By Allan Lewis, Alestle Sports Editor
Allan Lewis, Alestle Sports Editor
Seems like it’s been forever since we have updated this thing, my apologies, got a little sidetracked with classes starting back up, but the Alestle started back up as well, no real excuses, no rest for the weary, that sort of thing.
All of that being said, there is a lot to talk about, so let’s get rolling!
The SIUE men’s basketball team has hit a rough patch. There have not been a whole lot of positives to write home about this season, there are various things factoring into this, and it has been a frustrating time for all of us who consider ourselves to be fans of the mighty Cougars. (Yeah, I know, I shouldn’t be a fan, because I’m a so-called ‘journalist,’ but the school gets tuition money from me too.)
The last column I wrote summed up what I feel this team is about, and since it ran the team has done nothing to make me change my mind. We suck.
It is hard to be rough on these guys. You cannot help but like our team, they’re a bunch of lovable losers, really classy guys and I’m sure all the losing has been taking its toll on them and incredibly hard to stomach. Going to Division I isn’t easy, and I do not like using it as an excuse because SIUE has so much going for it, being in the Ohio Valley Conference (No. 21 in conference RPI) and what not, having a great recruiting pipeline (St. Louis and Chicago) and becoming more and more a legit college.
Now I’m done being nice and ready to talk business.
Monday’s game shows us how far we have come, or not come for that matter throughout this process.
UT Martin entered the game dead-last in the OVC. At the Alestle, we count OVC games against SIUE in our newspaper’s OVC standings. No one else does. So, as it stands, the Skyhawks are 0-9 in real OVC play, and 1-9 in Cougar-included OVC play. They are 3-16 overall, with wins against the Cougars and a pair of non-DI schools, Westminster (Tenn.) and the pride of St. Louis, Harris Stowe. To put it lightly, losing to this team was really really really embarrassing. (notice how the expletives were replaced with the word ‘really?’…Really?
How bad was it? Picture us losing to the mess SEMO was last season or New Jersey Tech during their two-season long losing streak. Maybe picture what it would be like if SIUE lost to a D-III school…oh, that actually happened. Never mind. Through Sunday, SIUE’s RPI ranking sat at No. 318 out of 346 D-I schools, Martin at 335, so that number will inevitably drop.
A few telling stats from the boxscore, and nothing really out of the ordinary here.
Mark Yelovich and Aamir McCleary combined to score 38 of SIUE’s 56 points. Breaking out the good old calculator, we figure that is 68 percent of the team’s offensive total. Without these two guys on the floor the Cougars have zero pulse.
McCleary’s night could have been even better had he been knocking down his shots. He was just 6-18 from the field, 2-4 from three-point territory and knocked down two of three free-throws. He had five rebounds, tied for the team lead with who else? Mark Yelovich.
So, Mark and Aamir, you get a pass on this one.
SIUE shot 38 percent as a team, and the bench scored ZERO POINTS in 61 combined minutes. 30 of that went to the defensive efforts of Stephen Jones, while the freshmen LeShaun Murphy played just seven minutes, going 0-2 with one rebound. SIUE collected just 27 rebounds the entire game, to UT Martin’s 46. SIUE had just six on the offensive glass to 15 for UTM.
The Cougars again, took 24 shots from beyond the three-point line, making eight.
So, what is new?
Absolutely nothing.
There is really no point in analyzing this team because every single game they have the same problems, and if you read up on your Cougar basketball you can easily get a sense of Deja Vu. Wait, did they just take the game story from the Kennesaw State game and slap on UT Martin’s name instead? Seems like it.
A change in philosophy is really the only thing in order here. Lennox Forrester claims to preach to his guys about playing the game inside out, working the interior post and kicking it out to create open looks. Coach, how do you improve on rebounding? “well, I’ll tell the guys to box out and harp on it in practice…” yet, here we are, 20 games into the basketball season and the same things are happening over and over again.
Is it too late to switch things up and implement a motion or Princeton style offense to push aside the failed high post strategy? Probably.
Again, by no means do I want to be hard on these guys, but the smartest college basketball man I have ever met, Kyle Whelliston of the Mid Majority (who was in town for the Robert Morris game,) said it best trying to describe what he has seen from SIUE. He told me our guys have a real business-like approach to the game. Kind of like robots, they go out there, play basketball and that’s it. On a more awesome note, here is a photo of myself and his friend Bally.
Next time you watch SIUE, pay attention to their composure on the court.
I won’t go into detail about the Robert Morris game, but 92-71? Come on. They are in the United States Collegiate Athletic Association. I had never even heard of that before the game. Yes, there is a level of college basketball BELOW the NAIA and we witnessed it.
In other news (somewhat related,) there has been some off-the-court trouble-making on the part of SIUE recruit Alex Brown, which I did a little brief on a few weeks ago but alas, the juicy details regarding his suspension from the Herrin High School basketball team have emerged, in an article by the Benton Evening News.
At first I laughed, then I cried, and after that I wrote a View From the Sidelines column sharing my opinions on the matter for Thursday’s paper. Big decision looming for coach Forrester, his staff and AD Hewitt, and it could mean another scholarship becoming available during the off-season recruiting period if SIUE decides to act on the matter.
In my opinion, Brown, the Harts and the Hart’s mom; who inevitably attempted to take a bullet for her kids as all mothers of distressed teenagers do, are not giving away the whole story. There has got to be more than this, and it could cost Brown more than just half a high school basketball season.
Another intriguing SIUE basketball related note involves former Cougar guard Brandon Dunson.
Dunson left the Cougars after playing just one semester of basketball upon transferring into SIUE from UT Chattanooga for Wabash Valley, a junior college. It kind of upset me, to be honest because I was expecting big things from the kid. Apparently, people obviously more important than me feel the same way.
I didn’t understand the reasoning behind Dunson’s transfer to Wabash Valley of all places. Maybe Bradley in the Missouri VALLEY, but not WABASH VALLEY. The reasoning behind his departure is now apparent because bigger and better things await, and transferring to another mid-major right away for his sophomore season of eligibility means another long red-shirt period due to NCAA guidelines. Dunson is getting scouted HEAVILY by the likes of UCLA, Gonzaga, Arizona State, Illinois, Oklahoma State, USC and Nevada. The Gonzaga people seem to be excited at the prospect of having Dunson join their squad, and according to Dunson’s twitter page, all of the major schools looking at him seem to be eager for his services.
This is jaw-dropping news to me that he was ever that good. Dunson is averaging 11.5 points a game at Wabash, and looked to be an intriguing player to watch at the mid-major level, but never a guy playing half his season on ESPN. Looks like the kid has options now, good for him, but SIUE could sure use his contributions right now…(cough…play LeShaun Murphy more…cough.)
Men’s basketball is all the talk, because of the media coverage, but the women have been doing fairly well recently, as in not consistently being awful, and being winners of their last two home contests against D-I schools, something the men have yet to do over two seasons. Things are really looking up for Amanda Levens and crew, they could legitimately compete for the OVC regular season crown next season, with the conference on the women’s side shaping up horrendously thus far in 2010, (although it would all be for naught, with no trip to the conference tourney and what not.)
We have baseball, softball and tennis getting started up soon, hopefully we see a few positive story-lines come across featuring those teams down the road, because we need them.
Finally, I just wanted to end by congratulating the Southern Star Dancers on winning their competition this past weekend in Chicago. Good job.
Also, wanted to give a shout out to Alex Helton for his feedback on a few of our blogs, not hard to agree on any analysis of the Cougars, or headless chickens.
That’s all, keep your pant’s off the ground all you cool cats.
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