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Friday, January 2, 2009 10:09 PM CST
Jacksonville State has soared from the bottom
By BRIAN NIELSEN, Sports Editor
bnielsen@jg-tc.com
CHARLESTON -- No longer can this be billed as the game for next-to-last in the country.
At a point deep into last season, Jacksonville State and Eastern Illinois filled the next-to-last and last spots in NCAA Division I Ratings Percentage Index.
Actually, RealTimeRPI.com on Friday still had Eastern 342nd among 343 Division I teams as it stood 4-8 with a season-opening win against NCAA Division III Manchester and Wednesday’s latest victory over NAIA Missouri Valley College.
As of Friday, RealTimeRPI’s computations had the Gamecocks 64th, unheard of for this Ohio Valley Conference team.
With the bulk of the OVC play remaining and likely to bring ratings down, Jacksonville State is almost sure to drop into the mediocre range in the country.
But for now Green looks like a John Wooden candidate.
After stunning upset wins over Massachusetts and Kentucky-conqueror VMI and respectable showings against the likes of Iowa State and South Carolina, Jacksonville State is 7-3 overall and 1-0 in the OVC going into today’s 7:30 p.m. game against visiting Eastern in a league game to be televised by ESPNU.
The Gamecocks are doing this with a balance that has five double-figure scorers topped by the 12.1 scoring average of freshman Brandon Crawford, a 6-foot-6 forward from Montgomery, Ala.
They still have 5-foot-6 senior DeAndre Bray, whose 5.6 assists per game average leads the Ohio Valley a year after he was 11th in the nation with 6.4 assists per game.
As a team Jacksonville State leads the OVC with 17.3 assists per game while standing second in scoring offense at 76.3 points per game and second in scoring margin at plus-9.5 points per game.
After taking Mississippi Valley State to the NCAA tournament last season, Green now appears to be the early leader for OVC Coach of the Year after taking over a Jacksonville State that finished last in the OVC last season and was picked to finish last in this year’s preseason poll but has already matched the win total of last season’s 7-22 record.
Of course, the Gamecocks are just one game into league play owning an 82-66 win Dec. 6 at Tennessee State.
Eastern, picked next to last ahead of the Gamecocks in the preseason poll of athletic directors and coaches, is 1-1 in the OVC with a home win over Tennessee State and then a loss to defending champion Austin Peay.
Coach Mike Miller was far from pleased with Wednesday’s New Years Eve 80-51 win over Missouri Valley College but still saw the potential during this 4-8 start.
“I think our team is capable of playing well,” he said after Wednesday’s game. “We’ve had individuals play well in different games.”
A November and December that had the Panthers’ strength of schedule ranked 338th out of 343 Division I teams by RealTimeRPI,com was to help prepare an Eastern team working with four freshmen, four junior college transfers and five returning players.
“We’re 1-1 in the conference,” junior Romain Martin, Eastern’s scoring leader said. “We don’t want to go below .500.”
Contact Brian Nielsen at bnielsen@jg-tc.com.
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oldschool wrote on Jan 3, 2009 9:38 PM: