Illinois State Preview

Well, Saturday our hoopsters will head to the floor and take on Illinois State in what, on the surface, appears to be an exercise in character-building for our guys. To wit:

• Illinois State was picked to be #3 in the Missouri Valley, a pretty good (note understatement which is used here for both irony and taste) conference.
• I-State is 7-0 and has won two tournaments so far. (Although they did host one of them, and the schedule hasn't been back-breaking).
• I-State features Osiris Eldridge, a Jr. G who is the pre-season player of the year in the MVC, and has already been the player of the week.
• Eldridge is not their leading scorer, however, that honors goes to Champ Iguchi (I couldn't make that up).
• They are shooting 49% and outscoring their opponents by 17 points per game.
• Their coach is a Bill Self protege.
• Their tournament is St. Louis is called Arch Madness. No, it is. No, I don't know who thought of that.

It does look like a tough assignment, but so did playing at OSU and Minnesota and we hung in there on those. An upset win would really add to our team's confidence....