Marty Simmons interviewed at Wright St

[Rambler63]

Wright State has a lot of things going for it... They have probably the best attendance in the HL, a nice facility, and a very competitive budget for the HL. They won the HL tournament in 2006-07 under Brad Brownell (an Evansville guy), now at Clemson. They won the Division II national championship in 1983 before going DI a couple years later.

[uniftw]

Discussing the now open SDSU job on another site I threw some quick thoughts together about Marty...feel free to correct what you don't like about it


Marty is a catch-22. I think he's a better coach than his record at UE indicates.

The case for Marty:
Evansville is not a good place to be a coach. The funding is horrendous. I believe he is the lowest paid coach in the MVC and his budget for assistants, recruiting, travel, etc... is being cut every year for nearly a decade. With what he's had to work with it's pretty incredible what he has done to take that program from where ti was with Jim Crews when it left the Midwestern Collegiate Conference after the 93-94 season. UE was pretty dominant in that league, but within one recruiting cycle they went from averaging 20ish wins per year in the MCC to going just 63-52 in the first 4 years of the MVC. Year 5, 1998-99 they made the NCAA tournament and then the wheels fell off. Records for the program after that were 18-12, 14-16, 7-21.. Jim Crews then left and Steve Merfield went 12-16, 7-22, 11-17, 10-19, 14-17. That's when Marty came in for the 07-08 year. He went 9-21, 17-14, and 9-21 his first three years, but then his recruiting and style kicked in. He found guys like Colt Ryan to run his system. Since then he's gone 16-16, 16-16, 21-15, 14-19, 24-12, and 25-9. He followed Colt Ryan up with DJ Ballentine and Egidijus Mockevicius. He also filled the roster in with more talent top to bottom than had been seen in decades this past year. Trend wise, looking only at the past, things are going well. What Marty has done at UE is about the same as what Trent Miles did to Indiana State football. An alum that believed in the program and got players to buy into it and built something from literally nothing.

His system would do very well at a place like SDSU. He'd go from the smallest budget to one of the two largest in the conference. He's produced a large number of 1st and 2nd team All MVC guys, but the MVC has been better at the top than the Summit and he couldn't get over that hump. He runs an extreme motion offense with one guy (Colt Ryan and then DJ Ballentine) running off of 900 screens per possession and being a shooter. Everyone knows it's coming but still couldn't stop DJ or Colt. He can recruit good talent from Indiana, Illinois, Tennessee. Let him be able to sell knowing the area and playing schools in the area like WIU, IUPUI and IPFW to draw those kids to SDSU plus the area talent around Brookings and you've got a dangerous mix.

The bad about Marty:
He had UE's best team in history and 2 of the best players in college basketball with Egidijus Mockevicius and DJ Ballentine and still couldn't even get an NIT bid. That's largely because of his scheduling. Marty is known for running a tour de SWAC/MEAC in the OOC to boost his record before MVC play. He'd almost always enter conference play between 8-4 and 11-1, but only finished over .500 in conference play twice - this year he tied for second and 2012-2013 he finished 4th with a 10-8 record. Other than that he's gone 3-15, 8-10, 3-15, 9-9, 9-9, 10-8, 6-12, 9-9, 12-6 with finishes of 10, t-5, 10, 6, T-3 but tie break was 7th for them, 4, t-8, 5, t-2. This year he went 12-6 in conference but 1-5 against the rest of the top 4 (WSU, ISUr and UNI). The one win was the first game of the year against that group and was against ISUr. He ended the OOC schedule 11-2 but wins were SEMO, non-D1, Belmont, Santa Clara, Irvine, Bama State, Murray State, Miss Valley State, Norfolk State, Fresno State and Bama A&M.

Had he played a OOC SOS of closer to 100 he'd have had about the same record and a SOS better than 300 something. Likely makes the NIT at that point.

He scheduled that way to save his job. Pressure is building against him because of his lack of results in conference play, but he is a UE alum and is a golden child there (to an extent). He thought a gaudy record with everything he would have on the team for talent this year would get him an NCAA or NIT bid...and he was real close to the NCAA bid. But his schedule backfired in the end. Fans are now starting to see the issues with him - thanks largely to issues being pointed out by other MVC team fans.

Mock lead the nation in rebounds, double doubles, by a LARGE margin. He grabbed a double double just by walking on the court most nights. DJ, and Colt before, were two of the more prolific scorers in the nation. His issue is that he is so set in his system to have one guy be "the man" it actually held a guy like Mock back. He could have been a 20/20 guy had Marty let the system run through him. He's had other guards with talent that were unused on offense. Teams couldn't stop DJ (or Colt) but they could let the other guys do whatever they wanted and not have to worry about it. Watch the MVC title game between UNI and UE and you'll see exactly that. The first half UNI focused all of their effort on DJ/Mock because they knew the other UE players didn't have the green light. It wasn't until the second half when DJ told those guys to shoot that they made the run at UNI. Those guys hit shots and UNI had to help off of DJ just a bit and give him 1/2" and he'll take 900 shots.



Why he'd be looking elsewhere:
I think Marty has done all he can do at UE. He loves UE. UE loves him. I think it's time to move on for both parties though. I don't think Marty is going to take UE further, and UE certainly isn't going to take Marty further. He has less than a full recruiting cycle left on his contract, and that makes him a lame duck coach to current recruiting classes. He won't be getting a raise. It's why he looked at Wright State. That's a step down. It's worse funded than UE and pays less BUT it can move him to other jobs moving forward. I think he knows his options are play out his contract (or get fired) at UE and have 3 years, tops, as a HC and then a career bouncing around as an assistant for maybe a decade before calling it quits. That doesn't fit who he is. A new school is going to give him at least 4 years. A place like SDSU has money and resources to let him be successful in the Summit, which probably gives him 7-8 years as long as he doesn't bomb out. He's only 51. That would let him coach until he's 58-60. He'd retire and move on, leaving SDSU in a better place. He also loses about 7 guys so far to graduation, transfer, and going back to Europe. That includes nearly his entire roster that actually played.

The top 5 scorers that are gone:
1. DJ Balentine - grad
2. Egidijus Mockevivius - grad
3. Jaylon Brown - transfer
4. Mislav Brzoja - go back to Europe to play pro
5. Adam Wing - senior
Harris Brown - their top freshman is transferring. Likely the next DJ/Colt in the system.

That leaves him with a returning roster of
SR Christian Benzon - 1.8 ppg 1.3 rpg .3 apg
SR Duane Gibson - 2.0 ppg 1.8 rpg 2.0 apg
SR David Howard - 2.0 ppg 1.4 rpg, .1 apg
SR Blake Simmons - 5.9 ppg 2.0 rpg, 2.9 apg
SR Sergej Vucetic - 1.1 ppg, .3 rpg, .2 apg
SR Willie Wiley - 2.4 ppg, 2.0 rpg, .1 apg
JR Ryan Taylor - zero stats


Yep, that's the entire roster for next year. That is less, COMBINED, than DJ or Mock did ON THEIR OWN. Zero underclassmen. Only 1 player that isn't a senior.


Why he won't go anywhere this year:
2 words - his son. His son is set to be a senior this year on the team, and one of it's best returning players. Not saying much - see the previous section. Blake would ride the end of the bench at UNI, WSU, ISUr and play sparsely at Indiana State, Southern Illinois, or Loyola. HOWEVER, Blake will be a "true" senior. He won't have a 5th year grad transfer to let him follow his dad. He couldn't straight transfer as he doesn't have 2 years of eligibility left. Marty is a UE guy. Marty wants Blake to be a UE guy. He won't put Blake in that situation.



He really is a mixed bag, but I think most of the bad comes from being at UE in the MVC, and not him as a coach

[acepurple84]

Discussing the now open SDSU job on another site I threw some quick thoughts together about Marty...feel free to correct what you don't like about it


Marty is a catch-22. I think he's a better coach than his record at UE indicates.

The case for Marty:
Evansville is not a good place to be a coach. The funding is horrendous. I believe he is the lowest paid coach in the MVC and his budget for assistants, recruiting, travel, etc... is being cut every year for nearly a decade. With what he's had to work with it's pretty incredible what he has done to take that program from where ti was with Jim Crews when it left the Midwestern Collegiate Conference after the 93-94 season. UE was pretty dominant in that league, but within one recruiting cycle they went from averaging 20ish wins per year in the MCC to going just 63-52 in the first 4 years of the MVC. Year 5, 1998-99 they made the NCAA tournament and then the wheels fell off. Records for the program after that were 18-12, 14-16, 7-21.. Jim Crews then left and Steve Merfield went 12-16, 7-22, 11-17, 10-19, 14-17. That's when Marty came in for the 07-08 year. He went 9-21, 17-14, and 9-21 his first three years, but then his recruiting and style kicked in. He found guys like Colt Ryan to run his system. Since then he's gone 16-16, 16-16, 21-15, 14-19, 24-12, and 25-9. He followed Colt Ryan up with DJ Ballentine and Egidijus Mockevicius. He also filled the roster in with more talent top to bottom than had been seen in decades this past year. Trend wise, looking only at the past, things are going well. What Marty has done at UE is about the same as what Trent Miles did to Indiana State football. An alum that believed in the program and got players to buy into it and built something from literally nothing.

His system would do very well at a place like SDSU. He'd go from the smallest budget to one of the two largest in the conference. He's produced a large number of 1st and 2nd team All MVC guys, but the MVC has been better at the top than the Summit and he couldn't get over that hump. He runs an extreme motion offense with one guy (Colt Ryan and then DJ Ballentine) running off of 900 screens per possession and being a shooter. Everyone knows it's coming but still couldn't stop DJ or Colt. He can recruit good talent from Indiana, Illinois, Tennessee. Let him be able to sell knowing the area and playing schools in the area like WIU, IUPUI and IPFW to draw those kids to SDSU plus the area talent around Brookings and you've got a dangerous mix.

The bad about Marty:
He had UE's best team in history and 2 of the best players in college basketball with Egidijus Mockevicius and DJ Ballentine and still couldn't even get an NIT bid. That's largely because of his scheduling. Marty is known for running a tour de SWAC/MEAC in the OOC to boost his record before MVC play. He'd almost always enter conference play between 8-4 and 11-1, but only finished over .500 in conference play twice - this year he tied for second and 2012-2013 he finished 4th with a 10-8 record. Other than that he's gone 3-15, 8-10, 3-15, 9-9, 9-9, 10-8, 6-12, 9-9, 12-6 with finishes of 10, t-5, 10, 6, T-3 but tie break was 7th for them, 4, t-8, 5, t-2. This year he went 12-6 in conference but 1-5 against the rest of the top 4 (WSU, ISUr and UNI). The one win was the first game of the year against that group and was against ISUr. He ended the OOC schedule 11-2 but wins were SEMO, non-D1, Belmont, Santa Clara, Irvine, Bama State, Murray State, Miss Valley State, Norfolk State, Fresno State and Bama A&M.

Had he played a OOC SOS of closer to 100 he'd have had about the same record and a SOS better than 300 something. Likely makes the NIT at that point.

He scheduled that way to save his job. Pressure is building against him because of his lack of results in conference play, but he is a UE alum and is a golden child there (to an extent). He thought a gaudy record with everything he would have on the team for talent this year would get him an NCAA or NIT bid...and he was real close to the NCAA bid. But his schedule backfired in the end. Fans are now starting to see the issues with him - thanks largely to issues being pointed out by other MVC team fans.

Mock lead the nation in rebounds, double doubles, by a LARGE margin. He grabbed a double double just by walking on the court most nights. DJ, and Colt before, were two of the more prolific scorers in the nation. His issue is that he is so set in his system to have one guy be "the man" it actually held a guy like Mock back. He could have been a 20/20 guy had Marty let the system run through him. He's had other guards with talent that were unused on offense. Teams couldn't stop DJ (or Colt) but they could let the other guys do whatever they wanted and not have to worry about it. Watch the MVC title game between UNI and UE and you'll see exactly that. The first half UNI focused all of their effort on DJ/Mock because they knew the other UE players didn't have the green light. It wasn't until the second half when DJ told those guys to shoot that they made the run at UNI. Those guys hit shots and UNI had to help off of DJ just a bit and give him 1/2" and he'll take 900 shots.



Why he'd be looking elsewhere:
I think Marty has done all he can do at UE. He loves UE. UE loves him. I think it's time to move on for both parties though. I don't think Marty is going to take UE further, and UE certainly isn't going to take Marty further. He has less than a full recruiting cycle left on his contract, and that makes him a lame duck coach to current recruiting classes. He won't be getting a raise. It's why he looked at Wright State. That's a step down. It's worse funded than UE and pays less BUT it can move him to other jobs moving forward. I think he knows his options are play out his contract (or get fired) at UE and have 3 years, tops, as a HC and then a career bouncing around as an assistant for maybe a decade before calling it quits. That doesn't fit who he is. A new school is going to give him at least 4 years. A place like SDSU has money and resources to let him be successful in the Summit, which probably gives him 7-8 years as long as he doesn't bomb out. He's only 51. That would let him coach until he's 58-60. He'd retire and move on, leaving SDSU in a better place. He also loses about 7 guys so far to graduation, transfer, and going back to Europe. That includes nearly his entire roster that actually played.

The top 5 scorers that are gone:
1. DJ Balentine - grad
2. Egidijus Mockevivius - grad
3. Jaylon Brown - transfer
4. Mislav Brzoja - go back to Europe to play pro
5. Adam Wing - senior
Harris Brown - their top freshman is transferring. Likely the next DJ/Colt in the system.

That leaves him with a returning roster of
SR Christian Benzon - 1.8 ppg 1.3 rpg .3 apg
SR Duane Gibson - 2.0 ppg 1.8 rpg 2.0 apg
SR David Howard - 2.0 ppg 1.4 rpg, .1 apg
SR Blake Simmons - 5.9 ppg 2.0 rpg, 2.9 apg
SR Sergej Vucetic - 1.1 ppg, .3 rpg, .2 apg
SR Willie Wiley - 2.4 ppg, 2.0 rpg, .1 apg
JR Ryan Taylor - zero stats


Yep, that's the entire roster for next year. That is less, COMBINED, than DJ or Mock did ON THEIR OWN. Zero underclassmen. Only 1 player that isn't a senior.


Why he won't go anywhere this year:
2 words - his son. His son is set to be a senior this year on the team, and one of it's best returning players. Not saying much - see the previous section. Blake would ride the end of the bench at UNI, WSU, ISUr and play sparsely at Indiana State, Southern Illinois, or Loyola. HOWEVER, Blake will be a "true" senior. He won't have a 5th year grad transfer to let him follow his dad. He couldn't straight transfer as he doesn't have 2 years of eligibility left. Marty is a UE guy. Marty wants Blake to be a UE guy. He won't put Blake in that situation.



He really is a mixed bag, but I think most of the bad comes from being at UE in the MVC, and not him as a coach

Wrong Brown is transferring. Its not Jaylon but Harris.

[acesfool]

A weakened non-conference schedule combined with a much weaker MVC is mostly responsible for the increase in win totals. We have played in the CBI or CIT just about every year. We did win a CIT but most quality teams have started to turn down these tournaments. If you just put Creighton back in for Loyala we would probably have been 10-8 in a still weaker MVC.

[ACECARD]

Discussing the now open SDSU job on another site I threw some quick thoughts together about Marty...feel free to correct what you don't like about it


Marty is a catch-22. I think he's a better coach than his record at UE indicates.

The case for Marty:
Evansville is not a good place to be a coach. The funding is horrendous. I believe he is the lowest paid coach in the MVC and his budget for assistants, recruiting, travel, etc... is being cut every year for nearly a decade. With what he's had to work with it's pretty incredible what he has done to take that program from where ti was with Jim Crews when it left the Midwestern Collegiate Conference after the 93-94 season. UE was pretty dominant in that league, but within one recruiting cycle they went from averaging 20ish wins per year in the MCC to going just 63-52 in the first 4 years of the MVC. Year 5, 1998-99 they made the NCAA tournament and then the wheels fell off. Records for the program after that were 18-12, 14-16, 7-21.. Jim Crews then left and Steve Merfield went 12-16, 7-22, 11-17, 10-19, 14-17. That's when Marty came in for the 07-08 year. He went 9-21, 17-14, and 9-21 his first three years, but then his recruiting and style kicked in. He found guys like Colt Ryan to run his system. Since then he's gone 16-16, 16-16, 21-15, 14-19, 24-12, and 25-9. He followed Colt Ryan up with DJ Ballentine and Egidijus Mockevicius. He also filled the roster in with more talent top to bottom than had been seen in decades this past year. Trend wise, looking only at the past, things are going well. What Marty has done at UE is about the same as what Trent Miles did to Indiana State football. An alum that believed in the program and got players to buy into it and built something from literally nothing.

His system would do very well at a place like SDSU. He'd go from the smallest budget to one of the two largest in the conference. He's produced a large number of 1st and 2nd team All MVC guys, but the MVC has been better at the top than the Summit and he couldn't get over that hump. He runs an extreme motion offense with one guy (Colt Ryan and then DJ Ballentine) running off of 900 screens per possession and being a shooter. Everyone knows it's coming but still couldn't stop DJ or Colt. He can recruit good talent from Indiana, Illinois, Tennessee. Let him be able to sell knowing the area and playing schools in the area like WIU, IUPUI and IPFW to draw those kids to SDSU plus the area talent around Brookings and you've got a dangerous mix.

The bad about Marty:
He had UE's best team in history and 2 of the best players in college basketball with Egidijus Mockevicius and DJ Ballentine and still couldn't even get an NIT bid. That's largely because of his scheduling. Marty is known for running a tour de SWAC/MEAC in the OOC to boost his record before MVC play. He'd almost always enter conference play between 8-4 and 11-1, but only finished over .500 in conference play twice - this year he tied for second and 2012-2013 he finished 4th with a 10-8 record. Other than that he's gone 3-15, 8-10, 3-15, 9-9, 9-9, 10-8, 6-12, 9-9, 12-6 with finishes of 10, t-5, 10, 6, T-3 but tie break was 7th for them, 4, t-8, 5, t-2. This year he went 12-6 in conference but 1-5 against the rest of the top 4 (WSU, ISUr and UNI). The one win was the first game of the year against that group and was against ISUr. He ended the OOC schedule 11-2 but wins were SEMO, non-D1, Belmont, Santa Clara, Irvine, Bama State, Murray State, Miss Valley State, Norfolk State, Fresno State and Bama A&M.

Had he played a OOC SOS of closer to 100 he'd have had about the same record and a SOS better than 300 something. Likely makes the NIT at that point.

He scheduled that way to save his job. Pressure is building against him because of his lack of results in conference play, but he is a UE alum and is a golden child there (to an extent). He thought a gaudy record with everything he would have on the team for talent this year would get him an NCAA or NIT bid...and he was real close to the NCAA bid. But his schedule backfired in the end. Fans are now starting to see the issues with him - thanks largely to issues being pointed out by other MVC team fans.

Mock lead the nation in rebounds, double doubles, by a LARGE margin. He grabbed a double double just by walking on the court most nights. DJ, and Colt before, were two of the more prolific scorers in the nation. His issue is that he is so set in his system to have one guy be "the man" it actually held a guy like Mock back. He could have been a 20/20 guy had Marty let the system run through him. He's had other guards with talent that were unused on offense. Teams couldn't stop DJ (or Colt) but they could let the other guys do whatever they wanted and not have to worry about it. Watch the MVC title game between UNI and UE and you'll see exactly that. The first half UNI focused all of their effort on DJ/Mock because they knew the other UE players didn't have the green light. It wasn't until the second half when DJ told those guys to shoot that they made the run at UNI. Those guys hit shots and UNI had to help off of DJ just a bit and give him 1/2" and he'll take 900 shots.



Why he'd be looking elsewhere:
I think Marty has done all he can do at UE. He loves UE. UE loves him. I think it's time to move on for both parties though. I don't think Marty is going to take UE further, and UE certainly isn't going to take Marty further. He has less than a full recruiting cycle left on his contract, and that makes him a lame duck coach to current recruiting classes. He won't be getting a raise. It's why he looked at Wright State. That's a step down. It's worse funded than UE and pays less BUT it can move him to other jobs moving forward. I think he knows his options are play out his contract (or get fired) at UE and have 3 years, tops, as a HC and then a career bouncing around as an assistant for maybe a decade before calling it quits. That doesn't fit who he is. A new school is going to give him at least 4 years. A place like SDSU has money and resources to let him be successful in the Summit, which probably gives him 7-8 years as long as he doesn't bomb out. He's only 51. That would let him coach until he's 58-60. He'd retire and move on, leaving SDSU in a better place. He also loses about 7 guys so far to graduation, transfer, and going back to Europe. That includes nearly his entire roster that actually played.

The top 5 scorers that are gone:
1. DJ Balentine - grad
2. Egidijus Mockevivius - grad
3. Jaylon Brown - transfer
4. Mislav Brzoja - go back to Europe to play pro
5. Adam Wing - senior
Harris Brown - their top freshman is transferring. Likely the next DJ/Colt in the system.

That leaves him with a returning roster of
SR Christian Benzon - 1.8 ppg 1.3 rpg .3 apg
SR Duane Gibson - 2.0 ppg 1.8 rpg 2.0 apg
SR David Howard - 2.0 ppg 1.4 rpg, .1 apg
SR Blake Simmons - 5.9 ppg 2.0 rpg, 2.9 apg
SR Sergej Vucetic - 1.1 ppg, .3 rpg, .2 apg
SR Willie Wiley - 2.4 ppg, 2.0 rpg, .1 apg
JR Ryan Taylor - zero stats


Yep, that's the entire roster for next year. That is less, COMBINED, than DJ or Mock did ON THEIR OWN. Zero underclassmen. Only 1 player that isn't a senior.


Why he won't go anywhere this year:
2 words - his son. His son is set to be a senior this year on the team, and one of it's best returning players. Not saying much - see the previous section. Blake would ride the end of the bench at UNI, WSU, ISUr and play sparsely at Indiana State, Southern Illinois, or Loyola. HOWEVER, Blake will be a "true" senior. He won't have a 5th year grad transfer to let him follow his dad. He couldn't straight transfer as he doesn't have 2 years of eligibility left. Marty is a UE guy. Marty wants Blake to be a UE guy. He won't put Blake in that situation.



He really is a mixed bag, but I think most of the bad comes from being at UE in the MVC, and not him as a coach

Wrong Brown is transferring. Its not Jaylon but Harris.

Jaylon Brown was a junior this year, and became one of the best point guards in the Valley. If the Aces don't pick up a couple of 6' 6", 7", 8" who can actually play the game, they will be a Thursday night team next year.

[mvcfan]

You must really be taunting Evansville fans. Simmons won't even get a smell from SDSU.

[uniftw]

You must really be taunting Evansville fans. Simmons won't even get a smell from SDSU.

You're pretty high if you don't think feelers from both sides will be traded.

[havoc]

Discussing the now open SDSU job on another site I threw some quick thoughts together about Marty...feel free to correct what you don't like about it

Lot's of inaccuracies a mistruths. I'll hit the high points.

Evansville is not a good place to be a coach. The funding is horrendous. I believe he is the lowest paid coach in the MVC and his budget for assistants, recruiting, travel, etc... is being cut every year for nearly a decade.

No one will ever say UE is a big spender in terms of athletics, but I don't see how you can make this comment when a. it is a private school and those numbers aren't available, b. they move into a brand new arena (city owned but rent is much higher), and c. they recently built a brand new on campus practice. The current crop of assistants also have the best pedigree since Marty's been at Evansville.

He had UE's best team in history and 2 of the best players in college basketball with Egidijus Mockevicius and DJ Ballentine and still couldn't even get an NIT bid.

This was no where near the best time in UE's history. You don't know much about UE's history. Also, you've said yourself Balentine (yes, 1 'l' not 2) is a system player. He may have started for WSU this year, but no way he's first team all conference. Mockevicius would have excelled anywhere.

He'd almost always enter conference play between 8-4 and 11-1

He's done that 3 times. Each of the last 2 years and his second year. Most of the time he's right at .500. (13-3, 15-3, 8-7, 7-5, 7-7, 7-7, 6-6, 9-4, 6-6)

Fans are now starting to see the issues with him - thanks largely to issues being pointed out by other MVC team fans.

This is just silly. There are what, maybe 10 UE fans on this board? UE doesn't have a large fan base, but that is still just a fraction of the overall fans. Are fans of other schools in the MVC stopping Aces fans after games to tell them their coach has issues? Never has happened to me. UE fans have known for awhile now Marty has issues.

His issue is that he is so set in his system to have one guy be "the man" it actually held a guy like Mock back. He could have been a 20/20 guy had Marty let the system run through him.

How many 20/20 guys have there been in the history of the MVC let alone the NCAA? How would running the offense through Egi have gotten him six more rebounds per game?

The top 5 scorers that are gone:
1. DJ Balentine - grad
2. Egidijus Mockevivius - grad
3. Jaylon Brown - transfer
4. Mislav Brzoja - go back to Europe to play pro
5. Adam Wing - senior
Harris Brown - their top freshman is transferring. Likely the next DJ/Colt in the system.

As has been pointed out, unless you know something no one else knows, Jaylon Brown isn't transferring. Harris Brown was the top freshman because he was the only freshman. He wasn't going to be the next DJ/Colt/Ely. He was the short, stalky, defensive, pass-first point guard Marty has recruited since he's been at Evansville.

That leaves him with a returning roster of
SR Christian Benzon - 1.8 ppg 1.3 rpg .3 apg
SR Duane Gibson - 2.0 ppg 1.8 rpg 2.0 apg
SR David Howard - 2.0 ppg 1.4 rpg, .1 apg
SR Blake Simmons - 5.9 ppg 2.0 rpg, 2.9 apg
SR Sergej Vucetic - 1.1 ppg, .3 rpg, .2 apg
SR Willie Wiley - 2.4 ppg, 2.0 rpg, .1 apg
JR Ryan Taylor - zero stats

Gibson was injured most of last year and has asked for a redshirt. He was the starting point guard over Jaylon Brown the two previous years. He average 6.7, 3.6, and 3.8 his sophomore season.

Ryan Taylor is a transfer from Ohio and will be a sophomore. He averaged 8.1 points per game as a freshman. He seems to be the one that will try and fill DJ's shoes.

[Ricardo del Rio]

Discussing the now open SDSU job on another site I threw some quick thoughts together about Marty...feel free to correct what you don't like about it

Lot's of inaccuracies a mistruths. I'll hit the high points.

Evansville is not a good place to be a coach. The funding is horrendous. I believe he is the lowest paid coach in the MVC and his budget for assistants, recruiting, travel, etc... is being cut every year for nearly a decade.

No one will ever say UE is a big spender in terms of athletics, but I don't see how you can make this comment when a. it is a private school and those numbers aren't available, b. they move into a brand new arena (city owned but rent is much higher), and c. they recently built a brand new on campus practice. The current crop of assistants also have the best pedigree since Marty's been at Evansville.

He had UE's best team in history and 2 of the best players in college basketball with Egidijus Mockevicius and DJ Ballentine and still couldn't even get an NIT bid.

This was no where near the best time in UE's history. You don't know much about UE's history. Also, you've said yourself Balentine (yes, 1 'l' not 2) is a system player. He may have started for WSU this year, but no way he's first team all conference. Mockevicius would have excelled anywhere.

He'd almost always enter conference play between 8-4 and 11-1

He's done that 3 times. Each of the last 2 years and his second year. Most of the time he's right at .500. (13-3, 15-3, 8-7, 7-5, 7-7, 7-7, 6-6, 9-4, 6-6)

Fans are now starting to see the issues with him - thanks largely to issues being pointed out by other MVC team fans.

This is just silly. There are what, maybe 10 UE fans on this board? UE doesn't have a large fan base, but that is still just a fraction of the overall fans. Are fans of other schools in the MVC stopping Aces fans after games to tell them their coach has issues? Never has happened to me. UE fans have known for awhile now Marty has issues.

His issue is that he is so set in his system to have one guy be "the man" it actually held a guy like Mock back. He could have been a 20/20 guy had Marty let the system run through him.

How many 20/20 guys have there been in the history of the MVC let alone the NCAA? How would running the offense through Egi have gotten him six more rebounds per game?

The top 5 scorers that are gone:
1. DJ Balentine - grad
2. Egidijus Mockevivius - grad
3. Jaylon Brown - transfer
4. Mislav Brzoja - go back to Europe to play pro
5. Adam Wing - senior
Harris Brown - their top freshman is transferring. Likely the next DJ/Colt in the system.

As has been pointed out, unless you know something no one else knows, Jaylon Brown isn't transferring. Harris Brown was the top freshman because he was the only freshman. He wasn't going to be the next DJ/Colt/Ely. He was the short, stalky, defensive, pass-first point guard Marty has recruited since he's been at Evansville.

That leaves him with a returning roster of
SR Christian Benzon - 1.8 ppg 1.3 rpg .3 apg
SR Duane Gibson - 2.0 ppg 1.8 rpg 2.0 apg
SR David Howard - 2.0 ppg 1.4 rpg, .1 apg
SR Blake Simmons - 5.9 ppg 2.0 rpg, 2.9 apg
SR Sergej Vucetic - 1.1 ppg, .3 rpg, .2 apg
SR Willie Wiley - 2.4 ppg, 2.0 rpg, .1 apg
JR Ryan Taylor - zero stats

Gibson was injured most of last year and has asked for a redshirt. He was the starting point guard over Jaylon Brown the two previous years. He average 6.7, 3.6, and 3.8 his sophomore season.

Ryan Taylor is a transfer from Ohio and will be a sophomore. He averaged 8.1 points per game as a freshman. He seems to be the one that will try and fill DJ's shoes.

Facts are so pesky.

[mvcfan]

You must really be taunting Evansville fans. Simmons won't even get a smell from SDSU.

You're pretty high if you don't think feelers from both sides will be traded.

That's not how they hire coaches in the modern game. Decades ago, they would target 5 candidates and check them out. SDSU is a top job (they sell out their arena 12,000 every game), are one of the top MWC jobs, and will have their picks of very good coaches. IMO, Simmons hasn't won enough nor is he a part of a strong enough coaching tree (Jim Crews won't get it done) to get him high on the SDSU list. He doesn't have a chance.