Murray State Could Surprise
First year coach Ryan Miller and his rebuilt Racer roster scheduled aggressively, and it could pay off. Murray State has defeated two, top-100 NET rated teams (Akron and George Washington) and they’ve lost two of them (McNeese and SMU).
Murray State can score and they are extremely deep. The Racers are the Valley’s highest scoring team (90.5 ppg) and lead the conference made three-pointers and converted free throws.
Ten different players average double digit minutes played and nine average at least six points per game. This is a team that could climb the NET with metric exploding offensive talent. Eight different players have started Murray State games.
Guard Javon Jackson (16.5 ppg) is the Valley’s third leading scorer and center Fredrick King (8.2) is the league’s top rebounder. Layne Taylor (4.4) is third in assists. King (12.1) and freshman Roman Domon (12.4 and 5.6) each rank among the MVC leaders in scoring and rebounding. The coach’s nephew Mason Miller is the Valley’s second best three-point shooter (.500).
Since the Valley plays a ‘round-robin’ schedule with each team playing each of the other conference competitors twice. Three of Murray State’s final six games are against the other three at-large bid competitors.
Ironically, these four teams generally face one another during the latter portion of the season. These four need to ‘take care of business’ before those critical, head-to-head match ups.
Five of UNI’s final eleven conference games are against these other three teams.
Illinois State plays all six of these head-to-head contests come during the final 12 games of the year.
Missouri Valley watchers don’t believe their teams get a fair shake when the selection committee gets behind closed doors. One or more of these four teams will need to force the issue with an incredible conference season.
The slim chance of at-large bids are at stake.