Quick Sbc Recap

[Censored by Laurie]

USA - 85 FIU - 73 - Demetric Bennett dropped 30...and is now tied for second in the SBC sccoring. Daniel Hayles, an Auburn transfer who became eligible in December, has been slowly getting comfortable in Ronnie Arrows rotation. Hayles had his best offensive performance last night, scoring 11 on 5 of 6 shooting...Hayles is a lock down defender, and if he can get his scoring up to about 8 per game, USA will be very scary. Kenneth White led the way for the Panthers with 22, Russell Hicks chipped in 15.

WKU - 80 FAU - 62 - No longer wanting to draw the ire of WKU fans, no more a disparaging word against the Toppers. Courtney Lee went for 27, and Tyrone Brazelton added 17...but WKU's biggest accomplishment was on defense, holding Carlos Monroe to 5 points on 2-10 shooting. Inconsistant point guard Carderro Nwoji found his stroke for a night for the Owls, going 4-7 from three, finishing with a team high 19.

MTSU - 65 Troy - 64 - Atleast one of my pre-season predictions seems to be panning out...MTSU sophmore forward Desmond Yates is really coming on. Yates is 11th in the conference in scoring at 13.9 ppg...an average he has upped to 18.8 in conference. Last night Yates for a season high 24, while wing Demetrius Green added 14. O'Darien Bassett led the Trojans with 25.

Tuesday...

ULL - 67 UVST - 59 - I wonder if Utah Valley State is positioning itself to become the 14th basketball member of the SBC. The D-1 Independent played its 4th of 5 games against the Belt last night...and fell to 2-2 in SBC play. David Dees moved back into the starting line-up and responded with 20 points.

[untgeorge]

WKU has wins over Michigan and Nebraska and lost to Gonzaga by only 3 on a neutral court. Way too early to count WKU out yet.

[chrisfisher]

WKU has wins over Michigan and Nebraska and lost to Gonzaga by only 3 on a neutral court. Way too early to count WKU out yet.

And nearly beat a Top 10 team in Tennessee... went down the wire.... and WKU probably got screwed by the refs... the number of trips to the free throw line discrepancy was despicable given how much each team drove to hoop that game...

[Censored by Laurie]

To quote the great Nina Simone, "don't let me be misunderstood." I think WKU is a very good team...second best in the conference...and their loss to USA was in Mobile, a game at Diddle may have different results. I suppose I am critical of them, however, because I have higher expectations...have had higher expectations...and yet they continue to disappoint. I've said repeatedly that if Western would've maintained the success they had in 01-03...the conference would be in much better shape.

I'm also thoroughly sick and tired of WKU fans thinking they are wallowing in the slums of college basketball in the SBC...again, when in proving their superiority...have failed to earn an NCAA bid since 2003. The conference has caught up to WKU.

Position by position with USA, WKU and UNT I think it comes out as a wash...and out of those 3, WKU clearly has the worst coach. The bottom of the league is proving to be much worse than I imagined it would be at the start of the year, but its improving, and the top is very good...and getting much better.

And its slow at work...so heres that position by position break down:

PG - WKU-Tyrone Brazelton(13.2ppg, 3.2apg); USA-Daon Merritt(11.5ppg, 5.2apg); UNT-Ben Bell(8.9ppg, 3.2apg)

Rank- Merritt, Brazelton, Bell - Braz is the best scorer, Merritt is probably the best pure point in the Conference.

SG - WKU-A.J. Slaughter(7.1ppg, 1.9rpg); USA-B.J. Ford(3.4ppg, 0.5rpg)UNT-Josh White(15.9ppg, 2.9rpg)

Rank - White, Slaughter, Ford - Josh has been outstanding, Ford is only a starter in name, and Slaughter splits time.

SF - WKU-Courtney Lee(20.7ppg, 4.1rpg, 2.1apg); USA-Demetric Bennett(20.7ppg, 5.9rpg, 2.5apg);UNT-Collin Dennis(13.8ppg, 3.1rpg, 0.8apg)

Rank - Lee, Bennett, Dennis - Barely Lee, and maybe more on reputation has Bennett's numbers have been better lately.

PF - WKU-Jeremy Evans(4.2ppg, 5.0rpg); USA-Brandon Davis(11.2ppg, 5.9rpg); UNT-Quincy Williams(9.6ppg, 7.6rpg)

Rank - Williams, Davis, Evans - Quincy has been playing great as of late, Davis has really come on as well

C - WKU-D.J. Magley(4.7ppg, 3.2rpg); USA-DeAndre Coleman(6.9ppg, 8.4rpg); UNT-Keith Wooden(11.2ppg, 6.2rpg)

Rank - Wooden, Coleman, Magley - Magley will eventually be better than any of these, but he's just a kid. Wooden is only on top if he can stay healthy

Bench - WKU - Ty Rogers, Orlando Mendez-Valdez, Boris Siakam, Stephon Pettigrew, Mike Walker (25.7ppg, 15.1rpg, 4.9apg)

USA - Dominic Tilford, Daniel Hayles, Ronald Douglas, Phil Tabet, DeAndre Ross (23.1ppg, 12.3rpg, 4.8 apg)

UNT - Tristan Thompson, Dez Willingham, Harold Stewart, Adam McCoy, Kedrick Hogans (26.8ppg, 13.8 rpg, 4.2 apg)

Rank - WKU, UNT, USA - WKU has interchangable parts at the 2, 4 and 5 positions and they don't lose much if anyone of these bench players were to start. UNT's bench has been good, but lacks size, and USA is essentially on an 8 man rotation.

My, did this rant get out of control. Keep my work day entertaining and lets get a good discussion going here...or Justin just go ahead and hijack this thread