Red wrote:I had a friend text me these questions yesterday because he knows I still follow the Valley closely whereas he really hasn't much since college.
1) Is WSU an at large team?
2) What is the best seed an MVC team can get in the NCAA tourney?
3) What happened to UNI?
4) Is Ben Jacobson still a hot coaching commodity?
Your thoughts?
So that I don't bias your responses, I will wait to post my own.
1) According to resume? Not currently. Probably need 17-1 to have a shot. According to team ability? I honestly don't know. WSU's schedule has imploded so terribly, it's difficult to know how they actually measure up. They've beat the crap out of a bunch of bad teams (like, really beat the crap out of them) but also lost to the best teams on the schedule. Not a lot of good/decent teams on the schedule to know how you stack up.
2) 6 seed if WSU wins out, including St. Louis. 31-3 puts you in that range.
3) UNI is in year 2 of the 4-year plan. They just still had a couple of positive mismatches last year (Washpun/Jesperson) and got hot the last 3 weeks of the season. 2 years from now, they should be good again.
4) Jacobson is a good coach. He is also an overrated coach by many around the Valley. He's 217-128 (62.9%) and 117-70 in league (62.0%). Those are solid numbers. Not great numbers. I'm not advocating UNI run him out of town, but those numbers look really great to those sitting around in Peoria right now, and less good to those sitting around in places not in a historically terrible decade. I think it's a good fit. But I think it's a bit of a 2-way street on Jacobson not leaving UNI.