KANSAS CITY, MO. — Lamar Wilbern went through MIAA media day on Tuesday ignoring the preseason polls that were much of the topic of conversation for everyone else.
Emporia State returns five starters and eight of its top nine scorers from last season, the biggest reason ESU was picked to finish third by the coaches and fourth by the media after finishing tied for third with Fort Hays last season.
But Wilbern, a senior guard, feels exactly the opposite of how he and his teammates felt last season when — as a roster full of unknowns — they were picked to finish eighth.
“Last year we got caught up in the preseason polls,” Wilbern said. “‘What are we going to be? What do they think about us?’ We came out eighth, and that was kind of our motivation to be good. After a while, that goes away.
“Five games into the season you’re not thinking about preseason rankings anymore, and this year the approach is totally different. We’re going to be the best that we can be. We don’t care what anybody else thinks. We’re going to go after our goals, which is to win a championship.”
For the Hornets to win a championship, they’ll have to get past Southwest Baptist and Central Missouri, the only two teams in the conference ESU did not beat last year.
Southwest Baptist was picked to finish first by the coaches and Central Missouri was picked to finish second. The two teams traded places in the media poll, which had Fort Hays picked to finish third ahead of ESU.
SBU returns conference player of the year Matt Rogers, a 6-foot-11 senior forward that led the team in scoring at 18.3 points per game. The Mules also return their star power forward, senior Sanijay Watts, who was a first-team All-MIAA player last season and helped lead the Mules to the Elite Eight.
SBU returns two starters and Central Missouri returns three, an advantage the Hornets have on both teams and the entire conference.
The Hornets did not have any starters back last year, but with five starters returning this year, they understand what it will take to compete for a title.
“They say when you come in that the MIAA is a tough conference, but you actually don’t know until you go through it,” Wilbern said. “This year it’s a lot easier and everyone knows how hard they have to work. Everyone knows whether you play Truman or Central Missouri, you’ve got to play hard.”
The one thing the Hornets took away from their losses against SBU and Central Missouri, in particular, was how hard the top teams compete defensively in the league.
Both teams gave the Hornets, who play four guards, problems with guarding their power forwards. A big emphasis for the Hornets in the preseason has been raising their intensity on defense and keeping the ball out of the post with ball pressure.
“This year we’ve worked on what we have to do to be successful playing four guards all the time, and maybe we have to play five guards some,” ESU coach David Moe said. “With that comes a different aggression defensively, and what we can do with pressure defensively that maybe we couldn’t do last year with what we have.”
The Hornets are thin in the post, as junior Adam Holthaus and senior Doug Moore are their only true post players. They compensate with a loaded backcourt that includes their top four scorers from last season in Wilbern, Robert Moores, Jeremiah Box and Tim Niles, plus starting guard Dustin Andrews.
Moe was expecting senior guard Jarvis Nichols to also be one of the Hornets’ go-to players, but Nichols tore his anterior cruciate ligament on the first day of practice, the second straight year he’s torn his ACL before the season.
Moores, who finished the year strong with 31 points in the final game against Washburn, is also out with a stress fracture in his leg and should miss the beginning of the season.
Like Wilbern, Moe had little concern for the preseason rankings and is more concerned with getting his players healthy.
“I know what we’re facing adversity-wise as far as injuries go and what we need to get done and where our focus needs to be on what we’ve got to accomplish,” Moe said. “I don’t think the team that got picked third is the team that’s practicing today.
“We’ve got to become that team. We’ve got to become a team that can compete for the title. It doesn’t matter who’s there. We might not have the margin for error that we once had back in July or September, but we’ve still got the tools and the weapons, but we’ve got to become better and those guys know they’ve got to get better.”
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