In case you did not hear the Illinois State Redbirds, fresh off their win at Creighton, won again tonight. This time the Redbirds won at Wichita State, 49-46.
It was an ugly, low scoring, poor-shooting Missouri Valley Conference game.
ISU shot just 37% from the field, made only 3 free throws (on 9 attempts), were out-rebounded, and sent the home team to the free throw line for 24 free throws. But they won the game!
The email I got the other day was about some stats on ISU. I have an ISU guy who shoots me some numbers every now and then. Check these stats out.
Through the Creighton win, ISU was:
- Shooting 46% from the field
- Shooting just 66% from the FT line
- Had 170 turnovers and just 96 steals
- but they were 9-3 and 1-0 in Conference.
Well they are 4th in the Valley in defense going into tonight. With tonight's effort they are giving up only 58 points a game. The Birds opponents only shoot 39% from the field, and just 29.6% from 3-point land!
Illinois State may win ugly, but they win. Tim Jankovich is an up-and-coming coach, who is not long for the Valley. One thing they did at Kansas was force poor shooting. Kansas led the Big 12 last season in FG% defense at 37%. TJ has brought that to the Birds so far this season. You can overcome a lot of offensive woes if you don't let the other guys score.
It's early and the Valley season is long, but we do know this. ISU won at Creighton and at Wichita State, and I don't see many other teams pulling that feat off this season. Not only that, those wins put ISU at 2-0 in the Valley with four (4) straight home games coming up. They play SIU, UNI, Evansville, and Wichita in the next few weeks.
I think it will be very interesting to see where ISU stands after those first 6 conference games.
Back to that email I got about ISU. The funny thing is, when I read the subject line, (ISU bball) I thought it was going to be about the ISU women's team. Suddenly, the ISU men's team is taking the attention back over in Normal.
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