Brandon Wood Is Ballin' Hard At Valpo

Through four games, Brandon Wood is making quite the name for himself as a scorer.
Unfortunately, it is not with the Southern Illinois University men's basketball team.

Wood seems to be enjoying his new digs at Valparaiso University, a swift 2 hour, 45 minute drive away from his home in Kokomo, Ind.

The former Saluki guard is averaging 22.8 points per game and is shooting 40 percent from the 3-point line.  Wood was a Southern signee a few years ago and was expected to be a sharp-shooter on the Carbondale campus for years to come.  In his debut in maroon and white, he scored 15 points in a win against Northern Illinois.  However, Wood would not finish with the team as he suffered a stress fracture, was at odds with the Saluki coaching staff and the two sides went their separate ways.

And after a stint at Highland Community College, Wood is back on the Division I level scoring in bunches.  His coming out party was a 30-point effort against defending national champion North Carolina.  Sure, it came in an 88-77 loss, but it was still 30 points.

But before SIU fans get totally up in arms over Wood's scoring spree, consider this.  In the Crusaders' three losses, two of which came against North Carolina and Michigan State, Valpo has given up a total of 266 points, which averages out to a little more than 88 points per game.  In the team's lone win, against Indiana University (South Bend), Wood only scored 12 points.  Wood has scored 25, 30 and 24 in losses to Ball State, North Carolina and Michigan State, respectively.

So, while Wood has found his stroke in the Hoosier state, it seems to have come at the expense of defense and winning ball games.  Now, don't take this as a knock on B-Wood's defense, but, this is an analysis of the bigger picture.

Wood scores.  Wood scores a lot.  Team loses.  It would not be fair, or correct, to make the connection that when Wood scores a lot, the team loses.  But it would be a point of analysis that Wood is averaging 20 shots per night in the team's losses, while only putting up 10 shots in the team's lone win.  It would also be fair to say that Wood's scoring has kept Valpo in games in which it could have found itself blown out of had it not been for beeg scoring efforts from its biggest offensive threat.

In the three losses, Wood has thrown up 60 shots and has made 28 of them and is shooting at a 46 percent clip.

Look around for a quick second and note the most shot any SIU player took in the team's three games so far this season is Tony Freeman -- who took 12 shots in the team's loss to UNLV last Saturday.  Carlton Fay (11 shot attempts) and Kevin Dillard (10 attempts) are the only other Salukis to take reach the double figure mark in shots in a game.  And that has only happened once.

Wood was an elite scorer at the high school level because he was asked to take a lot of shots.  Remember kids, you can't score if you don't shoot.  And Wood made many shots and scored a lot of points as a prep star.  That's how he ended up with a Division I scholarship.  College hoops fans should know better than to just think there is nothing more to basketball than just chucking jumpers.

Would I have liked to see Wood work things out and put up gaudy numbers at the alma mater?  Sure.  There is no such thing as too much scoring in college or in basketball.  But there is a point in time where there aren't enough balls to go around.

In the end, both sides are better off without each other.  And as long as SIU continues to win, Wood will be nothing more than a former Saluki who has found success elsewhere, rather than a case of woulda, shoulda, coulda.

And for those of you wondering what happened to Joshua Bone, another Saluki sharp shooter that has vacated the Carbondale campus ... he has yet to see action with Bruce Pearl's Volunteers.  Not that you would necessarily miss a ballplayer that shot more 3-point field goals than two-point field goals and free-throws combined in his time at SIU.