By Bryan Bloodworth
NORMAL – Junior guard Tony Wills sees a different kind of appetite from his Illinois State basketball teammates now that the Missouri Valley Conference season is underway.
“I think the team is hungier now,” said Wills. “I think that we learned our lessons. I think everybody just wants it more, so it’s a team collective five-on-five. We are all going hard for each other because we know that we don’t want to let the person next to us down. I think we are all getting better at that.”
The record shows that as the Redbirds are off to a 2-0 start in league play ahead of Wednesday’s 7 p.m. conference game against Loyola at Redbird Arena. It’s the best start in league play since the 2008-2009 campaign.
“I think we are in a great place mentally and that’s so important at all times throughout the year, but specifically now,” said ISU coach Dan Muller, whose team is 8-7 overall and has won three straight and four of its last five. “It can be a grind – the travel that we did in the nonconference, the losing that we did really took a toll on us.
“We talked about it. I thought it hurt our confidence. Our trust went down in each other. Our mindsets were hurt, but I thought they came back from Christmas and you saw a noticeable difference between certain guys. And that’s all it took because a lot of guys weren’t doing well.
“I think their minds are fresh. They’re excited and bought in for each other. We’ve had our best stretch of practices by far since Christmas and hopefully it continues.”
The Redbirds also made some slight adjustments in their defense and that has helped, according to Muller.
“We’re pressing less and we’re switching off the ball less,” said Muller. “To start the year, we were pressing a lot and switching off the ball a lot. Part of that was because we were pressing a lot, so we ended up on different matchups and part of that was because I thought that would be best for our personnel and it wasn’t to that point. We’ve become a little more sound defensively and a little more fundamentally solid. I do think our intensity and focus have improved dramatically too.”
Another thing ISU has addressed is its slow starts at the beginning of the game and in the first half. In five of its eight wins, the Redbirds have overcome deficits of eight or more points and are scoring at a higher rate in the second half.
“We talked about it as a team and asked for suggestions from the players,” said Muller about getting off to better starts. “Hopefully if they buy into whatever small changes we make to our game-day routine, it will help.
“It obviously comes down to your mindset. I think we feel a little sense of desperation at halftime and then we come out and play better. Our attitudes have been good, it’s just our play hasn’t been great. It’s going to catch up to us at some point, so hopefully we can fix it before it does.”
Muller admitted there are some benefits to rallying from deficits.
“There are some positives in gaining confidence and coming back, finishing strong, playing with toughness, making winning plays in close games,” he added. “But clearly we’re going to have to play two good halves most games the rest of the year.”
Loyola enters the game with a 7-7 overall record, but is winless in two conference games with losses at home to Southern Illinois and on the road at Indiana State. The Ramblers are led by former ISU coach Porter Moser, who was on the Redbird bench from 2003-2007.
“They have some very good wins in quality games this year,” said Muller. “They can really shoot it. Any team that can really shoot it is always dangerous and they have experience. Their record certainly, kind of like us, doesn’t tell how dangerous or good they can be.”
Bryan Bloodworth can be reached at [email protected]
