The Best of the Rest
Belmont’s Jack Smiley comes to Nashville with high expectations. Prephoops.com ranked him the Hoosier State’s seventh best player and verbalcommits.com labeled him with 3.52 stars. Coach Casey Alexander says most freshman go backwards before they go forward and maintains that Smiley has been ‘going forward’ since the moment he arrived at Belmont.
Junior forward Brigham Rogers says Smiley is a scoring guard.
“He has his own kind of craftiness when he gets into the paint,” said Rogers. “He has definitely fit in well. He hasn’t looked like a freshman.”
Murray State’s Tristian Ford
A fifth, top eleven player from the State of Illinois (there are six!) can be found at Murray State. While Ford is ranked eleventh by prephoops.com, they also ranked him as the 158th best player nationally.
Ford played for the nationally renowned Bradley Beal Elite club team and had offers from Arizona State, Texas A&M and other Midwest programs. The 3.79 star recruit signed with the previous coaching staff, but stayed at Murray after Ryan Miller was hired.
Honorable Mention Players: Drake’s Bryson Bahl and Griffen Goodbary; Evansville’s Bryce Quinett; Illinois Chicago’s Nano Barrantees & Rashund Washington; Indiana State’s Martin Kaupanger; Northern Iowa’s Jalen Wilson; Souther Illinois; Luke Walsh & Daniel Pauliukonis (12th in Illinois).
Virtually half of the Valparaiso roster are first year players. J.T. Pettigrew was Illinois’ ninth highest rated player and Kobe Walker was the Land of Lincolns’ seventeenth best. Rakim Chaney spent last season at the 212 Sports Academy and may be truly the sleeper pick of this entire MVC first-year crop.