Drury Panthers

[crazznewt]

Looks like Avante Nickels has decommitted from New Mexico Highlands.
"Commit" is a word that needs to be retired from the basketball world vocabulary. Maybe it needs to be replaced by more accurate words like "probably" and "maybe".

[crazznewt]

Paige Robinson!

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DZ-WP...ZpcXNxcWZhNw==

[Bballfan]

The Drury women's schedule is out. Some decent MIAA teams they are playing (although Fort Hays State will be without the national player of the year who transferred to D1).

The Oasis Classic. Saginaw Valley will be absolutely horrendous. This past season there was a lot of controversy over the coaching staff who got suspended. Saginaw Valley ultimately reinstated the head coach. With that, a number of players hit the portal and left. Three ended up at Ferris State!

Union is always pretty good. However, they will have a new coach as the prior coach retired after many seasons. The assistant got promoted though (in a move planned for months) so perhaps their style will remain the same. Be prepared for a track meet!

[crazznewt]

The Drury basketball teams posted their rosters and schedules early this summer. Both schedules look challenging and should contribute to a good strength of schedule assessment when March rolls around.

The Juco forward transfers, on paper, should have a great impact on each program respectively:

JUCO All-American Elijah Edosa alongside Keshaun Thomas is an exciting thought for Drury fans who are paying attention. Elijah's numbers from last season: Ppg: 19.4, Rpg: 9.4 , Apg: 2.5, Spg: 1.2, Bpg: 1.2, Fg%: 62.3%

Elijah appears to be not only a good athlete, but like Thomas, also a smart player who uses his strong body to get the position he wants on both sides of the ball. Those numbers above support this. Keshaun's numbers were 15 points, 8 rebounds at almost 50% from the field as a true freshman. They appear to be the perfect bookend forwards at 6'5" and 6'6" and strong.

Candela Roy Ibaibarriaga's numbers from JUCO suggest she will be a slasher, athletic rebounder and defender. Hopefully will take some pressure off of Rhi Gibbons, who is arguably the Lady Panther's most physical player who very often ends up on the floor. She won't back down from rough play, the Lewis game last season is a perfect example.

Sara Mendel should also benefit from the addition of the hopefully productive forward. She will be on All-American watch after a great junior season for Drury

[Bballfan]

Agreed Mendel has a real shot at conference POY and make All-American.

[crazznewt]

The women get to travel a little bit this season with a pre-season "training trip" to Puerto Rico and a trip to Miami in December. They play at home 7 of their first 8 games. The men play at home 8 of their first nine.

[crazznewt]

Molly Miller is still proving she is one of the hottest coaches in America. Her success has opened doors to be able to rub elbows with the who's who in the sporting world. The latest is in New York, pictured with Tom Brady and Spike Lee:

https://www.instagram.com/p/DaV8ouyG...VjYWlhdmQ1c252

[crazznewt]

**conclusion edit:**

In 1997, we had the unexpected pleasure of being among the first in Springfield to play basketball against the future (and temporary) leading scorer in NCAA D1 history in Jackie Stiles. This was at the old outdoor basketball courts at then Southwest Missouri State University the summer before her freshman season. This took place at about 12AM the week she showed up on campus. (We were playing basketball while our peers were "socializing")


It was immediately obvious to me that she would break Melody Howard's (who we had played with several times) all time SMSU scoring record before she graduated, which she did before the end of her junior season!
The season she broke the NCAA record, she scored over 30 points a game at 56.6% from the field, making 265 free throws out of 301 for 85% as a 5'8" guard! She would have shot a lot more free throws if players could have kept up with her.


The road games were brutal, as teams resorted to fouling her hard. The play was very often dirty. These visiting teams did not get away with this tactic at Hammons Student Center, where an average of 8,445 very loud and biased fans (6 times over 9000 people were in attendance) intimidated opposing teams.

All that to say this: Great players are still being targeted when they can't be stopped fairly. This type of play was employed by the Detroit Pistons against Michael Jordan back in the early 90's. Fouling to make a player earn their points at the stripe is basketball, cheap shots meant to intimidate a player is garbage. I dont blame players who are targeted when they start talking trash as I would probably carry a chip on my shoulder too. I dont tolerate bullying.

[crazznewt]

.........one more thing: There is a big difference between saying "in your face" when you are in your own space across the court from someone versus repeatedly getting in someone's face while mocking them on national TV. If you know, you know.

[crazznewt]

Former Southwest Baptist Women's Basketball coach Wyketha Harrell has been named an assistant at Jackson State University. That is quite the change in scenery, going from Bolivar, MO to Jackson, Mississippi.

[crazznewt]

Former Lady Panther Makaiya Brooks has signed a pro contract to play basketball in Portugal. She recently played on a touring team that played four games in Portugal with her averaging 26 points and 8 rebounds. She had arrived at Drury out of shape from an apparent injury after transferring from division one Memphis. I dont think Drury fans got to see her at the top of her game.

Former SBU men's coach Aaron Niven accepted a coaching job across town from SBU and is now the head girls basketball coach at Bolivar High School.

The SBU Women lost a few players to the portal. They scaterred to Arkansas FT Smith, Kansas Newman, Rogers State, and Point Loma Nazarene and possibly other schools. I think they managed to keep Eviyon Richardson, who is a heck of a player. This team should make major strides with this new coaching staff.

[Pantherbooster]

Hey Crazznewt, I love that you keep this message board filled with great information. It is sad that there are only a couple of people worthy of posting due to the attacks by the great DUpanther. She really has a very negative way of keeping this board aligned with only her opinion. I see your very high on this years teams and we all certainly hope that approval is gained by the her majesty. Anyway, still rooting for Drury but I guess at a distance for safety :)
Thank you for keeping this going. Awesome information on Molly Miller and that NY trip. Loved it.

[crazznewt]

Thanks booster! This will be off the wall! I lived across the street from the university for much of my childhood. My first memory of Drury Basketball was 1977 when a buddy and I walked into Weiser and discovered a pickup game in progress. There was a lot of trash talk during a break in the action and the subject of the disagreement was how good UCLA player Kiki Vandeweigh was. I found out one of those arguing was Drury great Mike Carter, who was from Eagle Rock, just 22 miles from the UCLA campus.

I started posting (2013?) in response to a lot of unfair and negative comments from a couple of Southern Indiana and Kentucky Wesleyan posters. As the years flew by, I became old and broken and now do a lot of sitting out of necessity and duty. Fortunately (I think), I get to scroll on my pacifier to kill time. Jesus and basketball get the bulk of my surfing. In fact, I spend so much time surfing the web for basketball stats, my doctor says I need to work on my off-screen presence in the half court.

This is also off the wall: my love for stats was instilled in me by my dad when I was 7. He taught me how to read the box scores, standings and schedules on page 2 of the local News Leader sports page. I used to give up my school lunch money (without my mom's knowledge) so I could buy a Pepsi, Suzy Q, and newspaper (just for the sports page) everyday. So now when my wife watches something I'm not interested in, I’m probably doing something like conducting vital research on the fourth-quarter shooting percentages of a 2004 backup point guard.

[Bballfan]

Former Lady Panther Makaiya Brooks has signed a pro contract to play basketball in Portugal. She recently played on a touring team that played four games in Portugal with her averaging 26 points and 8 rebounds. She had arrived at Drury out of shape from an apparent injury after transferring from division one Memphis. I dont think Drury fans got to see her at the top of her game.

She definitely never reached her potential at Drury. Given her talent and abilities, she pretty much was a non-factor for much of her career there. Could have been an all-league player for sure.

[crazznewt]

She never was a "non factor" on offense. When she first came to Drury, she was out of shape and was a major liability on defense. Her senior season, she led the league and was 7th in the nation in three point shooting at 43+%, and was a double figure scorer. Her release was the quickest this league has seen since Paige Robinson was a Lady Panther. She ended up being a very good player after she got into shape. The lack of depth on the front line has been a hindrance to the team by forcing people to play out of position. Makaiya had to play under these circumstances.