MVC Media Poll Picks Illinois State

Walker the Preseason Player of the Year

(St. Louis, MO) – Twenty media members combined to produce a Missouri Valley Conference Preseason Poll, and the MVC media poll picks Illinois State as the league favorite. Why not? Everybody else has.

The Victory Bell’s Paul Oren rallied media members covering the programs to create a preseason poll of all eleven teams and to name preseason all-conference teams. To no one’s surprise, Illinois State forward Chase Walker is the favorite to be the ‘player of the year’.

While the Missouri Valley conducted an official poll, only the top five teams were publicly announced.  This media poll ranks all eleven teams. Since the Valley only mentioned ‘players to watch’, this poll has an official first and second-team designation.

Illinois State is the clear favorite in the poll, with Northern Iowa a relatively close second. Bradley and Murray State are third and fourth, but in a virtual dead heat. Belmont was picked fifth with defending champion Drake coming in sixth.

The bottom five teams are Southern Illinois, Illinois Chicago, Indiana State, Valparaiso and Evansville.

Top Players

Walker’s Illinois State teammate Johnny Kinziger, joins Belmont’s Tyler Lundblade, UNI’s Trey Campbell and Bradley’s Jaquan Johnson on the Valley first team.

Evansville’s Connor Turnbull, Murray State’s Fred King, SIU’s Isaiah Stafford, UIC’s Ahmad Henderson and Bradley’s Demarion Burch landing on the second team.

Only Illinois State and Bradley placed multiple players on the preseason team. Walker, Kinziger and Campbell are the league’s only returning all-league players.

Walker is the conference’s leading returning scorer (15.2 ppg), followed closely by Kinziger (14.6). Lundblade is the only other returner who ranked in the league’s top twenty in scoring (12.4). Walker is also the leading returner in rebounds (6.2).

UIC’s Henderson and Kinziger are the league’s top two returning free throw shooters and Lundblade, who led the nation in three-point accuracy (.481), obviously led the MVC. Henderson was a top-ten player in both assists and steals.

Turnbull returns as the reigning, defensive player of the year and the top returning shot blocker.

Here are some interesting notes from Oren on the media members’ poll.

There were 32 different players named on ballots and five different teams received first place votes. Walker was the only player named on every ballot. Murray State’s Layne Taylor was the next closest player to making the preseason team.

I was one of the voters.

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