Jason Svoboda

The Bird Level
Administrator
Best Case: Sycamores channel Larry Bird, shooting brilliantly from every position and hurting Syracuse's half-hearted zone. Entire crowd in Cleveland gets behind the upset bid as Indiana State takes a nine-point halftime lead and attempts to hold on. It doesn't hold on, losing the lead in the final four minutes, but earn national respect for playing better than anticipated. Bird sends a congratulatory text to the team. So does Carl Nicks, but nobody remembers who he is.

Worst Case: Something gets lost in spirit-world translation, and the Sycamores actually channel Eddie Bird, Larry's less-talented little brother who was Indiana State's leading scorer when it was losing 20 games a year in the late 1980s. A team that lost to Loyola-Illinois, Eastern Kentucky, Ball State and Wyoming has no business beating Syracuse, and that is abundantly clear in the early going. Sycamores fall behind quickly and stay there, watching the Orange throw lobs over their heads all day. Nobody sends congratulatory texts. Not even Eddie Bird.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/tournament/2011/columns/story?columnist=forde_pat&id=6219985
 

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What a jackass. I guess it doesn't matter that we play some pretty stout defense ourselves. We're just weak. Oh well, win the game, and that tune will change...

What kills me is that this kind of crap is coming from everyone but the Syracuse fans on here. They've been great! Better than our MVC bretheren, even...
 
Jason Svoboda said:
Best Case: Sycamores channel Larry Bird, shooting brilliantly from every position and hurting Syracuse's half-hearted zone. Entire crowd in Cleveland gets behind the upset bid as Indiana State takes a nine-point halftime lead and attempts to hold on. It doesn't hold on, losing the lead in the final four minutes, but earn national respect for playing better than anticipated. Bird sends a congratulatory text to the team. So does Carl Nicks, but nobody remembers who he is.

Worst Case: Something gets lost in spirit-world translation, and the Sycamores actually channel Eddie Bird, Larry's less-talented little brother who was Indiana State's leading scorer when it was losing 20 games a year in the late 1980s. A team that lost to Loyola-Illinois, Eastern Kentucky, Ball State and Wyoming has no business beating Syracuse, and that is abundantly clear in the early going. Sycamores fall behind quickly and stay there, watching the Orange throw lobs over their heads all day. Nobody sends congratulatory texts. Not even Eddie Bird.

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/tournament/2011/columns/story?columnist=forde_pat&id=6219985
Click to expand...

locker room material!
 

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Throwing "lobs over our heads?" LOL

While Boeheim is without a doubt, the #1 "big man" coach in America, I see nothing on his vitae that suggests a history of high-pressure perimeter guard play. We'll see how vaunted that zone "D" is on Friday, won't we?

Forde needs to drop the "e" and qualify for the NATIONAL RECALL for a defective MAP SENSOR!
 
I ignore this crap, primarily because Indiana State could win the freaking national championship and one of these so-called experts would still find a reason to diminish its significance. The potential comments are easy to predict:

  1. After a 1st round upset: "Syracuse looked past the Sycamores and didn't come to play."
  2. After a 2nd round upset: See above but change the opponent's name.
  3. After advancing to but being beaten in the Sweet 16, Elite 8 or Final 4: "Indiana State had a nice little run, but a loss at this point isn't surprising because they had no business being here."
  4. After winning the national championship: The back-handed compliments would rain down upon us. ISU would be the great Cinderella team that won only because "this team" or "that other team" lost early and provided an easier road for the Sycamores.

It took years of consistent NCAA tourney appearances before the likes of Gonzaga and Butler were no long labeled as Cinderellas, so maybe by the time Odum is a senior the Trees will finally get some modicum of legitimate respect from these blowhard yahoos.
 
funny how anyone that has seen us play gives reasons why we could play and every idiot in the media that thinks they are going to score a laugh and are too lazy to do research sit there and make jokes. The best thing we could do is shut them up and when and start a twitter campaign and rub some faces in it (cough, Jay Bilas).

GO STATE
 

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The fact is we did drop those four games before the Valley began. We had a new coach who, even though he had been in the system, was still new at his job. Yes, it was discouraging at the time, but look how the Trees played down the stretch, which is what most people who know look at. I believe Syracuse sees that, and that is what worried the Orange. Go Big Blue!
 
Was the writer trying to be funny? Just sounds spiteful and mean. Seems to be a trend with ESPN's coverage during this NCAA tournament. Maybe they're just bummed they don't get to broadcast these games.
 
XTreeXC said:
I ignore this crap, primarily because Indiana State could win the freaking national championship and one of these so-called experts would still find a reason to diminish its significance. The potential comments are easy to predict:

  1. After a 1st round upset: "Syracuse looked past the Sycamores and didn't come to play."
  2. After a 2nd round upset: See above but change the opponent's name.
  3. After advancing to but being beaten in the Sweet 16, Elite 8 or Final 4: "Indiana State had a nice little run, but a loss at this point isn't surprising because they had no business being here."
  4. After winning the national championship: The back-handed compliments would rain down upon us. ISU would be the great Cinderella team that won only because "this team" or "that other team" lost early and provided an easier road for the Sycamores.

It took years of consistent NCAA tourney appearances before the likes of Gonzaga and Butler were no long labeled as Cinderellas, so maybe by the time Odum is a senior the Trees will finally get some modicum of legitimate respect from these blowhard yahoos.
Click to expand...

You do realize that our own CONFERENCE treats us that way right?
 
Precisely dgreen. I don't know why this kind of crap ever surprises us. We have sucked for a VERY long time (with the 2 yr exception.) The big boys don't like it when a team joins in on the fun. Like you said green, even in our own conference we are treated like 2nd rate citizens. All you can do is win and win and win and let them make excuses. I like it when the "big boys club" is forced to make excuses for the little guy beating them. None of this will change. Look who is in the media. Find out where they graduated. Most of them are from the very schools they promote constantly.
 
MEM said:
Precisely dgreen. I don't know why this kind of crap ever surprises us. We have sucked for a VERY long time (with the 2 yr exception.) The big boys don't like it when a team joins in on the fun. Like you said green, even in our own conference we are treated like 2nd rate citizens. All you can do is win and win and win and let them make excuses. I like it when the "big boys club" is forced to make excuses for the little guy beating them. None of this will change. Look who is in the media. Find out where they graduated. Most of them are from the very schools they promote constantly.
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The problem is that line of thinking is flawed. Teams changed. Coaches change and to paint our program with even last year's brush is short sighted and ignorant. I doubt many of these national pundits have seen us play aside from the Missouri Valley Championship Game.
 

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the key heading into a national tournament.....

or the playoffs.....etc.....is who is playing the best NOW.....ncaa tournament selections arent made in november, december or even january.......you look at who the hot teams are.....now.....in march.....

ok...isu lost early games to wyoming, ball state and eastern kentucky.....isu also lost closer games to purdue and notre dame.....they hammered depaul.....they swept last year's mvc cinderella, northern iowa.....they won two of three games over this year's regular season mvc champions, missouri state....they won over the second place team in the mvc, wichita state, in the post season tournament and lost a triple overtime game to the same team on the road.....

as for forde's comments about larry and eddie bird...if he looked recently, butler doesnt have gordon hayward any more.....and several of the other ncaa tournament teams dont have their greatest all time players on their rosters.....
 
That is my whole point Jason. The problem is these national pundits don't want us to succeed. Why would they want to make us look anything but lucky and fortunate that "they" let us in the tourney? Most of them have no journalistic credibility at all. They either played or graduated from one of the bcs schools. This has nothing at all with ISU, but rather the perception guys like forde want the public to believe.
 
By the way

out of respect for Eddie -- who was a pretty darn good player; if we would have had some decent talent around him when he was at ISU, we would have had an extremely good team. No Eddie was not Larry, but he was a very good shooter, very good passer (lot of balls went right by the heads of our other players those years), and a pretty good rebounder. Maybe more "athletic" than Larry.
But those were years when we often only had a couple of actual DIV I players even on the roster -- the others were nice guys, who'd had good years in high school, who should have been playing at Earlham College.
 
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